Shooting the Colorado River
To THE OLD SAW that the water in the Colorado River is "too thick to drink and too thin to plow," one might add, "but it makes exciting boating."
On July 12, daughter Anne (Wellesley '50) and I in a party of thirteen, launched our four cataract boats in the Colorado at Lee's Ferry, Arizona. We were following the wake of a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, Major John Wesley Powell. Exactly eighty years ago to the month, he had camped there on the first successful expedition to run the river. Many have tried since, some unsuccessfully. Under the guidance of the late Norman Neville of Mexican Hat, Utah, we embarked in this muddy turbulent flood running 45,000 cubic feet per second. We were now in Marble Canyon and soon heard the roar of Badger Creek Rapids. In a few minutes we were studying this hell hole from the shore.
This policy of mentally charting our course over the long slick tongue and through the massive waves and holes was always practiced before descending a major rapid. Over the tongue we go, boat by boat, only to hear the growl of Soap Creek. This was a brute and had claimed the leader of the Brown-Stanton party in 1889.
Now we are in Sheer Wall. It too had taken its toll of two boatmen in the 1889 expedition, but,this year it offered no difficulty and we ran it "wide open." During the next six days we were cutting ever deeper into the earth's crust, noting all the geological eras, and camping on high sand banks. Vegetation, animal life, and fresh water were scarce but all was a geologist's paradise. The beauties of the Grand Canyon from the river cannot be described. About this time we learned to appreciate the administration of salt tablets and disproved the old adage that the Colorado River was too thick to drink.
We were saddened to find the boat of Bert Loper, "Grand Old Man of the Colorado," who was capsized and lost in Twenty-Five Mile Rapid just four days before. In Kwagunt, Anne was taken overboard by an explosive wave but came up unscathed, thanks to her life jacket. Hance was the only vicious water we thought too unhealthy to navigate. This meant arduous hours of portaging, lifting and lining the boats. Despite fatigue we had to run Sockdolager and Grapevine Rapids. Because of sheer walls these could not be lined. Sockdolager was described by Dellenbaugh, Powell's biographer, as "the most fearful sight I ever saw or hope to see. It might have been the gate to Hell."
On July 19 we left our congenial party at Bright Angel Creek and packed our way up the Canyon. Although burned, scratched and bruised we regretted that we could not continue with them to Boulder Dam.
DR. JOE EISAMAN '19 of Pittsburgh and daughter Anne view a fate they escaped this summer in their trip down the Colorado.
