Along the Way

Wrestling Bedrock Rapid in the Colorado River

Experienced boatmen will tell you it takes years to understand the hydraulic forces of the Colorado River, but even on my first trip through the Grand Canyon certain things were clear enough.

At the point when 200 gallons of river suddenly sloshed around my shins, while one oar was pinned between the raft and a boxcar-size chunk of granite and my only passenger was shouting over the deafening rush of water, "What do we do now?" I knew I should never have begged my way into the rower's seat of an 18-foot baggage raft.

Earlier on this hot July afternoon, 10 days and 130 miles into my rowing career, we had pulled ashore to inspect Bed-rock Rapid. Midriver sat the Bedrock, an L-shaped monolith that split the waters. I wouldn't say it loomed, but at 80 feet wide and 20 feet tall, the rock was certainly in the way.

Ideally the current would choose one side or the other, but the rapid's long glassy tongue led straight to the center of the rock. The trick was to break through the lateral waves flanking the right side of the tongue. But you had to wait until you'd gone past a spit of rocks jutting from the right shore. Timing was the key.

As for going left of Bedrock, the guidebook put it tersely: "Left run not recommended at any water level." Kenton, our trip leader (and my brother-in-law), who'd been through the rapid 200 times, echoed this point.

"That's where you definitely don't want to go," he said, pointing to a heaving boil of water by the left wall.

A few minutes later, we were out on the tongue, gliding smoothly as I pointed my stern to the right and began taking long pulls on the oars. To break through the laterals required a lot of momentum. I aimed for a pour-over formed by a halfsubmerged rock, but given the current's speed, that was akin to hitting a putt from a moving golf cart.

I hesitated (bad move), then pulled hard. The oars groaned in their locks. I could hear the rush of water pouring off the tongue a few yards away. This was always the worst part, that suspended moment when you knew you were committed but still had several seconds of smooth water before you dove into the big stuff. You could never be sure: Were you on target?

Not even close. We bucked through a few waves, then I heard my passenger, the cook, yell, "We're gonna hit it!" I swung the raft around and rowed frantically, hoping the current would sweep us to the right. No such luck. We smacked the big rock and were swamped. I heard a sucking noise under the boat as we scraped along toward the left chute. "Not left!" I thought to myself, trying to pry us off the rock, but left we went. We shot off Bedrock, bounced off the left wall, and spun into an ugly narrow chute. Then, just as I thought we might make it embarrassed but upright the current slammed us against Bedrock's back side. We were only 50 feet from flat water now, and the Colorado tore past, but the raft wasn't moving. Instead it began shuddering up the rock, slowly, inches at a time. The cook and I jumped up on its high side, struggling to prevent a flip.

What followed resembled one of those hopeless arm-wrestling contests in which the stronger person toys cruelly with the weaker. We got the boat down, but it slowly rose back up. We bounced it back down, our hands on Bedrock, our feet springing against the inflatable tube. It crawled slowly up again, its underside flat against the rock. Then it flopped over, like a big sloppy omelette, and began to float away.

The cook was picked up by other boaters, and I stared at the black rubber bottom of our raft from my perch on the rock. I had no idea what proper procedure was at this point, but I figured the only thing worse than flipping the raft that held the luggage of 16 passengers, and half their food, was to lose it completely. So I jumped back on noting that raft bottoms should have handles for just such occasions and rode it around the last bend of the chute, out into open water.

It took 15 of us an hour to right the 2,000-pound raft the river had flipped with an indifferent shrug, but to my surprise nothing was lost. Everything was tied down securely.

That night I sat on shore and watched the water move by, contemplating the day's events. As a trainee boatman, I expected some sort of constructive criticism from Kenton, who'd been running the river for 30 years and knew all the tricks. But all he said was, "You all right?" When I said yes, he shrugged his shoulders and moved on, leaving me with the voice of the river.

Editor's Note: Jim Boyer made it through Bedrock Rapid upright on his second trip, only to be thrown from his boat farther downstream. He recently upgraded his life jacket.