Decades in the waiting, and I finally had my Grand Canyon
private boater’s permit in hand, one of the last to receive a permit under the
infamous Wait List (pre-lottery). I had worked my way up to #2 on a list of
8,000 names over my 20+ years of waiting. It wasn’t all bad, though, since in
those years my kids had grown up and to a size that rather than being just tender
cargo, they could lift all the heavy coolers and rocket boxes and row their own
rafts, easing the burden for we who had grown old and rickety ‘waiting for
Godot’ – the golden ticket down the Colorado – to come into our hands.
Months of planning, plotting and packing finally paid off
when we found ourselves on the shores of Lee’s Ferry next to our fully locked
and loaded raft flotilla; melting in the languid July swelter, we awaited the
required pre-launch lecture from Ranger Muriel, the burly, no-nonsense warden
of the starting gate. Muriel prominently packed both pistol and taser, and
swaggered around in such a way as to highlight the heat on her hip, as if to
say, ‘make my day, just make it,’
She barked at the other private group launching that day to
come over and join so she could do her sermon on the mound to us both at once. We
were the ‘large group’ launch of the date, 16 of us, nearly all very
experienced boaters, including some current and past commercial guides. The
‘small group’ launch joining us for the ‘Talk’ were eight middle-aged guys,
buddies from college years, with a range of experience from broad (the leader)
to middling and none. Their boats included a few rafts and several kayaks. We
introduced ourselves, strangers sharing the excitement of the imminent adventure
of a lifetime.
Since we would be hopscotching down the river with them, we
eyed them a bit dubiously given their general vibe; it was quite clear their
self-appointed ‘Leader’ was a ‘Large-and-in-Charge’ type, and at least two of
the group were passing worried looks between Ranger Muriel’s pistol and their Fearless
Leader’s buck knife, doubtless the banjo chords from Deliverance twanging in the deep recesses of their minds. But soon
Ranger Muriel’s strident harangue and finger scolding were just distant
memories and she dispatched our two groups to our separate fates at the river’s
hands.
Our buddies launched ahead of us, their uncoiled lines
floating behind them. Bickering and bitching as their boats rammed into each
other in Pariah Riffle, their adventure did not get off to an auspicious
beginning. Indeed, when we saw them the next day, below House Rock Rapid,
things had gone ‘to shit.’ One of their rafts was swirling upside down in an
eddy in a murk of sludgy brown goo along with various dry bags and gear that
hadn’t exactly been tied down in fighting trim. The flip had revealed that
their porta-potty seal was less than perfect. They declined our assistance, and
went back to their internal backbiting and recriminating. One of the group’s
river running virgins, who had been riding in the poo boat, sat on the shore
stunned and anxious, a look of abject horror on his face as his glance went
from the sludge in the river to that on his arm and leg.
We didn’t run into them for days, but had wicked fun
wondering what they might be up to. At Phantom Ranch, they finally reappeared,
still alive and kicking, although it was clear that not all members were on
speaking terms. One of them talked my ear off on the path from river up to the
Ranch. Laughing off his odd appearance, a very swollen and inflamed neck and
hand, he recounted how he had gotten bitten twice in quick succession by a
scorpion one night as he slept on the sand by the river – once as it bit him on
the neck, then quickly again on his hand as he swatted it. Turns out we did not
need to ask how their trip was going, since it was all very blatantly scribbled
(in permanent fat tip marker) across the bow of one of their bright yellow
(rented!) rafts – the lengthy tally of their losses (paddle, porta-potty lid,
paddling jacket, life-vest, harmonica, combs, books, etc.), flips (8), swims
(10), venomous bites (2) and other disasters. I overheard the poo boat rider of
that first flip asking everyone he passed for information on the hike out of
the canyon from Phantom.
Every time we encountered them on the river – which luckily
was not as often as I had initially feared -- there was a new story, a new
misadventure. Most memorable was their attempt to catch the Havasu eddy.
Fearless Leader’s boat arrived in a great crash and he bullied other boats
aside so he could tie up, but none of his remaining group members could manage
the eddy, much to his wrath. As they each missed the eddy and bumbled on down
through the rapid, he ran along the shore swearing and cursing them out. The
poo boat rider managed to tightly wrap the bowline around his neck as he
attempted to throw the line ashore to Fearless Leader, and nearly decapitated
himself.
Bizarre and yet oddly intriguing, this group persisted in
their own fashion getting ‘down river’ even in the face of multiple losses,
abject humiliation, full-blown strife and outright warfare within the ranks, a
real life Monty Python skit. But like all good skits, it must come to an end,
have a distinct coda that marks the completion of the tale. That ‘exclamation
point’ to the tale of this group came on our final night in the canyon, when
one of their group casually strolled into our camp. It was Frank, one of their
kayakers, and he explained that they were camped just upriver.
As surprised as we were to see Frank stroll in that evening,
the bigger surprise was noticing that he was missing his right arm. However,
since his arm was neither bandaged nor spouting blood, we recognized there was
no emergency, or at least not a traumatic one. Then in a totally matter-of-fact
tone, as if asking us to be on the lookout for another missing harmonica, he
wondered whether we might have seen his kayak paddle, a state of the art
Sawyer, brand-new to this trip, which he had lost in a flip in Little Bastard
Rapid.
“Oh, by the way, it has my arm attached.”
For a moment, there was utter silence, and a fair number of
jaws dropped and eyes boinged out, particularly among our teenage crowd.
“Ah, no, actually we haven’t found your paddle (…or arm),
sorry.”
“Thanks anyway,” replied Frank, with a smile. “No big deal!
See ya!”
And with a casual flip to his Tevas and a jaunty wave of his
(remaining) arm, he disappeared over the rise and back to his camp.
One my favorite memories from that most enchanting canyon
was this small moment with Frank, appearing as a mirage that night; asking such
an unexpected question, with an almost saucy flippancy. Perhaps he was used to
losing his Sawyers, specially adapted with prosthetic arms. Maybe he has a
whole closetful at home? In any case, he seemed to not think it was a problem
it went missing.
Meanwhile, a beautiful Sawyer double-bladed, finely crafted
paddle was floating happily down the muddy Colorado, on its own journey.
Imagine the moment of discovery when some innocent boater spots the Sawyer tip,
recognizes the booty – and paddles over to retrieve it. Most
deliciously, fantasize the horror of having that arm emerge from the river
along with the paddle; imagine now, the twangs of that Deliverance banjo.
By Polly Greist
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