Outdoor Adventures

Boredom Is Not an Option!

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

Megan Stalheim and Don Green rafted by us demonstrating the push-pull method of rowing. Brad Lee, a dentist out of Sacramento, looks on.

The wind continues to beat against us as we make our way down the Colorado River. Only Dave’s strenuous effort at the oars keeps us from floating up stream. “Go that way,” I suggest and point down the river.

The group pulls in at a tiny beach in hopes our mini-hurricane will die down. It doesn’t.

Dave develops blisters and I develop guilt. A manly-man would offer to take over at the oars.

An option floats by. Dave’s niece, Megan Stalheim, is also one of our boatmen. Don Green, a retired Probate Judge out of Martinez, California, is sitting opposite her and pushing on the oars while she pulls. It inspires me. I join the push-pull brigade.

As tough as the day is, the beauty of the River and the Canyon make our efforts worthwhile. Peggy points out a strange, creature-like rock formation and we admire a family of ducks.

Little imagination is required to turn rock formations into strange faces.

Word passes back to us that Tom wants to scout Badger Rapids. In Boatman terminology this means figuring out the best way to get through without flipping. Badger isn’t a particularly big rapid for the Colorado, but it is our first. We are allowed to be nervous.

There is good news included in the message. We will stop for the night at Jackass Camp just below the rapids. We’ve only gone 8 miles, some 3 ½ miles from our original destination, but we are eager to escape the wind.

Dave is a cautious boatman. He takes his time to study Badger Rapids from shore and then stands up in his raft for a second opinion as the river sucks us in. Time runs out. Icy waves splash over the boat and soak us. Our hands grasp the safety lines with a death grip as we are tossed about like leaves in a storm drain. Mere seconds become an eternity. And then it is over.

“Quick, Curt, I need your help,” Dave shouts. We have come out of the rapids on the opposite side of the river from the camp. The powerful current is pushing us down river. If we don’t get across we will be camping by ourselves. Adrenaline pumping, I jump up and push the oars with all my strength while Dave pulls. Ever so slowly the boat makes its way to camp.

“Chirp, chirp, chirp-chirp-chirp.” It’s dark out and some damn bird is cheerfully discussing its wormy breakfast. I roll over and groan, desperately wanting to go back to sleep. We can’t, however. It’s five AM, time to rise and shine, time to pack up, time to scarf down breakfast, time to hit the river.

“It is not five AM,” Tom argues. It is five AM in California. Arizona refuses to go on Daylight Savings time. This irritates Tom. It is really six.

As we have learned, and I might add, learned well, we are not on a ‘float and bloat’ trip. Adventure awaits us. There are cliffs to climb, waterfalls to leap off, raging side streams to ford, rapids to survive, and miles of river to row. Boredom is not an option.

A family of ducks strolls up the river bank. Photo by Don Green

Wild Winds and a Mormon Massacre

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The boats are loaded and ready to launch. Tom's wife Beth appears to be much less anxious than he is. The other passenger is Theresa Mulder.

Finally… we are ready to launch. Eighteen days and 279 miles of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon lie ahead. Ranger Peggy has checked our IDs and we are who we claim to be. The boatmen have strapped down the gear… and Tom is anxious.

The same up-canyon winds that whipped sand into our tent last night are threatening to create a Herculean task of rowing. Gusts of up to 60 MPH are predicted.

Peggy and I perform the ritual of asking a boatman if we can ride with him. It seems like a strange practice to me, designed to remind us who’s in charge. But we have entered the world where each boatman/woman is the captain of his or her ship, even if the ship is a 16 foot raft with two or three passengers.

“May I have permission to come aboard, sir?” Although it’s more like “Can we ride with you today?”

The tradition is so old that it fades into history. Democracy is not an option on a raging sea or, for that matter, in the middle of a roaring rapid. When the captain yells jump you jump.

