Days 2-3: The Colorado River

One of the most interesting aspects of the Southwest for me is how natural and human history come together in a single landscape. Ancient stories and new ones are all woven together into the tapestry that is the Southwest.

The Colorado River is a fine example of this. The many strata of exposed rock, layered one on top of one another, line the river and force one to try to squeeze into one’s limited human brain such concepts as geologic time. The millions of years that are represented in the sandstone and metamorphic rock are almost comprehensible if you stare at the evidence long enough. The geologist’s explanation of uplifts and faults almost starts to crystallize into something that makes sense. Almost.

And yet, human history is a part of the landscape too. We saw our first petroglyphs and pictographs on the first day of the rafting trip. These strange and mysterious paintings of the Anasazi people would become a recurring attraction throughout the trip, all over Southern Utah.

After floating lazily down a calm stretch of the Colorado River, watching the swifts fly out from their mud houses beneath the rock ledges, we had a chance to stretch our legs with a side hike into McDonald’s Canyon. The destination: Petroglyphs, in a rock amphitheater, a few hundred yards from the river.

The attraction of this rock art for me lay in its mystery. The Anasazi had created this artwork, perhaps two thousand years ago, on the walls where they lived and worked. Human-like creatures with headdresses and earrings appear in some. Animals resembling big horned sheep can be seen. Strange wheels, suns, stars, and moons occasionally appear in white on the red walls.

There are no easy answers for the questions these drawings inspire. Is it art? Or to be more precise, was it intended to be art? Or is it more like a newspaper, containing stories of the day? Or simply graffiti, created by the hooligans with their versions of spray paint cans? No one knows. And, of course, that’s the source of the attraction, for me anyway. I am left to speculate about such things, and in the process, to engage my imagination in ways that the modern world does not allow, or at least encourage.

I have strayed from my point. More on the Anasazi later.

It is not just ancient human history that the canyon contains. It is impossible to float down the Colorado without thinking of John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Union General who explored this River one hundred and thirty years ago with his band of not-so-merry men. I thought of Powell as we rounded the bends in the river, not knowing what was coming next.

Our guides were two young guys who clearly loved the river. Ken, a goateed college student with a quick smile and a gaze that locked onto you when you spoke, was in charge. Jerry, perhaps nineteen, was the easiest-going, slowest moving, least stressed person I have ever met. What Jerry and Ken lacked in knowledge they made up for in earnestness.

As we rounded a bend in the river where Cottonwood trees provide a bright splash of green to the browns and reds, a huge bald eagle sat on a branch hanging out over the river. It’s hard to describe a bald eagle without using the expected word: Majestic. I had never seen a bald eagle in the wild before. I snapped pictures like the goofy tourist that I was. Before we pulled the rafts out of the river the next day, we would see two more bald eagles. Count them as a highlight.

In a discussion about eagles, Ken, our source for authoritative information on this river trip, explained that “premature bald eagles” were actually much larger than their adult counterparts. We all stared at him dumbly. I waited for someone to correct him by saying “immature,” but no one did. Instead, someone asked: “What do you mean, they shrink when they get older?” Ken assured us that that was so. “How can that be?” the person persisted. Their skeletons can’t shrink . . .”

It’s interesting that river guides, rather than resorting to text books or scientists or even the Discovery Channel, rely instead on each other, apparently, for scientific and historical information about the river. It’s like that old game of gossip. By the time these little river factoids get retold several times, they can no longer be trusted as containing anything like scientific truths.

After a lazy day of floating, we stopped at a camp site on the Utah/Colorado border. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon, and the sun had not yet dipped behind the canyon wall behind us. The heat seemed to be intensifying. We all sat on the rafts for a while waiting for the sun to drop.

Soon I became antsy and left with my partner to climb the cliffs surrounding the campsite. We made our way up a steep incline, perhaps 200 feet, and carefully made our way along the rocky ledges. A flash of bright blue passed in front of us, a bird the startling color of the sky on a perfectly clear afternoon. We would later identify it as a mountain bluebird.

We continued climbing toward the upper ledges, which hung out over the river. Along the way, we heard a the song of the canyon wren, with its beautifully descending notes. And we saw a mother raven with two smaller ravens perched on a narrow ridge on the side of the canyon. There was life in these dry rocks and the sandy, cactus-studded hills. We reached the edge of the rocky overhang and sat, looking down 150 feet at the muddy water swirling below us and downriver at the magenta sky.

That night, after a lazy, silly evening around the campfire that included jokes, stories, and an indescribable game called “Butt Darts,” we went to our tents and went to sleep.

I awoke to the bright light outside and assumed it was morning. A canyon wren nearby was singing. I heard a hum near the back of the tent that I later concluded must have been a hummingbird. I looked at my watch. 1:30. It was not morning. I looked out of the tent and saw the almost-full moon lighting up the canyon and understood that I, along with the other creatures of the canyon, had been tricked and amazed by the bright white light pouring over the canyon wall.

The next day we had a terrific campfire breakfast and set out for the major rapids of Westwater Canyon. Rapids with names like “Skull” and “Sock It To Me.” The rapids were further subdivided into features. “Skull,” for example, included the “Rock of Shock” and the “Room of Doom.” They provided a sufficiently thrilling ride. We all screamed and got wet. One of the guides exited his raft involuntarily in the middle of Skull but held on to his oar with one hand and managed to pull himself back in.

Perhaps I am getting older. The rapids were fun, but, as it turned out, the trip wasn’t about the rapids. It was about the bald eagle perched in the Cottonwood and the canyon wren fooled by the moon.