Down the Lazy River

"You're taking a canoe down the Colorado River through Topock Gorge? You must be crazy."

What do you say to a friend's sudden outburst like that?

"I may be nuts, but not for going on a canoe trip. Topock Gorge is not in the Grand Canyon. There are no rapids. Not even any fast water. It's just a lazy 15-mile float trip down to Lake Havasu that my 98-year-old grandmother could make if she'd keep her hands out of the beer cooler."

What I told him it would be was fun. More bird life than he could shake his binoculars and cameras at. A sumptuous supply of largemouth and striped bass plus crappie just waiting for a plastic worm to hook into.

And the scenery. The Needles got their name because the volcanic peaks are so sharply pointed. There are Cathedral Rock, Split Rock, Mohave Rock, Picture Rock, Castle Rock. Plus River Island and The Island. And Devil's Elbow.

So off we went. Not my grandmother, but Pete Kresan, Tucson free-lance photographer, who was itching to unlimber his satchel full of cameras, and point them at everything that struck his fancy.

It was an indescribably lazy summer afternoon with big white fluffy clouds. We were gliding silently across a 50-acre backwater bay not too far above the lake. Our bellies were full. The sun was warming the cockles of our hearts and the tops of our heads. We were half asleep and the thought of lifting a paddle was too much to comprehend.

Suddenly, Pete, in the bow of the canoe, jolted me awake, "What's that lying over there?" He was pointing to a narrow spit of green reeds jutting about 20 feet into the bay. "It looks like an egg." We eased closer and there, floating on top of a jumble of dead reeds, was one white egg about twice the size of a AA jumbo chicken-type. It was dazzling in the bright sunlight.

And then up through a clear spot next to the egg popped a bird with a long, slender, black and white neck and a four-inch sharp-pointed beak. The bow of the canoe was no more than five feet away. But despite our excited whispering, banging of paddles, shuffling of feet, and clicking of camera shutters, the bird just sat there. It cocked its head, first on one side and then on the other, watching us with a big red eye.

All we wanted was pictures, so after getting our fill, we glided away.

"That was a western grebe," said Rich Beaudry, resident wildlife manager at Lake Havasu City for the Ari-zona Game and Fish Department. Over a cup of coffee he explained, "Twenty-five years ago, when Gale Monson was resident manager of this wildlife refuge for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, he saw only a few grebes. But the gorge is changing because of a mostly stable water level being maintained by releases from Davis Dam upstream. This has changed the nesting habitat of the bird. Now there are hundreds of grebes all up and down the gorge."

The canoe is the perfect vehicle for exploring and enjoying Topock Gorge. First, it is silent. Even when Pete and I paddled hard, it skimmed the surface with scarcely a sound. It needed no noisy outboard motor or squeeking oar-locks for mobility. Our canoe had an amazingly shallow draft, despite being loaded with two people, an ice chest, camera gear, and other paraphernalia. We slid over sandbars less than six inches below the surface.

In the spring, summer, and fall the gorge is nearly inundated with canoes on weekends. They range from tiny 11-footers, big enough for a boy and his dog, to 18-foot cargo carriers with enough room for four adults and all the stuff they want to carry. For real stability, and togetherness if there is just one ice chest full of beer and goodies two canoes can be lashed together catamaran style.

Normally, the 15-mile trip from the Arizona town of Topock to Castle Rock Bay, the best takeout point, can easily be done in one day if an early start is made. Topock Gorge and Topock Marsh above it comprise Havasu National Wildlife Refuge, administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Refuge regulations prohibit overnight camping in the gorge. The ban is a blessing, as nearly every visitor will tell you. There is practically no litter in the river, by the reed beds, in the backwater bays, or along the rocky shoreline. There are no campfire rings, charcoaled wood stumps, or defaced rocks. It is a remarkably pristine environment that canoe visitors help take care of.

Pete and I made three trips through the gorge. On the first day we had gone about three miles and were approaching The Needles. There was a fairly large rock outcropping on the left with a U.S. Geological Survey gauging station bolted to the side of it. We swung around below the rock, beached the canoe, and scrambled to the top of the rock. For a few moments Pete said nothing; then, "This is the place for pictures. It's fantastic."

Pete wasn't the first to think so. In 1857-58, Lt. Joseph Ives of the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers commanded the 54-foot steamboat Explorer up from the mouth of the Colorado River in the Gulf of California, through Topock Gorge to near where Hoover Dam is now located. When he arrived at The Needles this is what he wrote.

"A low purple gateway and splendid corridor, with massive red walls, formed the entrance to Mohave Canyon. A scene of such impressive grandeur I have never before witnessed.

