EDITOR'S LETTER

Get Your Motor Runnin’
On the Upper Salt River, you want to get Scratchy. Not in the form of an adjective — that could ruin your day. Instead, you want the proper noun. Uppercase Scratchy. The comical river guide whose personality is a combination of Dennis the Menace and Huckleberry Finn. Scratchy, like dozens of other free-spirited college-age kids, spends every spring in the back of a rubber raft filled with people like Kelly Kramer, Jeff Kida and me. All of the guides are dependable, but Scratchy’s the guide you want. He’s a riot.

Scratchy works for an outfitter called Canyon Rio Rafting, and it’s his job to safely guide average Joes — people who couldn’t float a rubber duck in a mud puddle, much less run a Class V rapid on their own — down what is arguably one of the most scenic rivers in North America. Our trip on the Upper Salt took place last spring, after one of the snowiest winters in decades. At one point in early 2010, the river ran at a rate of 65,000 cubic feet per second. That means if you were to pick a spot on the riverbank, the equivalent of 65,000 basketballs would fly past that spot in a single second. WHOOSH!

It was a little slower the day Kelly, Jeff and I launched, but the river was still raging, and Scratchy still ordered us around as if he were Patton: “Forward two!” “Back one!” “Stop!” Although I never asked Scratchy about his impish nickname — with river runners, some things are better left unsaid — I can tell you he was all business when he needed to be. On the river and on the beach, where he flipped burgers, roasted hot dogs and fueled us up for the final set of rapids. “Forward two!” “Back one!” “Stop!”

Rafting the Salt River is one of several weekend getaways in this month’s cover story, along with backpacking in the Grand Canyon, horseback-riding in Cold Water Canyon, house-boating on Lake Powell, chilling out in Tubac, exploring the Hopi Reservation and screaming through the skies of Sedona in an open-cockpit biplane. Maryal Miller made that trip. Her text to me just before she left: “Leavin’ on a biplane, don’t know when I’ll be back again ... no, seriously, this could end badly.” She’d never been in a biplane before — who has? —
and she was a little apprehensive. Nevertheless, she made it back down without throwing up. What’s more, she landed with a swagger in her step, and now she wants a biplane of her own. If that tells you anything.

Open cockpits and whitewater rafts are exciting ways to get your motor runnin’, but they’re not for everyone. If you’d prefer something more lead-footed, something quirky that can be done from the front seat of a Subaru, you might get a kick out of Out There!, our story about the outlandish things you’ll see along the roads of rural Arizona. It’s a weird collection, and most of the stuff is BIG: the largest Tiki head, the tallest cowboy, the biggest ball of stickers. None of those things are on anybody’s bucket list, but sleeping under the stars on the Mogollon Rim probably is. I know it was on Craig Childs’ list.

As an intrepid outdoorsman, Craig’s spent many nights up on the Rim, but a recent trip was different. It was the first time he’d heard strange voices: “It was just before dawn,” he writes in Shedding Some Light. “An inkling of light touched the sky outside the tent. Wind belted through a surrounding copse of juniper trees and piñon pines. I could barely hear them, men talking, coming closer.” You’ll have to read his excellent essay to learn more about the mystery men. All I can tell you is that it wasn’t Scratchy. I don’t know where he was that night, but it wasn’t anyplace quiet. Wherever Scratchy goes, things get wild.