RIVER TRIP THROUGH MARBLE AND GRAND CANYONS

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOSEF MUENCH A White Water Adventure RIVER TRIP through the MARBLE and BY JOSEF MUENCH AS TOLD TO JOYCE ROCKWOOD MUENCH

Adventure was spelled in my mind for many years, as DARKEST AFRICA. Each letter of it, in that private dictionary, stood for personal thrills in a primeval wilderness, unconquered, unspoiled. That is all changed now. The jungles of the dis-tant continent could not wait for me to travel halfway around the world. My revised dictionary notes that game is disappearing there, and that now, ADVENTURE waits in America's own backyard, through the “Grand Run.” Between the lines describing the canyons of our third longest river, excitement is highlighted by the warm Arizona sun. Instead of humid jungle, where unknown danger lurks, I will take the open challenge of the mighty Rio Colorado, the Red River, which Spanish explorers were the first to see. Above, and below the chasms of the Marble Gorge and Grand Canyon, man has throttled the current, turned the turbulent, master-force of the Southwest into placid lakes of sky blue. I can, however, personally vouch for the fact that between Lake Powell and Lake Mead, Big Red has kept his rollicking, boisterous way, for some 315 miles of pure, undiluted big ADVENTURE.

The water is still brown, “too thick to drink, too thin to plough.” The coyote's voice is heard. Stars are as bright as neon lights, and the world of men and telephones, TV and income taxes, is farther away than the Dark Continent itself. Starkly written on cliffs, sometimes in 3,000-foot pages, the history of the earth's crust is plainly legible. Compromising with danger, the modern white water explorer is carried past on a magic carpet of neoprene. Youngsters from eight to eighty now have the time of their lives on the stream so widely advertised as “the world's most dangerous river.” The big game they bag is some of the globe's most flamboyantly colored rock architecture, their weapon a camera. Leading the safari, instead of a hard-bitten hunter, is Georgie White, “Queen of the Rivers.” Former Ferry Command pilot in the last war, she has conducted, with out a single casualty, more people through the Grand Canyon than about all the other guides put together.

GRAND CANYONS

It was Georgie's own inspiration, the strange craft we found nudging gently on the sandy bank at Lee's Ferry, one spring morning on the day of our scheduled start down the Colorado. No male had ever thought of using Uncle Sam's navy bridge pontoons to run rapids, nor the crowning refinement of lashing three of them together. With an 18-horsepower Johnson outboard motor, set inboard on the center unit, and two spare ones stashed away, just in case, this Chicago-born woman has thus eliminated all lining and portaging. Her "boats" take any kind of water in their stride. Now kids to oldsters, any one able to hold onto a steadying rope, can ride the thirty-foot rocking chairs through exciting "killer" rapids. All twenty-two of our party were anxious to be on the way. For those making their fifth run, I suppose it was like boys in a running dive at a swimming hole on a hot day. For me, it was a treasure hunt. Pictures to be taken, lay around every bend. My camera and I had stood on every Rim point, followed trails into and across the canyon, glimpsed rapids and canyon walls even from a swaying cable car. Now, we could see those hidden spots, known only to the "River Rat" who went by the water. When we pushed off, caps, straw hats, and flowered ones, were waved by passengers bundled into life preservers, as figures along the shore began to shrink to matchstick size. Under Georgie's sure hand, the purring outboard motor swung us around and into the stream. There was a tremor, felt through the nylon ropes we clutched, as though the sausage-like tubing of the big pontoons thrilled to the grip of the Colorado River. A tingle started from the base of my spine and fingered upward. In this moment of truth, this point of no-return, the majesty of the setting burst through every nerve like a skyrocket. Panning from left to right as I faced upstream, my eyes took in the Vermilion Cliffs moving serenely against the sky to a break, through which the Paria River comes down, dividing Glen Canyon from the Marble Gorge. Low-roofed houses of the old Indian Fort, the empty ferryman's house glimpsed through the pale green foliage, and the water-gaging station, nestled below Glen's cliffs. On the river's south shore more rock walls take up so immediately that the only hint of the river's channel is a huge sand dune draped over a giant slope. On the right, the hundred-mile march of the Echo Cliffs is cut off in an abrupt escarpment at the foot of which flows traffic on U. S. 89.