On either side majestic cliffs, hundreds of feet in height, rose perpendicularly from the water. Brilliant tints of purple, green, brown, red and white illuminated the stupendous surfaces. Far above, turrets, spires, jagged peaks, and grotesque pinnacles overlooked the deep abyss.

"The approach of twilight enhanced the wild, romance of the scenery. The bright colors faded and blended into

uniform dark grey. A solemn stillness reigned in the darkening avenue, broken only by the splash of the paddles and the cry of a heron." No modern writer could say it better. And how could we hope to capture it on film?

Fishing is big business here, most of it done on Lake Havasu, a 30-mile-long reservoir with Lake Havasu City above Parker Dam. In May, 1976, Fred Kunkle, a professional bass fisherman living on the California side of the lake, was in the slack water area where the river and the lake meet. He had 10pound line on his bait-casting reel and a bluish Cordell Spot lure, which he was plugging close to shore.

Suddenly, a fish hit and zing went the line. Kunkle fought it for half an hour before bringing it to the boat. He was as tired as the fish, but he managed to heave it on board. Back at the marina the striped bass tipped the scales at 50 pounds, then a new world record. Beaudry estimated it was eight or nine years old.

In the springtime, stripers head out of Lake Havasu and swim more than 50 miles up to the swift cold water coming out of Davis Dam. They try to spawn on the gravelly bottom, but studies show they only succeed about once every six years.

Another professional bass fisherman is Rich Uhley who lives in Lake Havasu City. When Beaudry introduced us he said, "Pete-Pete this is Rich-Rich." Uhley holds the world record for striped bass using two-pound line. He boated an eight-pounder. Like all pros he has a depth finder on his bass boat."

"There are a lot of deep underwater holes in the gorge," he said. "With the depth finder I can easily spot big stripers on the bottom. But it doesn't do any good to try to catch them because you can't get the lure down where they are. The current in the river will sweep it far over their heads."

So instead of stripers, Rich and I tried our luck on largemouth bass while the other Rich and other Pete went tramping over sand dunes in search of pictures. We were in a 100-acre backwater bay just below River Island. Rich decided spinner baits were the thing to use. In short order he got a strike and a few seconds later held up a two-pound bass. And then zilch. For nearly an hour we flayed the water with practically everything in his tackle boxes. Not even one strike. We know there was at least one fish down there, but he was too smart to come up for seconds.

Without a doubt the highlight of any trip through the gorge is to see a desert bighorn sheep. They are occasionally seen by canoeists and powerboaters in The Needles area. During our three days we kept a sharp eye for one of those white-rumped mammals. I'd like to report we spotted a record-class ram, but we didn't. But we did hear the bighorn's nemesis, the wild burro. These exotics comcompete directly with the sheep for food, and will drive the wild animals away from choice sites. The burros are such a problem in west-central Arizona that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management rounds them up by helicopter and trucks them to Wenden where they are put up for adoption. We saw the chopper at work and a rare grey-white jack in full gallup.

A checklist of birds for the gorge area totals 274 species ranging from giant white pelicans to black cormorants to swift mourning doves and tiny, flighty canyon wrens.

On our third afternoon in the gorge, we were close to the reeds on the Arizona side when a big white bird flapped overhead and sailed to a standup stop a couple of hundred feet down river. The bird had a heavy black beak and yellow legs a snowy egret. The bird paid us no attention, as it stalked the shallows looking for lunch. We froze, not moving a paddle and hoped we looked like a big lumpy silver log. Closer and closer we glided. But at last we crossed the egret's territorial barrier. It arched its neck forward, beat its wings a few times, and was airborne. Once again we demonstrated to ourselves the superiority of the canoe in observing wildlife. We would never have gotten within a hundred yards in a powerboat.

Later in the fall, I went back to Lake Havasu with a pair of Tucsonans, taxidermist Jimmie Engelmann and sports writer Tom Foust, who brought his 16foot ski-bass boat. We spent a couple of days fishing the lake and then took a spin up through the gorge. Near The Needles we came upon about 10 canoes on a relaxing float trip through the gorge. They were a happy bunch chattering away and only occasionally bothering to lift a paddle to ward off reeds or rocks. There were old folks, middleaged folks, young folks, and kids.

We found a small cove and started casting about for bass. In a few minutes the canoes hove into view and gradually invaded our domain. We gave up fishing to watch them. It was almost an eerie feeling in this canyon of huge cliffs and great spires to see, but not hear, these small man-made craft. There was no chattering. No splashing of water by paddles. No tinkling of tin cans. They came, and they went as if in a dream. We envied them. And when it was time for us to go, it bordered on sacrilegious to start the outboard motor and shatter this wilderness with its deafening sound and noxious fumes. No doubt about it. The canoe is made for Topock Gorge.