FLOATING AMONG EAGLES

KAYAKI A father-son team floats the Verde River

The rock turned beneath Seth's sandaled foot, and he staggered into me. He clutched my shoulder to avoid a nasty fall onto the rocky cholla-strewn trail to the cliff edge. We stumbled forward a few steps before we regained our mutual balance, leaving me feeling oddly complementary. The fathers of teenagers rarely get to feel so unequivocally useful. "Sorry," muttered Seth, shaking his mop of blond sweatlimp hair out of his eyes. "You okay?" I asked, patting him on the shoulder. "Sure, fine," he said, making me hope I hadn't sounded patronizing. Coming of age is a complex business. I'd tried to be helpful, mostly by recalling theoretically comforting war stories from my own muddled youth. But we'd hit a few crosscurrents and dropoffs lately, Seth and I. That's why I had talked him into coming along on a float down the placid Verde River, which swirled along the base of a dizzying cliff face harboring one of 30 pairs of nesting bald eagles in Arizona. I'd talked Dave Insley, with the Scottsdale-based Cimarron River Company, into loaning us an inflatable kayak. He had offered to come along with a second raft to make sure we made it home safely. He'd often guided commercial raft trips on the same stretch of river. I figured a day on the river, some lowgrade rapids, and a chance to study nesting bald eagles would promote a little father-son bonding to counteract all the centrifugal forces of a modern adolescence. The idea had begun to wilt a trifle on this long 100° F. hike to reach a cliff-top vantage point near the eagle nest. Bald eagles have been making a comeback in Arizona after being nearly wiped out by the egg-shell-destroying effects of pesticides. Somewhere between 22 and 30 pairs of bald eagles nest here each spring, selecting cottonwood snags and cliff faces on the Salt and Verde rivers. To protect the eagles, the state hires nest-watchers every spring to keep people away from the nests, collect scientific information, and protect them from any life-threatening situations. Every year the nestwatchers' data improves the department's ability to manage and improve bald eagle habitats in Arizona.

among the Eagles

These areas are closed to the public during the nesting season, but to help educate the public about the watchers program, one of the watchers agreed to lead us on an unexpectedly tough two-mile scramble to a viewpoint overlooking the nest. Finally nearing the cliff edge, we were all stumbling with the heat against the rocks beneath our feet.

"Just about there," I said, trying to decide if Seth looked unreasonably pale.

"No problem," he said, walking now with deliberation.

Suddenly we came upon the cliff edge. The Verde River undulated gracefully across the landscape 200 feet below.

The eagle rose abruptly into my line of vision on an updraft. He seemed enormous, wings splayed, primary quills stretched outward to grasp the air. He tilted his snow-white head and regarded us with imperious disdain. He rose seemingly without effort on the thermal that rushed up the cliff face from the sun-heated rocks below.

Shifting my gaze, I stared down toward the nest. A gawky chick sat on a huge pile of sticks with his wings slightly lifted and his back to us. The young remain on the nest for nearly two months after hatching, voraciously gulping the nearly constant supply of fish brought back by their doting parents. One parent usually stays on the nest the whole time, making sure the ungainly chick doesn't stumble over the edge, shading it with Wings that can unfurl to reveal a seven-foot span. The other parent forages for the family.

We stared eagerly at the chick, which seemed to be trying to cool itself in the stifling air by holding up its not-yetflight-worthy wings. The father continued to circle overhead. I spotted the mother out over the river. She abruptly wheeled and glided toward the nest, braking at the last moment with a few flaps of her enormous black wings. With two short hops, she came to rest atop the 15foot-deep mass of sticks.

To avoid disturbing the birds, we turned and made our wayback down to the waiting river.

As we sloshed toward the rafts, the icy chill of the water came as a bracing shock. Seth endured in manly silence, but I bellowed like a wounded water buffalo. He shook his head sorrowfully, but I thought I detected the beginnings of a smile.

We piled back into the rafts and idled on downstream. The current carried us beneath the eagle's nest, where the mother sat in defiant silhouette. I studied the river, looking for the characteristics of this broad bend that made it perfect for an eagle nest. Virtually all of (OPPOSITE PAGE) Peter Aleshire and his son Seth begin their raft trip down the Verde, seeking fun and togetherness. (ABOVE) In the deep canyons along the Verde River, where shelter is secure and fishing is plentiful, bald eagles nest.

the eagles in Arizona nest within a mile or so of what's called a "super riffle," usually a gravel-bottomed bend in the river that contains shallow areas in both high and low water. This bend angled against the cliff, leaving a broad inside curve that provided perfect shallows

KAYAKING

no matter how much water engineers released from the dam upstream.

