Sand Waves

Fortunately it did not capsize, and I was able to scramble back in. I thought I was through the worst of it when suddenly the boat was sucked into a whirlpool just above a big hidden boulder. It spun round and round while the vortex sucked at the flexible bottom with a hideous sound. After a few minutes the boat was thrown out of the whirlpool into a big back eddy which carried it a quarter mile upstream. Pulling into the current I again tried to shoot the rapid but was sucked back into the whirlpool. Finally, passing near the bank, I threw a rope over a boulder and pulled myself to shore, then dragged the boat over the rocks around the rapid. For thirty minutes I had seen nothing of Doc or Johnson and didn't know how they had fared, but I found them safely on shore below the bend. Johnson had managed to swim ashore with his boat while Doc gathered up various floating articles including some cans containing our food and films. He said the big sand wave which turned him over looked twenty feet high; there was nothing he could do to avoid it, because in such stiff cross currents the oars were almost useless. By the time he dragged his boat to shore he was nearly exhausted. We built a fire on the bank and dried our stuff, but unfortunately one of the cans leaked and some exposed film was ruined. We lost a few articles, including Johnson's kodak, but saved the grub. Although we continued to encounter sand waves all the way to Lee's Ferry, we had learned our lesson and avoided being caught in them again.

From these experiences we learned something about the peculiar phenomenon called sand waves, but believe their strange behavior deserves more scientific study. If some competent observer wishes to undertake this work, he should go down the river in April or early May when the Colorado is in flood, equipped with an unsinkable boat not less than twelve or fourteen feet long. Our little rubber rafts were much too small for the kind of water we found on this voyage.