Camera Touring Through Two of America's Most Colorful Canyons By Josef Muench

"VASEY'S PARADISE IN MARBLE CANYON." Vasey's Paradise at about Mile 30, the river being measured from Lee's Ferry starting at Mile o. Looking across the Colorado River in sheer-walled Marble Canyon is this luxuriant growth fed by springs from the cliffs. Seen nearly a century ago by Major Powell on his first exploration of the great canyons, and named by him for Dr. George Vasey, botanist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

"WHITE-WATER PARTY MARBLE CANYON." Landing below Soap Creek Rapid at Mile 111/2 in Marble Canyon. Photographers, who wanted to take the action of the raft going through the rapids, were let off above and again picked up below it.

"SOAP CREEK RAPIDS - MARBLE CANYON." Riding through Soap Creek Rapid at Mile 11 in Marble Canyon. This is one of the first major rapids encountered, having a drop of eighteen feet in about one half mile. Here the raft is seen riding the top of an explosion wave, giving a thrill to the passengers.

"NANKOWEAP CANYON MEETS MARBLE." At Nankoweap in Marble Canyon at the northeast boundary of Grand Canyon National Park. (Mile 52).

"INNER CONFINES OF MARBLE CANYON." Canyon walls of the Marble Gorge at about Mile 40. Named by Major Powell for the marble effect he found on the canyon walls, the rise is almost sheer, with new and enticing vistas around every turn of the turbulent Colorado River.

"SPRING ON THE COLORADO IN GRAND CANYON." Springtime along the river's edge, Grand Canyon National Park. Princes Plume, Stanleya pinnata, a member of the Mustard family, is a delightful bloomer, graceful as it dances in every breeze and in contrast to the brown water.

"AGELESS RIVER AND AGELESS CLIFFS IN GRAND CANYON." Sculptured redwalls in Grand Canyon. Never a dull moment as the raft glides along a stretch of smooth water, it offers magnificent scenery and excitement in a remote, uninhabited region.

"ALONG BRIGHT ANGEL CREEK GRAND CANYON." Bright Angel Creek at Phantom Ranch, deep in the Inner Gorge of Grand Canyon National Park. Having its source high up under the North Rim, its clear waters are dashing happily to join the brown of the Colorado River. On the far end, the sheer wall of pink granite and black schist oldest known rock exposed in the canyon. The River Trail, connecting Bright Angel with Kaibab Trail, is seen cutting across its face.

"BIG RED NEVER SLEEPS - GRAND CANYON." View along the River Trail to Phantom Ranch. The Colorado River winds its muddy way through the dark walls of the Inner Granite Gorge, past where Bright Angel Creek joins the master stream.

"KAIBAB SUSPENSION BRIDGE-GRAND CANYON." Looking down upon Kaibab Suspension Bridge over the Colorado. The only link between South and North Rims is this bridge.

"HORN CREEK RAPIDS - GRAND CANYON." Portrait of Horn Creek Rapids in Granite Gorge of the Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park, three miles below Phantom Ranch.

"MIDDLE GRANITE GORGE GRAND CANYON." Spring at the river's edge, Middle Granite Gorge of the Colorado River. Varied are the surprises and the scenery along this master stream of the Southwest.

"TAPEATS CREEK GRAND CANYON." Tapeats Creek Canyon, just above where it joins the Colorado River at Mile 133. At the western end of Grand Canyon National Park is this little noisy stream, after having joined forces with Thunder River.

"SPRING FLOOD-TAPEATS CREEK - GRAND CANYON." Tapeats Rapid at Mile 133. Tapeats Creek, coming from the heights of the North Rim, brings large boulders during flash floods to narrow the channel of the master stream and create this exciting rapid. In the distance sunlit spring snow glints on Powell Plateau.

"GRAND CANYON FROM MOHAVE POINT." Summer day at the South Rim along the West Rim Drive, Grand Canyon National Park. From Mohave Point on the South Rim, a piñon tree stands on the very brink like a watcher, absorbed in the play of light and shadow which shifts constantly over butte.

"DEER CREEK FALLS GRAND CANYON." Deer Creek Falls, middle Granite Gorge at Mile 136. In a never ending surprise, clear little streams come down from the heights to swell the big river. Here, Deer Creek Falls drops from Surprise Valley on the North Rim.

