Canoeing the Wild Verde

Cruising Down the VERDE

The he river sliced through the early morning mist like a sliver of glass piercing a thick layer of damp cotton. We sat motionless in the canoe, the two of us watching, waiting. I pulled off my gloves, wrapped both hands around a warm cup of coffee and held it close to my chest, trying to ward off the winter chill. But it was not the cold that made me shiver. It was the ominous silence. I turned to look at Vince. He sat quietly in the stern, his big handsgrasping the oars. His face was barely vis-ible, and, from where I sat less than three feet away, his white beard blended into the dense fog. He appeared to be fading into the mist, almost beyond my reach. Then we heard it.

the VERDE

A home to abundant wildlife and a magnet for water recreationists, the Verde begins north of Prescott and ultimately joins the Salt River just east of Phoenix.

A swooshing noise like the rustle of a stiff damask skirt came from the thick grove of cottonwoods just ahead of us. I sat upright, startled by the sound. Then, I saw it rise.

Up through the leafless skeletons of trees it soared, its angular body silhouetted against the fog like a giant pterodactyl. Its wings flapped awkwardly, pulling it through the heavy blanket of mist. Swoosh. Swoosh. It was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"Blue heron," Vince said. "Looks like some sort of prehistoric animal, doesn't it?"

I laughed nervously. "I thought it was."

Maybe it was the anxious tone of my voice or the recognition that to me these were dangerously unfamiliar waters. For whatever reason, Vince began to warm up to me. He had not uttered a word during the first half hour of our voyage, but now he began to talk in a smooth re-assuring voice.

"Now you just relax and let me take you on down the river. I've been on the Verde ever since I was 12. I've had a lot of fun on this river, and I'm going to see to it that you have some fun, too."

The owner of the trading post near the Camp Verde exit on Interstate 17 had given me a copy of Vince Van Horn's hand-drawn flyer. "If you want to know about the river, this is the man who can tell you," she had said. "Maybe he would take you out in his canoe."

I felt inside the pocket of my down jacket. The flyer was still there, but I didn't need to look at it to remember what it said. "DISCOVER THE VERDE RIVER" was printed in bold letters above a sketch of a broad-shouldered bearded man paddling a canoe downriver. Two people sat in front of him, gazing upward at a flock of birds rising through the clouds with the sun behind them. "VINCE'S CHAUFFEURED CANOE TRIPS" was written beneath the picture. "AUDUBON AP-PROVED."

Although I had experience canoeing in my native state of Virginia and in the boundary waters of Minnesota, Vince absolutely refused to let me handle an oar. "Read what the flyer says: 'chauffeured," he told me. "That means I'm everything from boat motor to bartender. You bring your camera or your binoculars and pack something for us to eat. But leave the paddling to me."

Now, as the fog gradually lifted, I began to understand why he enforced this policy. Being free of the responsibility of propelling and steering the canoe, I could concentrate completely on the sights and sounds around me. What had appeared to be a desolate landscape when we first set out suddenly was alive with color and motion.

Smack. A bluegill surfaced near the bow of our canoe, flapping broadside back into the water. As the sun glanced off the river, the sounds of fish breaking the surface became more frequent. Smack. Smack. Smack. I watched and listened to the dance of the bluegill and bass.

"There's smallmouth and largemouth in this river," Vince told me. "Channel cat, blue cat, flathead, carp, and chubs. The V-tail chub is the only true fish of the Verde. The rest of them are stocked. One time, we caught a northern pike not too far upstream from here, but they're rare."

Then, as if from nowhere, a kingfisher swooped down from the stump of a dead tree, plunging nose first into the water like a kamikaze airplane. It emerged, its blue-gray tufted head glistening with feathers slicked back in a '50s-style hair-do. Its beak was empty."Missed," Vince said, chuckling. "That little rascal will be following us and cussing us all the way down the river. He's mad because we're interrupting his fishing."

