How to Float Your Boat Through the Grand Canyon With the Pros: A commercial trip is the easiest way to explore the Grand Canyon via the Colorado River. A number of licensed outfitters offer one- to 18-day trips in motorized rafts, oar-powered rafts and dories; prices range from approximately $150 to $6,000 a person. On Your Own: Travelers who want to run the river themselves can enter the National Park Service lottery for a permit (npspermits.us). In 2006, with waits stretching to more than 20 years, the park service decided to convert its old waiting-list system into a weighted lottery. The lottery gives extra points to people who haven’t been down the river recently (or at all) and those who were on the old waiting list. But the number of applicants still far outweighs the number of permits—there were 4,212 applications this year for 460 noncommercial trips—so don’t expect a date for several years. AS WE ROUNDED the bend at mile 178 of the Colorado River, a roar pierced the silence. Our inflatable raft was approaching Lava Falls, a Class V rapid known to chew up boats and passengers who entered its raging waters the wrong way. “If you’ve got a brain, you should be nervous,” said Dave Lowry, who was rowing the 18-foot raft I was riding through the Grand Canyon with two of my children. He’d paddled this portion of the Colorado 180 times, but even Dave didn’t like Lava Falls. I had dreaded this moment for months—since my husband George and I decided to take our 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old twin boys on this vacation. In fact, I had secretly hoped the whole trip would never materialize. Back in 1994, when George and I were unmarried, carefree and childless, we had taken the same journey—226 miles down the Colorado River over two weeks—with a commercial outfitter that charged about $5,000 a head. We were captivated by the grandeur of the canyon and the adrenaline rush of shooting the rapids. And while roughly 4.5 million people visit the Grand Canyon each year, the National Park Service allows fewer than 1,000 visitors on the river at a time, which means rafters get to experience one of the natural wonders of the world in relative solitude. It would be cool, we thought at the time, to do the trip on our own someday—and it would save a lot of money. On a lark, we put our names on a waiting list for a so-called noncommercial permit. Then we forgot about it. Just as well. Demand for these permits is so overwhelming—and the number issued so small—that back then it could take 25 years to get one to row the Colorado in peak months. In 2006, the Park Service converted its waiting list to a weighted-lottery system that favored people who had been waiting for years. Still, it wasn’t until this past winter—nearly 20 years, a marriage, three children and a cross-country move since our first trip—that our permit came through. We’d be allowed to take up to 16 people down the river for up to 16 days, starting June 30. George was ecstatic. This was an opportunity to confront nature head-on, he said. Our children would learn self-reliance and wilderness skills in one of the most magical places on earth. “It’s only an adventure if you don’t know how it ends,” he said. I was petrified. It takes years to learn how to safely row a raft through Class IV and V white-water rapids, of which the river has many. Hiking vertiginous side canyons and complying with zero-impact camping regulations (i.e. leaving no human waste behind) would also require a skill set far superior to our own. Wasn’t this too dangerous an undertaking, especially with kids? George assured me that we’d hire seasoned guides and pro boatmen to row the rapids. Only then did we see the fine print on our permit: Paying professionals is strictly prohibited. I voted to forget the whole thing, but George persisted. He discovered an online forum where amateur boaters can connect with permit-holders and vice versa. We discovered that we held a sort of rafter’s golden ticket: Dozens of people offered to row us through the Grand Canyon. We eventually settled on Bill and Sue Porter, a couple from Flagstaff, Ariz. with extensive river experience. (One of their children, 20-year-old Tanner, was even named after a Grand Canyon rapid.) After Skyping and checking each other’s references, we made a deal a few months before the launch date: We’d share our permit; the Porters would lend their expertise and some equipment, fill the boats with able rowers and lead us down the river. The Porters possessed all the know-how our family lacked. Sue planned meals for 16 people, packing 40 pounds of trail mix, 100 apples, 90 eggs and 7 pounds of coffee. Bill rigged the boats with camping gear, coolers and a solar panel. They found experienced boaters—including Dave, a retired commercial boatman with 40 years of experience, and some friends from Sue’s days as a river guide in Maine—to row us through the rapids. Still, I was filled with apprehension the day we launched our rafts from Lees Ferry, Ariz.