"TRAVERTINE FORMATION LOWER GORGE GRAND CANYON." Travertine Falls, middle Granite Gorge. This peculiar travertine formation, built by ages of limestone deposits, offers a pleasant contrast in this world of rocks.

"INNER GORGE PERSPECTIVE-GRAND CANYON." Canyon architecture, below Phantom Ranch. In the very depth of the Inner Gorge, walls lift in soaring tiers for a vertical mile. The Kaibab Suspension Bridge is a faint pencil line across the stream of the Colorado as shadows play upon the layers of rock.

"CLOSEUP THUNDER SPRING GRAND CANYON." Thunder Spring, northwest corner of Grand Canyon National Park. The source of a short but virile stream around which legends and tall tales have been spun is in the Bright Angel Shale, under the North Rim.

"DROWSY WATERS - COLORADO RIVER - GRAND CANYON." Spring along the river, Lower Granite Gorge. Here is shown a Tamarisk in bloom, Tamarix gallica, growing profusely along the shores of the river. This graceful shrub with its pink flowers is widespread in the Southwest and blooms from March through August.

"TERRACED WALLS OF COLOR GRAND CANYON." Lower Granite Gorge, Colorado River. The distinctive architecture of the immense canyon varies, mile by mile, within its pattern of cliff and butte. Here, two great pinnacles guard the lonely course of the stream.

"AFTERNOON-LOWER GRANITE GORGE-GRAND CANYON." Brown water reflecting the blue sky, Lower Granite Gorge. Only by boat can the full import of the Grand Canyon be grasped and the immensity of its inmost gorge be seen.

"IN SEPARATION CANYON GRAND CANYON." Aprical Mallow and sand dune at Separation Canyon, Lower Granite Gorge. Sphaeralcea ambiqua is one of the gayest of the spring flowers, frequently seen in the Southwest desert. It was here at Separation Canyon that three men of Major Powell's party left him and eventually were killed by Indians.

"UPPER LAKE MEAD, ARIZONA." Upper Lake Mead. The Colorado River through the upper lake flows between mud-flats when the water is low, keeping the current and the character of the master stream of the Southwest before smoothing out in the man-made body of water behind the Hoover Dam.

"CRUISING ICEBERG CANYON-LAKE MEAD." Lake Mead in Iceberg Canyon. Two boats meet the rubber raft which had been shut in by the 300 miles of Canyon World. This view in Iceberg Canyon shows the splendid rock formations and a definition of high water near the stilled surface after the Colorado River has let go of its brown silt.

Photographer says: "We were on our way back to the motel, when the whole sky seemed to burst into flame. The car was hurriedly parked, and I took a series of photographs, varying the exposure. A meter was useless and the light changing too quickly to pause to record data. About half a minute after this shot was taken, the colors faded. Rolleiflex camera; Ektachrome E-3; Schneider f/2.8 lens; late August, ASA rating 64.

OPPOSITE PAGE

"TRAVELERS COME-TRAVELERS GO-THE CANYON REMAINS FOREVER-GRAND CANYON." BY BILL MATHEWS, JR. View from South Rim of the Grand Canyon, from an overlook about two miles past Bright Angel Lodge on the way to the Park entrance. Of this photo the photographer says: The whole brilliant canyonscape fairly shouted with color. The air was crystalline, the breeze soft as a butterfly kiss on cheek and bare arm. I turned face downstream, for there was no time to review, even briefly, the long history of this spot. We were moving on, already numbered among the company led by Major John Wesley Powell in the Canonita and the Emma Dean, to brave the unknown Colorado River.

About two thirds of a mile below Lee's Ferry, at an elevation of 3,107 feet above sea level, is MILE ZERO. All river miles are counted from here, dividing line between the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basin. At MILE ONE is the Paria Riffle. In geologic terms we were leaving the Mesozoic and entering the older Permian. Kaibab limestone of the "Marble Halls" received us. The neoprene pontoon shivered under us, communicating a tenseness to fingers holding the nylon ropes. We had hardly become accustomed to being hemmed in, with a straight piece of deep blue roof above, when a delicate arch of steel came into sight at the end of a long, straight corridor. From where we sat, four hundred and sixty-seven feet below, Navajo Bridge did not look eight hundred and thirty-four feet long, nor as expensive as the $350,000 it had cost to build.