What's more, outcroppings of rock provided additional shallows in the center of the curve, complete with perches from which the eagles could pounce on unwary fish. Eagles and fish conduct an intricate spring runoff, and the journeys of fish to specific gravel beds at various times of the year. Biologists believe that migrations of eagles that span whole continents are precisely timed and guided to take advantage of events like the salmon spawn in certain rivers on the fringes of the Arctic.

The dance of life and death, which means these winged predators must time their lives to the cy-cles of fish. Certain species of desert suckers spawn in the late spring, congregating over grav-el beds to lay their eggs just when the eagles need to feed their hungry chicks.

I explained as much of this as Seth could stand as we floated on the current beneath the cool blue shade of the cliff on which the eagles perched. These eagle chicks have it tough, I noted. The first time they venture past the front step, they face a 200-foot drop. They hang around the nest site for the next few weeks, beg-ging food from their increas-ingly impatient parents whilethey struggle to master both hunting and flying. Then they migrate thousands of miles on their own. If they're very lucky, they'll eventually find their way back to the area of their birth and at the age of about five find their own lifelong mates and build nests on dizzying pinnacles.

We drifted back out into the sun and applied the paddles with a will.

The Verde doesn't offer much (OPPOSITE PAGE) The Verde River gorge provides a sinuous oasis for eagles in an otherwise desert land.

(ABOVE AND BELOW) Father and son paddle through occasional riffles and float along the mostly calm river.

Eagles and fish remain so connected that the birds' breeding success depends on the rise and the fall of the river, the in the way of white water. We encountered a few riffles, one good dropoff, and a couple of

KAYAKING

Then he launched himself fearlessly into space and plunged toward the gleaming water yelling at the top of his lungs all the way down.

Amid rapids that splashed water into the two-man boat and rocked us from side to side. I insisted on yelling like an idiot on the most benign of riffles. We alternately paddled and loafed. Sometimes we fell into a perfect rhythm and knifed through the water, leaving a visible wake. Usually our bursts of speed ended in a loss of synchronization, which caused us to loop about in a most undignified manner. Mostly we simply drifted along, paddling just enough to feel in control of the experience. Seemingly around each bend, we startled another great blue heron. Brightly colored tropical migrants flitted along the bankside mesquite and decorated the branches of the scattered cottonwoods. Grackles and mockingbirds and tanagers and thrashers warbled and mocked and serenaded us as we drifted past. We savored the murmur of the water, the drift of the cliff edges overhead, and the long cold drip of water down the handles of our paddles. We floated on down the river. I recalled the cry of the helplessly circling father eagle and mused on the migrations of the spirit required of our own fledglings.

Near sunset we reached the take-out point, a beach just downstream from Needle Rock, a set of volcanic pillars that rear abruptly from the water. A long rope dangled from one of the rocks, leading to a ledge perhaps 25 feet above the deep water's surface. "Dad!" exclaimed Seth. "Paddle over there. I want to climb that." "That's not a good idea, Seth," I said. "Why not?" he asked. "The rope might break." "So, I'll fall in the water." Reluctantly, I guided us to the rock. He immediately seized the dangling end of the rope and began scrambling up the vertical face of the rock. He paused at a tough spot, looking back over his shoulder. "Move the boat, Dad!" he called. I backed away, watching anxiously as he leaned back from the rope and walked up the sheer surface. At the top, (OPPOSITE PAGE AND ABOVE) Peter and Seth head for home, exhilarated after Seth climbed and leapt from a riverside cliff. He flattened himself against the rock and inched up over the lip to the ledge. He stood shakily, spread his arms, and shouted in triumph, "I did it!" I nodded, without speaking, overwhelmed with the brilliant image of him there so far beyond my help. Then he launched himself fearlessly into space and plunged toward the gleaming water yelling at the top of his lungs all the way down into our final stretch of the Verde. Phoenix-based Peter Aleshire says that all you really need to know about parening, you can learn from eagles. Gary Johnson prefers the stability of a raft over a tippy kayak to ensure that he and his camera gear stay dry. He lives in Wickenburg.