In October of this year, (2022) I was able to go on a rafting trip down the upper section of the Grand Canyon. I went with a company that had six guides and about 22 guests. The trip was amazing. The people were fun, the views were beautiful, and the whitewater was exciting. At the end of the seven days, I (and some others) hiked out of the canyon on the Bright Angel Trail while the rest of the group continued down the canyon.
In August, I got a new boss and when I mentioned my upcoming Grand Canyon trip to him, he said he had a book for me to read, and that he would loan it to me. I wasn't particularly excited because I always have a long list of books I want to read, and I didn't want someone arbitrarily adding books to my pile. However, the next day he brought in The Emerald Mile (2013) by Kevin Fedarko, and it looked interesting. By this point I was starting to get excited about my trip, so I started reading it almost immediately.
And this book was the perfect thing to read right before my trip. (I later discovered that it's on the rafting company's recommended reading list as well.) Fedarko begins the book with three rafting guides illegally sneaking a dory into the raging waters of the Grand Canyon at midnight--attempting the fastest time from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead.
Fedarko also spends a good portion of the book giving us a broader view of the area and its history. He begins with the first Europeans who saw the Grand Canyon, and then does a quick overview of John Wesley Powell's courageous and crazy trip down the Canyon. He also discusses the great rift between the environmentalists and the Bureau of Reclamation as they fought over damming the river or leaving it pristine. I had no idea that the original plan was to dam the middle of the Grand Canyon. It would have made my rafting trip impossible, and I can't even imagine it.
But they did dam just before the Grand Canyon with the Glen Canyon Dam, and Fedarko describes what a feat of engineering and mass that it was. And then he describes how there became such a surplus of water in 1983 that it threatened the dam itself. The dam operators were letting as much water as they could go through the spillways, but the spillways were falling apart. The people rafting downriver through the Canyon (out of touch with the rest of the world) were receiving warnings about high water levels from park service helicopters. And on one of the biggest rapids on the river, boats were being torn apart and people were dying.
In the midst of all this chaos, three river rafting guides took a dory and plunged it down the (now closed) waters of the Grand Canyon, hoping to make a speed record from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead.
Perhaps because I focused on Natural Resources Law and worked for The Wilderness Society, I found the description of the fighting over the dams utterly fascinating. The rest of the book was the perfect thing to read before my trip. I learned just enough about the history, the boats, the people, and the topography to have a better understanding of where I was going.
And when I got on my trip, one of the boats in our group was a dory! And even better, a woman (recently retired) on my trip was the first permanent, female park ranger in the Grand Canyon. She worked in the Grand Canyon in the 80's and remembers the chaos that the flooding water caused in the Canyon. She said they took a trip up to the dam, and she stood on top of it and the entire thing was shaking. I was so glad I went on that trip, and I'm so glad I read The Emerald Mile before I left.
No comments:
Post a Comment