Doubtless, no government report includes the part the Navajo Indians had in completing the span. The Indians believe, but never push their claim, that it was their prayers which calmed the wind against which workers were battling to close the last gap of steel. I am with the Navajos in calling it "The Bridge that was built by a prayer."

Tiny, animated figures on the bridge waved at us, as the slender shadow passed over, and a rim of white Coconino sandstone appeared ahead, a ceiling moulding on the sky.

Badger Creek Rapid, at MILE EIGHT, was our shake-down, the first good rapid, testing our mettle and bring-ing out, here and there, a firming of lips, a visible tensing of muscles. With one accord, eyes turned to Georgie's calm face. She did not know we were there. Mind and hand were following instructions learned from experience. Georgie has immense respect for, but no fear of the Colo-rado River. Experience has taught her to always use care.

The realities at the moment for our Skipper read some-thing like this: "Tongue down center. Rock in center bottom keep right. Fall 13 feet. Geology: 200 feet of Hermit shale and sandstone exposed."

The combined width of twenty-seven feet of the 30-foot long pontoons responded like a trained horse. Sausage sides, bottom, and passengers, moved inch-worm fashion over waves and through them. Spray baptized us, and in what seemed like only a moment, we were brought into smooth water and clear of tension. Someone sang out, "Who's afraid of the big, bad river?" Another voice answered: "If you knew Georgie, like I know Georgie, you'd not be afraid at all."

The sun was already off even the canyon rims when we landed on a nearby sandbar, to camp, eat, and sleep soundly.

Next morning, as we rolled up our sleeping bags, I asked the man next to me if he had had a good sleep.

"Well, I suppose I did," he answered, "but it was awfully short. It felt as though I had just climbed into my bag, turned over once and closed my eyes, when Georgie was nudging my elbow with a cup of morning

coffee. Someone was singing: 'Oh, what a beautiful morning, Oh, what a beautiful day! This is the singingest crowd!' They were that, from Ann and Paul Grisswold, aged ten and twelve years, to our seventy-one year old Sylvia Tone, someone had a song for every event. There was plenty to sing about as we rolled down the miles.

Soap Creek Rapid, with an eighteen-foot drop, our first "major," was followed by another fourteen lesser ones during the day. I had photographed Soap Creek from the bank, and from the cliff rim, several years before. The recollection was still vivid of how tiny a boat looked, edging cautiously through the glass-smooth approach which narrows to the aptly named tongue that breaks along a jagged but very definite line into tumbling, boil ing, brown swirl over hidden rocks. Like a playful dragon, licking up victims, the rapid seizes log, branch, or boat which comes to its maw. Looking on, man and craft were swallowed up, and I expected them to come out below in shreds. The passenger, however, hardly has time to sift out sensations before it is over, and the water rather mirac ulously calm again. The older, wooden cataract boat, or even the single, ten-foot neoprene raft may indeed be tossed or even flipped over. Here the pontoons prove their worth. They undulate, writhe, and slip through the tur moil, much, I suppose, as the Loch Ness Monster might. Even if a rock were able to gouge a hole in the neoprene, the compartmented sausage-edge would float.

That night, camped below President Harding Rapid, at MILE 44, we could look up South Canyon. "Hoppy" Hopping led us in songs around a bright campfire, which highlighted individual faces. We had with us several doc tors, two secretaries, a contractor, research scientist, some retired couples, three children, a civil engineer, and some "home engineers" (the better word for "housewife"). Among the bright stars, one of the children observed two, moving faster than a star should. They were satellires, and thereafter, it was a nightly event to see them cross our patch of sky.

highlighted individual faces. We had with us several doc tors, two secretaries, a contractor, research scientist, some retired couples, three children, a civil engineer, and some "home engineers" (the better word for "housewife"). Among the bright stars, one of the children observed two, moving faster than a star should. They were satellires, and thereafter, it was a nightly event to see them cross our patch of sky.

Neither darkness nor restricting walls could contain our campfire chats, nor the contagious laughter of a happy threesome: Virginia Heisig, Mae Hansen, and John Mc Lennan, river veterans all. We reviewed the rapids we had run, heard stories of earlier boatmen who had, some of them, met disaster along the route. Every mile of the Grand Run seems to have some historic footnote, and the names given bends or cliffs, canyon or rapid, gained sig nificance which only first-hand experience can bestow.

