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Dr. Dirt
August 2011
The Frothing of Rabid Water
— in which Dr. Dirt tells tall tales —
I’ve done a few bucket-listy sorts of things over the years: backpacked Europe and the Mideast to India, been to the top of Mt. Washington in February for several days, spent a night at the Taj Mahal under the full moon, motorcycled Cape Breton up north and the Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway down south, pedaled up and down the Continental Divide three times in Yellowstone on a three-speed bicycle, trekked Nepal, communed with a dark roomful of skulls in a Greek monastery, and all too briefly attained oneness with the universe in Acapulco in 1966. So maybe my life hasn’t been as totally monotonous as it sometimes seems these days.
And then there are a few great things that I’ve accomplished that might be on a KICK-the-Bucket List: crashing a motorcycle in a tight curve at 60 mph, setting a bone-dry Kansas prairie on fire on the Fourth of July, falling off the roof, getting arrested at gunpoint, marriage…Living life can be dangerous to the health.
Anyway, at this point I don’t have a formal bucket list, but there are a number of things I still want to experience: hike Machu Pichu, loll through January in the Caribbean just once, kayak the Everglades, spend a summer in a fire tower, raft the Colorado River, to name a few.
Early this summer I achieved one of these goals, spending a week in the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. The concept, at least in my head, was to float down the river on a 15-person inner tube, marveling at the sights, feeling the breeze, dipping my toes in the water, swimming when I got hot, sampling a mug of warm red wine when I got cold, being convivial with my crewmates.
I do have a vague recollection of signing some sort of waiver nine months before the trip, something about the expedition company not being responsible for customer complaints such as dismemberment and drowning. It’s the same form you sign when you go to the hospital and they tell you that they may screw up, and you may die, but it’s your own fault for trusting doctors in the first place. Does anyone ever read those forms?
From the neon, noise and nonsense of Las Vegas, we puddle-jumped to a river landing below Glen Canyon Dam. There, we were placed on a white sand beach in the sun for an hour to learn the first lesson in heat and dehydration. When everyone had attained borderline heatstroke, we set forth on the water for a week of what turned out to be more adventure than I was expecting.
The average daily high temperature in June in Grand Canyon is 100 degrees, average rainfall is 0.3 inches: very hot, very dry. Rule of thumb: drink a gallon of water a day, which I think is on the low end. On the other hand, the water temperature in the river is around 48 degrees, hypothermia in three minutes. So, too hot or too cold, pick both.
It was the highest June flow on the Colorado in several decades, which created unusual challenges along the way. Rapids in the US are graded on severity and technical challenge from 1 (ripples) to 5 (closing in on waterfall). On the Colorado River, the scale ranges from 1 (rapids) to 10 (probable loss of life). In truth, a Class 10 on the Colorado is roughly comparable to a normal Class 5, sort of. We took three or four Class 10’s over the course of the week.
One of the earliest commercial river-runners, beginning in the early 1950’s, was Georgie White, a legend in her own time. She prepared would-be passengers for the experience ahead by throwing a bucket of cold water in their face, followed by a bucket of hot sand, followed by a sharp whack on the buttocks with a large oar. She figured if they could take that, they qualified for the abuse (and the magic) of the river. Her preferred hard-core river-runner-guide clothing for the trip was a leopard-skin leotard.
The closest our female guide got to that was riding free-hand through rapids while hula-hooping and brushing her teeth. This was not her tactic in the Class 10 rapids – she was still free-hand, but more focused on catching people who were being washed off the boat.
Which was an issue in the bigger rapids. The boat goes up nearly vertical, then down nearly vertical, then directly into a wall of water. The wall is not only cold and wet but also extremely heavy – a five-thousand pound water balloon from the freezer. Two firm hand-holds are sometimes not enough, and people go floating. In one Class 10, the lead person went over the front on the downside, then was thrown back on deck on the next upside. A couple of days ahead of us on the river, a man was thrown off and got stuck under the boat – big oops, RIP. This is how a number of rapids got their names.
High water also meant a faster flow, so the guides slowed the transit down by making more stops than usual. Side trips included a number of waterfalls, turquoise tributaries, archaeological sites, cliff walks, warm streams, mines, and twenty-mile overlooks.
On these hikes, we also got a closer look at the local plant and animal communities. We were definitely not in New Hampshire anymore: mesquite, various cactus and yucca species, willows, acacias, the invasive tamarisk (introduced as a conservation species…). We came across mule deer, big-horn sheep, thieving ravens, condors, pink rattlesnakes, lizards galore, and NO BITING BUGS other than red ants with big teeth. And the Grand Canyon has a bit of geology, going back 1.8 billion years at its depths. Sleeping under the stars and far from city lights, the Milky Way dominates the night. Perspectives on space and time become unmoored.
The day I got back to Durham, a friend asked if I wanted to go again. I replied that I’ve crossed it off my bucket list. Like the Cyclone roller coaster on Coney Island, I’ve been there, done that, and — having survived — don’t need to repeat the experience. I’m thinking my next river adventure will be on a houseboat on a canal in France, where my knee can heal its torn meniscus and ligaments in calmer waters. Just pass me the brie, baguette and burgundy, svp. Then I’ll have an adventurous nap.
Dr. Dirt appreciates the opportunity for adventure offered by John Hart, Professor of Horticultural Technology, Thompson School of Applied Science, University of New Hampshire, Durham.