—the main Grand Canyon river-trip launch point due to its rare road access. So many things could go terribly wrong. A ranger, Peggy Kolar, briefed us on river hazards. “You’ve got your scorpions, rattlesnakes and red ants,” she warned. A powerful intestinal virus had surfaced on the river, so we should clean our cooking surfaces with bleach. Ms. Kolar also emphasized the importance of life jackets: Days earlier, a 68-year-old man without one had fallen off a ledge in the popular Havasu side canyon. He was found dead a few days later, just below Lava Falls. Our first night confirmed my misgivings: Disoriented by that day’s 100-degree temperatures, I nearly keeled over while moving our gear between the rafts and our campsite, a task we’d have to perform twice a day for the whole trip. My headlamp attracted bugs, depriving me of the pleasure of reading at night. And I nearly retched the first time I sat down on the airtight metal box, called a “groover,” where we were expected to relieve ourselves. But the next day, we navigated a series of rapids known as the “Roaring Twenties.” They ranged in difficulty from 4 to 6 on the Grand Canyon’s scale of 1 to 10, and I was surprised when the experience was far more exhilarating than terrifying. The view of the Grand Canyon from the water is far different than it is from the rim. The farther we paddled down the muddy river, the more layers of geological history were exposed, some dating back more than a billion years. Rising up on either side of our tiny rafts, the massive canyon walls felt more imposing than Europe’s grandest cathedrals. We covered about 10 to 30 miles a day. At mile 52, we camped at a bend in the river called Nankoweap canyon. After hiking up the steep side-canyon, we reached 1,000-year-old granaries carved into the mountain walls where the ancient Anasazi people once stored their seeds. The view of vermilion cliffs and the Colorado snaking 500 feet below us took my breath away. There was not another soul in sight. I started to see the restrictions on river permits in a more charitable light. It was even, I thought, a view worth waiting 20 years for. Traveling privately also gave us more opportunity to learn. Within a few days our kids were able to kayak through smaller rapids by themselves. Bill Porter taught them how to tie a bowline knot, secure a raft to shore and fish for rainbow trout. A trip highlight was the day we reached the Little Colorado, a turquoise-colored tributary revered by the Navajo and Hopi tribes. My teenage daughter, Nell, declared its luminescent waters “the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.” But as with much of the Grand Canyon, its beauty masked hazards. As we swam among the travertine rocks that morning, Greg, a member of our group, tried to dodge a protruding rock. Instead, the current propelled him into the boulder, dislocating his shoulder. The Porters’ son Tanner, a trained EMT, tried to realign his shoulder, but after two hours of attempts, Bill decided we had to get Greg to a hospital. An emergency evacuation is no easy feat in the Grand Canyon. Luckily, one of a handful of helipads was nearby, and Bill used a satellite phone to request a Park Service rescue. But thunderstorms threatened to thwart the helicopter’s arrival. About five hours after the injury, Greg was airlifted to the South Rim. The incident drove home the fact that we were a long way from Disneyland. A week into the trip, we entered “the gems,” a series of rapids ranging in difficulty from 4 to 8—Ruby, Emerald and the famously terrifying Crystal. After successfully navigating through most of them, George and one of our 12-year-olds, Johnny, decided they’d learned enough about currents to paddle an inflatable kayak through Serpentine, a rather ferocious mass of churning water, rated a 7, just past the gems. By then I was confident they had the skills to go for it. “I wasn’t scared at all,” Johnny announced triumphantly afterward. By the time we approached Lava Falls on the penultimate day of the trip, all three kids felt ready. “I know what to do if we flip because I’ve already flipped in the kayak,” Johnny said. “You just get to shore.” I was less enthusiastic. My heart raced as we approached. After scouting the rapid from four different lookout points, Dave, who had been running this portion of the river since 1972, chose his line. We headed for the right of the rapids, clearing a giant churning hole of water, then veered into the convergence of two strong currents. As the raft hit the resulting V, a wall of water crashed over the bow, where I held Nell and my other son, Nick, in a vise grip. The boat reared like a bronco before plunging down violently, upright. Once I was reassured we were all alive, I actually wanted to do it again. One by one, all of our boats emerged unscathed. We reassembled at a ledge to crack some beers and toast our success. That’s when Sue explained the lesson of Lava Falls: No sooner do you clear its angry waters than you start thinking about your next trip. In life you are always “above Lava,” she said. Risk and reward are just around the next corner, so you’d better be prepared. When we climbed out of the rafts at Diamond Creek the next day, we had sun poisoning, a foot fungus, red-ant stings and countless blisters. We also had something a tour could never provide: The sense that we had conquered the Colorado River on our own. The Porters were kind enough to let us believe that was true.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 01:21:09 +0000