A little smugly, a party member would inquire of Georgie how many times that day we would have been forced to drag the boats along the shore, had we been, not in her bridge-pontoons, but with the one-armed Major Powell, in his cataract boats, almost a century ago. That trip had consumed sixty-nine days, with seven portages and twenty-one laborious linings, pulling from the rocks while the boats fought current and man, in, like hooked fish. Luckier, we walked only when we wanted to take pic tures, or just for the fun of scrambling over rocky terrain.

Hikers had their chance next day for trail work at Nankoweap. Just as the hikers were about to take off, three deer swam across the river. The pontoons left below us grew smaller each time we paused on the trail to catch a breath and look back down. By the time a group of pre historic ruins, set high on the cliffs, were reached, they did not look big enough to justify the sense of security we enjoyed when aboard. Views were grand from high up, showing from a different perspective the great colored walls between which we had been passing. We were now at the border of the Grand Canyon National Park. How different was this view of the "Inverted Mountains" from the conventional one, exclaimed over by thousands of annual visitors to the North and South Rims. Inspiring as those panoramas are, they seem to exclude the human being who essays to grasp the dimensions of this, the mightiest canyon on the globe. From deep down at the river's edge, or measuring cliff height with leg muscles rather than eyes, the intricacy of side canyon, pillar up thrust, wall bastion sloped or sheer, ceases to be a two dimensional picture postcard, and becomes instead a living experience.

Some ten miles beyond, the Little Colorado River empties into its big brother. On that day, its water was muddy, so we knew there had been rain on the desert, somewhere off to the east. When not overrun by silt, springs here fill an emerald green pool, as private a swim ming hole as could be. Evening found us camping near the abandoned Copper Blossom Mine from which we could look up and see the Desert Watch Tower limned against the sky. We built a generous bonfire of driftwood as signal, and were answered with flashlight. A small rapid roared in our ears as though bent on drowning out any possible verbal com munication. I heard no one say he wished he were up ontop, but it was pleasant to have distant contact with a world well lost. As we settled for the night, Mae, a veteran of four top, but it was pleasant to have distant contact with a world well lost. As we settled for the night, Mae, a veteran of four previous trips, laughed when I said it had been quite a day.

"You haven't seen anything yet. Wait 'till tomorrow!"

Perhaps I only imagined a suppressed excitement at breakfast and when we loaded the pontoons. Lava Creek earned its name with a handsome dark red shoreline of Algonkian sandstone and streaks of bright red Hakatai. The ensuing ten miles saw us through Tanner, Basalt Creek, and exciting Unkar Rapids. Just below was a

Floating for fun

lunch spot, strewn with pottery sherds and within sight of Hance Rapid, dropping thirty-one feet, to make the longest on the river.

Georgie studied the rapid like a poker hand. She took in the diabase dyke cutting into the Hakatai, which swings up on the opposite shore. An expert can tell what cards his opponent holds, in rapid running, by slant and hardness of the upthrusts. Once at her post, she had decided exactly what tricks she could take. It was a regular rollercoaster ride, dodging big rocks in the center, recognized only by the curl of waves over them. The round of applause we gave her, once clear of the wild water, was like an echo of Hance's own thunder.

More fun was ahead. The channel narrowed, as we entered the Inner Gorge, showing pink granite and black schist. Georgie's notebook says laconically: "Must ride. Passengers walk out on trip with inexperienced people." We rejected the label to a man, even when an oldtimer let out a blood-curdling yell: "Sockdolager Rapids comin' up!" and we could hear an ominous, throaty rumble long before any white water was visible. Our pilot made herself as tall as she could, looking down the nineteen-foot fall. Speed increased, and we hit the tongue right on. Ten-foot waves were all around us, their spray chilly. The children were yippeeing shrilly as were any grownups not involved holding rope with one hand while operating a camera with the other. Too soon, it was over and smooth water swung us along for a four-mile interlude. The third major rapid of the day, Grapevine, though only sixteen feet in its drop, was as exciting.

