Grand Canyon #4: Before the trip, either Aly Signorelli or Bryan Signorelli asked me, is there much trash in the Canyon? I stumbled around some and said not much, with my usual lengthy explanations and clarifications. But even here, when most of the visitors have the highest possible anit-littering standards (with the possible exception of a few commercial customers) and everyone is coached to pick up micro trash during their visits, there is debris from our modern lifestyles. Some washes down from the access point and civilized areas at the put in or far up on major tributaries like the Little Colorado, but other sources are stuff washed off rafts or lost in raft flips, and stuff accidentally dropped in camps. I spotted one larger piece of styrofoam floating in an eddy as we neared camp one day, so after the kitchen was set up I hiked back upstream and waded in to recover it. I also carried back as much other stuff as I could carry, including multiple plastic bottles, one glass bottle, a rusty propane canister, and of course a sandal. The River Gods approved of my activity and rewarded me with most of a case of beer, found floating under the driftwood that was in the eddy I was wading around in. With assistance from the group and careful scientific testing conducted over the next several days, we determined that every single can was drinkable, at least for the light beer drinkers in the crowd. Finds on other days included two pocket knives, a nice desert sun hat, a shirt, a pair of pants, a softball (everywhere you go, you find balls), another propane canister, and at least 3 more cans of drinkable beer, a number of glow necklaces, and probably more than a half dozen roaches (the kind that are now legal in Colorado and a few other places). If you want proof that the littering is mostly accidental, I offer the fact that we found more full beers than empty cans. We found enough stuff, I wonder if we could get a special permit if we promised to take our time and send kayaks into every eddy to gather up the trash? It could be the worlds first three week long organized clean-up!
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 15:03:24 +0000
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