Sure enough, the kingfisher zigzagged through the air behind us, loudly voicing complaints as we moved on downstream. Against the background of its chatter, I began to relax as the boat glided along between banks pillow-soft with the golden hue of salt cedar. We passed by thick clusters of cattails with hundreds of ducks floating like decoys among them. Wood duck, spoonbill, mallard. I recognized these, but did not know the name of a small slatey-black bird with what appeared to be a pronounced horny growth on its forehead.

"That's a mud hen. Some people call it a coot," Vince said. "It's a waterfowl, but it's really not a duck. One of the clumsiest birds you'll ever see. You've heard the saying 'silly as a coot."

"Yes," I said. Then, I noticed another duck with a glossy greenish-black head that seemed outlandishly large for its body. Its head and chest were marked with distinctive white bands. "What's that?" I asked."A merganser. That's a kind of duck that eats fish. Can you see the notches there on the end of its beak? That's what it uses to grab prey. Some people call them sawbills."

As we continued to drift down the river, Vince pointed out snowcapped Squaw Peak Butte, "the geographical center of the state." Then he added, "Of course, that's arguable. Some folks say it could be the town of Cottonwood."

Suddenly we came to a naked patch in the trees where beavers had built a slide. "You ever watch a beaver? It cuts down that tree and gets it in the water as fast as it can. A beaver is really out of its element when cutting down that tree. It's got to get back into the water to get to safety."

As we passed through the deep waters of Diamond's Hole, popular during the summer months as a place to swim, my eyelids began to droop. I heard the rhythmic tapping of a woodpecker echoing from somewhere near the riverbank. Warmed by the winter sun, I was becoming drowsy.

"Okay! Hold onto your seat! This is what folks call Widow-maker Rapids up here."

I jolted upright at Vince's sharp command. We were moving quickly now. Ahead, I could see rock outcroppings jutting above the water and the white foamy wake where the river rushed through them. I held onto the gunwales with both hands.

We threaded through the rocks with Vince expertly maneuvering the canoe. The water was fast, but "widow-maker"

seemed a bit of an exaggeration. I felt the cool spray of water on my face and hands. Onward we sped, until the current swept us into a cove, barely visible from the center of the river. Suddenly, everything was still.

My heart was pounding, and I was grateful to have a chance to catch my breath. Then I heard the gurgling sound of a spring and finally saw it trickling down from a point just above the riverbank beneath a canopy of bright green.

"River willows," Vince said softly. "This is one of my favorite places, because hardly anybody knows it's here. Now, what did you bring along for lunch?"

My hands were still a little shaky as I pulled the plastic bag containing our sandwiches, apples, and granola bars from underneath my seat.

"Look, that stretch back there really is called Windy Point. I just tell people that widow-maker story to get their adrenalin going," he said. "I'm sorry if I scared you."

"I wasn't scared."

He laughed. Then, we both munched on our sandwiches and listened to the music of the bubbling spring. Beneath the leafy willow umbrella it was calm and peaceful. I soon forgot the exhilarating rush of the swift water.

the VERDE

Suddenly the woods were filled with loud chirping and screeching. My eyes scanned the trees, but I could not find the source of the grating sounds. "What is that racket?" I looked at Vince. "Rock squirrel," he said. "You can't see it, but it sees us. In fact, it's telling the whole world about us." I listened as the incessant prattling became fainter and finally faded out. The squirrel had moved deep into the woods. "You about ready to move on?" Vince asked. "Sure," I said. We passed through the keyhole entrance to the cove and were once more moving down the river. Less than a mile below our stopping point, we saw a pair of red-tailed hawks circling near a gnarled sycamore. "The birds of prey nest farther downstream in the Wilderness," Vince ex-plained. "They fly upstream to the shallow water to look for food. If we're lucky, we might see a . . .