Walls of the Inner Gorge shut away the distant rims, and seemed to rise endlessly in their thousand-foot rise to make a sounding board, echoing the voice of the river challengingly. As the roar died away behind us, and we floated calmly, we reached the Kaibab Suspension Bridge just as a mule train clip-clopped across, bearing supplies which we would be needing. There were inviting "bedrooms" along a sandy bar and some of the party dropped their sleeping bags there, to come back to later.

We followed Bright Angel Creek upstream from its mouth to the famous Phantom Ranch for a splendid hot shower and several hours of wandering about. Treeshaded cabins and lodge, swimming pool, and farther afield, quarters for pack and riding mules, are all tucked into the canyon. Even when winter claims the rims, it is summer down here, in a miniature world of its own. And oh the food! Civilization, we decided, did have its points. Plumbing, beds with sheets, food from a completely equipped kitchen, were a pleasant novelty after ninety miles of canyon wilderness. All in all, it was a wonderful evening of good fellowship, with dinner hosted by Georgie. Afterwards, when we scattered to sleeping bags under the stars or beds in snug cabins, the busy Bright Angel Creek sang us to sleep.

Our crew assembled in the morning, well scrubbed and enthusiastic. This was the one point where dissatisfied customers could leave the trip, but instead of losing any, we acquired a new member, Ranger Jim Bailey of the Grand Canyon National Park staff. For several miles we were in view of the River Trail, connecting link between the Bright Angel Trail down from the South Rim and the steeper Kaibab Trail which crosses the suspension bridge, passes Phantom Ranch, and climbs up to the North Rim.

A party of hikers stopped in amazement at our pontoons, and then responded to our twenty-two hat salute.

The day's menu of rapids featured some fifteen named ones, among them two marked as "Rough" in Georgie's book, (and in mine, too) as well as Horn Creek Rapid, roughest on the river. It boasts the biggest of holes and the drop fools many a boatman because it cannot be seen from the top. We made no stop to survey it, but Georgie was not caught out. About halfway through she brought the pontoons smartly right into a smooth-water landing. The best angle for a rapids picture, she said, was here. When we hiked back to take shots, it was hard to believe that even our versatile craft could have come safely through such mad waters.

We camped, that night, near Elve's Chasm, and in the morning, had time to explore. It would indeed require more than a thousand words to describe this charming spot as well as a picture can. But here, as elsewhere on the trip, not even a thousand pictures from the camera tell the full story. Have you ever seen a photograph of that delightful odor, peculiar to moist plants around a pool in the desert? Or even a moving picture sequence of cool air, wrapping you in serene folds in the cliff shadow? What photographer, or painter, for that matter, has quite succeeded in illustrating aloneness? That is why, of course, people go on trips like this. They crave first hand adventure.

The Chasm, a lateral canyon cleverly carved and set so that no approach is possible except from the big river, was immense and shadowy. Colored walls, sculptured by water, decorated by a singing ribbon of water, set jewel-wise amid greenery, is the epitome of all the retreats tucked away along ong the Colorado River's canyons. Unimaginable from broad rim vistas, which seem all brawn and muscle, they invest the spirit with repose. This retreat of the Elves (rugged elves they must be) brings to mind all the rest of the flowers we had been seeing: narrow leaved Yuccas, standing guard on a rock ledge, the unique gold of Prince's Plume, just above the water's edge, fragrant Evening Primroses carpeting a sand dune, Ocotillos surprisingly occupying a little rock and gravel desert of their own.

In the full publicity of the morning sun, we saw no animals, but a Canyon Wren set the tone with his trill, a cascade of notes as liquid as a waterfall, which plays on me, at least, as no other birdsong can. It was easy to enliven the pool's rim mentally with creatures who call Grand Canyon home. Deer must come in the gloaming, and mountain lion. Beavers know better than to try to dam this river, but adapt themselves, particularly in side canyons, to life without labor. We had watched Snowy Egrets and big Heron drop down to rest, and on calm stretches, there had been miniature navies of ducks, and once, a flock Canadian honkers. Georgie reported having come upon six Bighorn Sheep, and when we noticed several groups of wild burros, warned us not to attempt to fraternize with those cantankerous fellows. They bite and kick.