Our boatmen are mellow people, however, good folks. There are no Captain Blighs. If they are slightly more than equal, it goes with the territory. We are committed to riding with each boatman. First up is David Stalheim.

“I’ve been applying for a permit to go on the Colorado River for 15 years,” he tells us. It makes Peggy and my successful one time, ten minute effort of obtaining a permit seem grossly unfair.

Dave Stalheim and I with that pristine, fist day on the river look. Things will go downhill.

Dave quit his job as Director of County Planning in Bellingham, Washington the day he left for this trip. He will start a new job with City Planning when he returns. He is strongly committed to sound planning and community participation. I suspect he is not popular with land developers and speculators.

We push-off from shore, excited and nervous. The wind strikes immediately, like it was waiting in ambush. “Are we moving at all?” Dave asks plaintively.

An old rock road makes its way tortuously down from the canyon rim on river left. (Left and right are determined by direction of travel.) They are important for giving directions as in “There is a raft ripping rock on river right!” Since boatmen often row with their backs facing downriver, they appreciate such information.

The old road is how people once made their way to Lee’s Ferry, which was one of the few ways to cross the Colorado River between1858 and 1929. The Ferry was named after the infamous Mormon, John Doyle Lee, who was executed by firing squad for his role in the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

The old road to Lee's Ferry.

The massacre took place near St. George, Utah in 1857, where a wagon train of immigrants from Missouri and Arkansas, the Fancher-Baker Party, were murdered by Mormons and Paiute Indians. Lee apparently persuaded the immigrants the Mormons would provide safe passage through the Indians if they would disarm. The Mormons then shot the disarmed men while their Indian allies killed the women and children.

For a while Lee hid out while running the Ferry which was given his name.

And for a while, I believed that Lee had killed some of my ancestors. My grandmother was a Fancher and her family came west right about the time of the massacre. Since the babies with the wagon train weren’t killed, my brother’s genealogical research suggested we might be descendants.

Turns out, it wasn’t so. Still, there may have been some distant cousins among those massacred. More research is needed.

After fighting the wind for what seems like hours, we finally come to the Navajo Bridge which replaced Lee’s Ferry in 1929. We are already miles behind our planned itinerary.

Lee's Ferry was replaced by the Navajo Bridge in 1929, the first bridge shown above. It has now become a walking bridge with the one behind carrying vehicle traffic.

The River Rules… in fine print

/ Curt Mekemson / 2 Comments

Our intrepid adventurers just before launch on the Colorado River. Ranger Peggy is on the far right.

 “Shall we gather by the River,” the Baptists used to sing. With us, it’s not an option. Ranger Peggy of the Grand Canyon National Park Service is giving a sermon on the Do’s and Don’ts of boating on the Colorado River. Our participation is mandatory.

I first met her when we were rigging our boats. She stopped by to check our equipment. Life vests had been dutifully piled up; stoves and bar-b-que were unpacked. Even a groover, which I will describe later, stood at attention. You don’t mess with Ranger Peggy.

She knew Tom from other river trips and was amused by his hair-do. He introduced me as the permit holder. “Tom’s in charge,” I noted. The smile dropped from her face. “You are responsible,” she said icily. “I’ll try to keep Tom under control,” I replied meekly. Yeah, fat chance that.

Bells, whistles and alarms started going off in my head. Dang, why hadn’t I read the fine print?

Tom lectures us on river safety before Ranger Peggy begins her spiel. What’s the first rule: Hang onto the boat. What’s the second rule? “Hang onto the boat,” we chant in unison. And so it goes. Tom saw his wife, Beth, go flying by him last year as he bounced through a rapid. He caught up with her down river.

If the raft flips, what do you do? Hang onto the boat! “Easier said than done,” I think. Of course we will be wearing our life vests. In fact there is a serious fine if a Park Ranger catches any of us on the river without one. As the permit holder, I pay. More fine print, so to speak.

“Your head is the best tool you have in an emergency,” Ranger Peggy lectures. Right. When the river grabs you, sucks you under the water, and beats you against a rock, stay cool.

