The majesty of the river

The author and his daughter after running Cataract Canyon. Photo by David Lansing.

This morning, over breakfast, Arlo broke down the day for us. “The river is low,” he said. “Which means the drops won’t be as big as they are in the spring. But it also means that some rocks and other things like trees that we usually don’t have to deal with could be a problem. So we’re going to run three or four miles of rapids and then we’re going to take a break and do some more scouting before we get to Mile Long Rapid.”

Mile Long Rapid is the stretch where the Powell expedition got into real trouble. This is the stretch where, to keep the crew’s spirits up, Powell often recited poetry and, as we push off into the coffee-and-cream colored river, Arlo reads another poem by cowboy-poet Vaughn Short:

They say the river can’t be run.

The water’s down—It can’t be done.

But if anyone can shoot it through,

It’s old Seldom Seen and his macho crew.

So load on the Coors, lash it down!

Might as well be happy if we’re going to drown!

Roll up the bow line! Push out the boat!

With all this beer it may not float.

The boat jerks and dances as the river whirls us like children in the arms of a drunken uncle and no matter how good Arlo is—and he’s very good, threading the eye between two boulders only 12 or 15 feet apart, swinging wide, at the last moment, of a partially submerged tree trunk—no matter how good Arlo is, you feel like everything, really, is in the hands of the river. That she’s just toying with us. Not that she’s mean or vengeful. But powerful. The way ancient things can be powerful. Like the sea. And the mountains. Like Earth.

It makes me giddy, this ride down Cataract Canyon. I am not at all a religious man, yet it makes me feel somehow spiritual. Like I have submitted to a greater will.

In the afternoon, I give myself over completely to the river. I sit on the front of the boat with my daughter and we both let go of the chickie line. Instead of tensing up before hitting Big Drops and Little Niagara, we just let go. Like riding a wild horse. The nose of the boat rides up the lip of a rapid whose crown is high over our heads and the river drops us down, down, down, until we bob back up the other side, both of us happy and laughing. As if we’d just been reborn. Over and over, the river dips us in the water, washing us down, washing us down.

And then, just like that, it’s over. The river widens, slows, and we relax passing through a series of riffles that chatter against the bottom of our boat as we ease into Ten Cent Camp—our final campsite.

We have run Cataract Canyon. We have made it.