After lunch, the call, “All aboard!” rallied the party onto the pontoons where noses were counted. (It would be a long swim home for stragglers.) Ahead of us were eight named rapids plus a few “miscellaneous,” as Georgie calls them when asked to name some inconsequential riffle Fortunately, the more than sixty-five feet of drop in the measured rapids were spread over the seventeen miles we clocked that day. I kept thinking, with some awe, that Powell's party had no way of knowing such comforting facts when they came through. They knew only that there was no turning back, regardless of what might lie ahead. Bedrock and Deubendorf Rapids were exciting enough with a knowing hand at the helm. At the latter, Georgie needed to recall instructions to watch a rock at the left. We ran the tongue, took a hard turn to right, gratefully noting that the waves were not as high as they can be, here. Spray may have dampened our clothes, but the elemental thrill soaked clear through to the bone. Below Tapeats Rapid, (named by the Powell party after a Piaute Indian they had met) we camped in view of spring snow on the Powell Plateau.

On the morning schedule was a four-mile hike up Tapeats Creek to an almost legendary phenomenon, Thunder Spring. Having made the strenuous hike from the North Rim several years before, I knew what an amazing sight awaited us. From the river we took a trail along the lively trout stream, first characterized by the big boulders, enclosing walls typical of streams emptying into the Colorado. Thunder River, tumbling and noisy in its brief course, was our cue to turn and follow it back up among willows, scrub oak and cottonwoods to the head. Far above, from the sheer walls, a complex of springs, joined to make Thunder Spring, comes directly out, throwing a moving curtain of white, cold, sparkling water. It drapes down into catchpools, and continues todrop toward Tapeats. Every leaf and flower, even the trail beneath our feet, seemed to vibrate with the deeptimbered voice of Thunder. Few fishermen reach this remote haunt, but there are stories of outsized trout to lure the really ambitious angler, cancelled out by other stories of flashfloods which carry them off. But what true sportsman wants a sure thing?

We lunched back on the river bank, and the afternoon found us running numerous small rapids, some of Georgie's “miscellaneous” ones. Deer Creek Falls, making use of a chimney, dropped sheer into the water. Not visible until we were just abreast, its sound was echoed. I thought it was another big rapid.

The forty-six-mile river ride to Whitmore Wash, which occupied the busy eighth day, saw us through about a dozen, all named rapids. Some of their labels were interesting for color and variety: Matkatimba Creek, Upset, Fern Glen, Stairway, Gateway, (Watch! says Georgie's notes) and Red Slide Rapids. They were spaced at about two-mile intervals. By this time, we all felt like seasoned “white-water” folk, and having perfect confidence that we were in good hands, proceeded to enjoy the thrill. Time and again, after a particularly pleasant joy-ride, cries would go up: “Let's do it again!” At Havasu Creek (MILE 156) we lost one of our party. It was no accident. Ranger Jim Bailey had intended getting off here for an inspection tour. He had a long but very scenic hike ahead, mounting a travertine cliff over which Mooney Falls drops, by a vertical miner's tunnel, up past the incomparably beautiful Havasu Falls to the village where our smallest tribe, the Havasupai Indian, lives. He could get a horse here to take him from this Shangri La to the canyon rim where a park service car would get him back to Grand Canyon Village and Headquarters. Later, we had word that Bailey had made the trip in good style, but that morning, he did look a little forlorn, as the pontoons carried us away from him. Had he been ten feet tall, he would still have appeared a pigmy against the rock walls and the wide spread of the river.

Lava Pinnacle, a huge plug standing in the water, might have been taken for an exclamation point, or danger signal. A mile below it is Lava Falls. It is a dilly, the last big one, with perhaps the biggest drop of them all. Georgie's notes at this point are not concerned with running difficulties, but with the geologic structure that is responsible.

“Cascades of jointed lava on right. Several flows represented as there are rounded lava boulders within most recent flows. Up Prospect Canyon on left is a fault with 200-300 foot displacement. Upstream the Bright Angel and part of the Muav has faulted down on west.” We stopped before making the run, for Georgie to look it over and for us to photograph and savor the power and tumult beforehand. The most profound statement anyone produced then, or afterward was: “What a rapid!” One moment we were on top of a wave, and the next, deep in a twenty-foot hole. For mile: thereafter, lava, trimming the shores, reminded us that not one but several lava flows had dammed the river in their day, and then been cut through by the irresistible force of the Colorado.

