Pushing on to Cataract Canyon

Nearing Cataract Canyon. Photo by David Lansing.

“There are characteristic discomforts on a river voyage. Not the least is the incessant wetting and the sharp alternation of heat and cold. The water is full of silt and sand, and so, consequently, are the clothes one wears.”

–Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian

As that hoary ol’ swamper Vaughn Short wrote, “There’s no turning back up river/There’s no use to even try/Whatever lies before you/You’ve got to see it through/You can’t stop half way/And back off and start anew.”

So we pushed on.

“Like a teasing woman the river dawdled, meandered, surprised them with new forms, new colors, delayed and delayed and delayed the expected union with the Colorado. They watched, and rowed, and waited, and expected the rapids and cataracts that should accompany the junction in such a wild and moonlike landscape, but the river swept them on serenely…”

—Stegner