For all of the concern about safety on the river, the Park Service seems more concerned about our behavior on shore.

Over 20,000 people float down the river annually. And 20,000 people can do a lot of damage to the sensitive desert environment. Campsites are few and far between and major ones may have to accommodate several thousand people over the year.

Picture this: 20,000 people pooping and peeing in your back yard without bathroom facilities. It ain’t pretty. So we pack out the poop. And we pee in the river…

Packing out poop makes sense. But peeing in the river, no way! I’ve led wilderness trips for 36 years and for 36 years I’ve preached a thousand times you never, never pee in the water. Bathroom chores are carried out at least 100 yards away from water and preferably farther.

The first time I line up with the guys I can barely dribble out of dismay. (And no, it isn’t just old age.)

The rules go on and on. Mainly they have to do with leaving a pristine campsite and washing our hands. Normally, I am not a rules type of guy but most of what Ranger Peggy is preaching makes sense. Sixteen people with diarrhea is, um, shitty.

And I enjoy the fact our campsites are surprisingly clean. The least we can do is leave them in the same condition we find them, if not better. The rules work.

Eating Dust

/ Curt Mekemson / 2 Comments

Two acres of paved boat ramp greet us when we arrive at Lee’s Fairy. The transport van disgorges us as the gear truck makes a quick turn and backs down the ramp. Another private party is busy rigging boats.

The dreaded pirate Steve threatens Bone with a knife and demands to know where he has buried his treasure.

From off to the right a long-haired 50-something man emerges. I think 60’s hippie or possibly the model for a Harlequin Romance cover. The pirate flag on his boat suggests otherwise. A ‘roll your own’ cigarette dangles from his lips. It’s Steve Van Dore, the last member of our group and a boatman out of Colorado.  No one in our group has met him but he comes highly recommended.

“Please let this be the truck driver,” Steve later admits is his first thought when he meets our green and purple haired trip leader, Tom Lovering.

He also confides that Tom hadn’t told him we were a smoke-free group. “On the other hand,” Steve confesses, “I didn’t tell him I am on probation.” Somehow this balances out in Steve’s mind. There is no time to become acquainted; we have work to do.

The truck we just loaded demands unloading. Everybody does everything. There are no assignments. Peggy and I become stevedores, dock workers. Piles of beer and soda and wine and food and personal gear and ammo cans and hefty ice chests quickly accumulate around the truck.

There is no shade and the desert sun beats down ferociously. It is sucked up by the black asphalt and thrown back at us. We slather on sun block and gulp down water.

The rafts are unloaded last. Pro gives a quick lesson on rigging and then escapes. We have bought their minimum support package to keep costs down and Tom has done a good job. Our outlay for the 18 day adventure is approximately $1,000 per person. The cost for a similar commercial outing can edge up to $7,000 and beyond!

Rigging our five rafts is technical but relatively easy, assuming of course one is mechanically oriented. I make no such claims. Steve’s Cat (catamaran) is already set up and in the water, its pirate flag flapping in the breeze. Our other four boats are self-bailing Sotar Rafts with aluminum frames. Tom owns his own, a blue 14 footer named Peanut. The three we have rented from Pro are yellow, 16 feet long and nameless.

If the technical aspects about rafts and raft rigging make you drool, check the excellent PRO and Sotar websites: http://www.proriver.com    http://www.sotar.com .

Tom is the last to rig his boat and it is approaching dusk. I hike down the river to find a campsite for our group while the rest boat down. Peggy and I are totally exhausted. We struggle to set up our new tent in 30 MPH winds. A van is coming to pick us up for dinner and we are late, again. The walls of the restaurant are covered with photos of rafts and rafters being trashed by rapids.

The wind storm has changed to a dust storm as we crawl into out tents. It covers everything and gets into my eyes, ears, nose and mouth. I pull out a handkerchief to cover my face. I am far too tired to make notes for Bone’s blog. I finally fall asleep with the wind ripping at our tent.