He stopped midsentence and pointed downstream toward an outstretched limb on a tall dull-gray cottonwood. I could see the large black form of something sitting on the limb. But I did not realize what it was until I saw its sharply chiseled white head. "Bald eagle?" I whispered. "Yes," Vince said. The great bird watched us with piercing yellow eyes. It opened its beak, revealing a sliver of pink tongue, then spread its majestic wings. The air seemed to shiver in its presence. When it flapped its outspread wings it sounded like a sail catching its first wind. Whump. Whump. Although the eagle was moving its wings, it made no effort to leave its perch. It continued to grasp the tree limb with sharp taloned feet. As we drew nearer, I marveled at its seven-foot wingspan. I remembered folktales about eagles carrying small children away to their nests. Now, meeting this fiercest of birds for the first time in the wild, I understood why such fables seemed credible. I also understood why the figure of an eagle decorated Roman spears, the battle shields of British knights and noblemen, the standards of German emperors. A shudder ran up my spine, but I could not turn my eyes away from the spectacle of this fearsome bird. Never before in Nature had I seen such an awesome sight. The eagle's gaze never left mine until we had traveled too far downstream for me to maintain eye contact. For a long while I was speechless. Vince pointed out other sights as we continued down the river: a cliff swallow's nest built of mud on the side of a cliff; a blue-heron rookery in a cottonwood grove, each tree filled with eight to 10 shaggy nests; the ruins of the old Rutherford place where the last recorded Apache raid in the Verde Valley took place. Just below the pioneer homestead, a bright red cardinal darted so close to our canoe I could almost touch it. Then we spotted a killdeer. Next, an osprey. We went aground for a short while to explore the cliff dwellings left behind by an Indian tribe of unknown origin. "There are more than 250 cliff houses here," Vince told me. "I used to come here a lot when I was a kid. It was a great place to play cowboys and Indians." But even the mysterious cave dwellings could not take my mind off the eagle. As we climbed into the canoe for the last brief leg of our journey, I was haunted by the vision of those hard yellow eyes. We glided downstream for a while, and then I saw them. This time it was a pair of eagles, male and female, one perched below the other in the crook of a dead tree. Like the first one, those two watched us with a fearless, steady gaze. "They say that eagles mate for life," Vince said. "Yes," I responded. "I believe they do." Now, whenever I look back on this canoe trip on the Verde, it is the eagles that I remember most.

WHEN YOU GO

Getting there: To reach this stretch of the Verde River, follow Interstate 17 to the Camp Verde exit, about an hour and 15 minutes' drive north of Phoenix. Guided trips: Reservations for Vince's Chauffeured Canoe Trips and directions to the launch site can be made by calling either (602) 567-9579 or 567-2350. Cost ranges from $50 to $200, depending upon the length of the trip and the number of people. A maximum of four people can make reservations for a trip. Vince also rents canoes for $30 a day, but does not advise people who are unfamiliar with the Verde River to venture out unguided. There are stretches of the river on the west side of the interstate where dams have been made from stacks of submerged wrecked automobiles linked together with cable. Occasionally a cable breaks, and a car washes downstream, creating a treacherous hazard.

Best time to go: The mid-to-late winter months are the best for observing birds of prey. The bald eagles nest in February, hatch and leave the area in April. The birds also are easier to spot when the leaves are off the trees.

During late spring, summer, and early fall, the Verde River becomes a favorite recreation spot for rafting, tubing, and swimming. The waters are more crowded and sometimes too shallow to navigate in a canoe. If you plan to take a winter excursion, wear warm waterproof shoes, a hat, and gloves. Also wear a jacket with sweaters underneath. As the day grows warmer, you can shed the layers. Take your camera and binoculars and don't forget to pack a lunch in a tightly secured plastic bag or container.

Additional Reading: For more about the state's waterways, see Arizona Rivers and Streams, an Arizona State Parks Department guidebook ($7.95) that explores hundreds of streams and the wildlife, recreational opportunities, and facilities found near them. To obtain a copy, telephone Arizona Highways toll-free at 1 (800) 543-5432; in the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

Additional information: To inquire about Verde River recreation and other boating outfits, contact the Camp Verde Chamber of Commerce, 430 Main St., Camp Verde, AZ 86322; (602) 567-9294.

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