Whitmore Wash was a rendezvous as well as camp site. Bundy, a Mormon rancher, and his family were waiting to deliver supplies by pack outfit. We greeted them with more enthusiasm than Robinson Crusoe probably accorded his Man Friday.

In contrast, the next day offered a medley of small rapids, but an increasing number of birds. Blue Heron and Egrets were among them, and in quite a different category, two groups of wild burros, drinking at the shoreline. We lunched at Granite Park on a carpet of Evening Primroses, and camped at Diamond Creek. It was still early afternoon, but with our chores done, we scattered to follow whatever pursuit interested each. Some were busy with cameras, cleaning or "shooting," others climbed rocks, studied birds, swam, wrote letters or notes, and some just visited. After dark, the stars seemed particularly bright and our two satellites kept their schedule, seeming such a far cry from that loneliest of sounds, the voice of the coyote.

After Diamond Creek, the scenery underwent a great change. Granite and lava outcroppings gave way to the high Redwall Formation, which has that color only by virtue of having been given a red rinse from the layer on top. We were past the hundreds of miles of rapids, which, so to speak, are a symptom of rock erosion, faulting, upthrust, and twist of the river's bed. Passing Separation Canyon, this change in character was most vivid in our minds.

Heading for Sandy Point, our final night campsite, we passed Bat Cave, where guano has been taken out for fertilizer. A cable still stretches across the river, its supporting towers standing like gaunt skeletons. Another landmark, but not man-made, was Grand Wash, dramatic ending to the long stretch of the Grand Canyon. Cliffs marking it can also be seen from U. S. 66, east of Kingman. Here the river has dropped to 840 feet above sea level, making a total drop from MILE ZERO of 2,267 feet in some 250 miles.

The colorful plateau country now gave way to low desert. Our horizon was widened. No more walls hedged us in. We could see clear off to distant purple mountains, looking barren and sun-dried. Mudflats, left from times when Lake Mead water was high, are now cut through again by the river current. The Pierce's Ferry landing, long the goal of rivermen, is landlocked, out of reach by boats. The Colorado still churns, brown as always until, with a change as definite as the cessation of walls, it is suddenly blue. We were intrigued by this manifestation of the law of gravity, realizing that at this point, the elevation has weakened the river's power so that it can no longer carry silt. It drops it like a hot cake.

We were at Sandy Point on Lake Mead by lunch, and spent the afternoon in high-jinx. As "Queen of the River," Georgie White conducts the ceremonial initiation of those who have completed the Grand Canyon Run for the first time, and thereafter privileged members of the "Royal Order of River Rats." The title is worn proudly.

While not exactly pledged to secrecy about the ritual, I would rather leave its mysteries to come as a surprise ending for prospective members. I can say that it is great fun. No people enjoyed it more than the five Grisswolds of Pasadena, who had demonstrated what a perfect trip this is for a family. Lee and Marquita, with their three children: Janet (17 years), Paul (12), and Ann (10) had worked and played together to the delight and admiration of our whole party through the entire journey. The children took their "examination," which includes questions about rock formations, names of rapids, and so on, first, so that they might assist as full-fledged members, when their mother and father were called before the Queen.

After dinner and campfire, the Royal Order retired, each with his private share of desert silence, accented by the muted lake song, as tiny ripples tapped at the beach.

Morning, the last, and twenty miles of lake to cross. The outboard motor, no longer merely rudder, had now to supply push, as well. Fishing and pleasure boats became numerous, making us suddenly aware of a difference between ourselves and these inhabitants of a civilization we had almost forgotten. Most of our men sported a twelveday growth of beard, and all of us were bronzed as real adventurers should be, and bursting with good health.

A crowd gathered at Temple Bar when we pulled in, staring at us as though we were men from Mars. We felt a little that way ourselves. The canyons of the Colorado River are not as distant as some planet in outer space, but I doubt if the journey there would hold more thrills. Nor does it make the experience less memorable to realize that all that magnificent scenery, down through marble, granite, lava, and sandstone aisles, is now accessible to even the average family vacationer. Thanks to the U. S. Navy and Georgie White, it is safe to ride down America's most dangerous river, and one of the most colorful of all.