There Is No Turning Back… Running the Colorado River

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And why would a guy allow his toenails to be painted? Read on…

I didn’t sleep well. I never do the night before a big event, even when I know what to expect. This time I am clueless.

I also have an early morning assignment: fill a humongous chest with ice. It’s a precious commodity, worth its weight in cold on an 18 day river trip through the desert. Since the ice store is located on the other side of Flagstaff, the chore will add an hour to our morning.  It’s time we don’t have; we’re already behind. (I never catch up.)

Peggy and I down a hurried bran muffin and gulp a cup of watery motel coffee. I am tempted to go out to the van and make the real stuff but we have chores to complete. It is time to make the leap from life on the road to life on the river. Lap tops, cell phones, good clothes and the other accoutrements of modern civilization are stuffed into bags and dumped into the van.

Plus I have to paint my toenails. It’s a virgin experience. Grand Canyon boatmen are a superstitious bunch. Many believe their boats will flip if a person is on board with naked toes. And it’s true; boats have flipped under such circumstances. It makes no difference if the opposite also happens.

Tom lectures me, “I will not let you on my boat unless your toenails are painted.” He’s serious. Peggy dutifully applies blue polish on four of my toes. Does this mean we will only half flip?

PRO, the company that is outfitting us with three of our five rafts and miscellaneous equipment, is supposed to arrive at 11 to load our gear and transport us to Lee’s Ferry. “They are coming an hour early,” Tom reports. It’s panic time. Their big truck arrives promptly at 10:55. Maybe the staff gave us the earlier time to assure we would be ready.

Whatever. We are ready to load and loading is what we do. It’s a group effort; everyone pitches in.

There is an unwritten Commandment on private river trips: Thou Shall Do Your Share. No one is paid to pamper us. Not helping will lead to bad things, like banishment from the tribe. Sweat is pouring off of me by the time the truck is loaded. It promises to be a long, hot day.

The transport van arrives and we pile on. The adventure has begun; there is no turning back.

We head out Highway 89 retracing our route down from visiting Utah’s incredible National Parks a week earlier. A quick stop at Safeway provides deli sandwiches for lunch. Mine is ham and cheddar. We will graze on the go. Our KOA, Fat Man’s trail, and the San Francisco Peaks pass by on the left. Soon we are in Navajo country. The road to the Grand Canyon, Cameron and the Little Colorado River join the list of things passed. At Bitter Springs we jog left on Alt 89 and start our descent to Lees Ferry, the beginning point of all Grand Canyon river trips.

Mad Bombers, Homeland Security and a Poopy Cat

/ Curt Mekemson / 5 Comments

Great adventures start with the mundane. For example, did you cancel the paper? Common sense (and probably your mother) admonish that devious burglars have nothing better to do than to cruise the streets looking for rolled newspapers in front of your home.

Effie the Cat wears reindeer horns and a red bow. She is not happy. Check out the claws digging into our Berber rug.

Of even more importance, what about the cat? Back when Peggy and I led a normal life we had a cat named Effie. Vacations meant I would carefully measure out twice as much food and water as she could possibly eat or drink and four times the kitty litter she might use. The likelihood of her pooping all over the house was much greater that the likelihood of her starving. As a reward for my thoughtfulness, she would shed enough fur in our absence to fill a dump truck.

Now we are travelling full time, these issues have faded away. Instead we have food to worry about. Lots of it. Tom Lovering, the trip leader, his wife Beth and their friend Jamie Wilson arrived in Flagstaff three days in advance of our Colorado River trip. Their car was packed to the brim with empty ammo cans and other water tight boxes waiting to be filled with food and the miscellaneous paraphernalia of river trips.

The Department of Homeland Security delayed their journey at Hoover Dam. The Agency is paranoid about mad bombers. Its normally low sense of humor dropped to zero when the agents saw all the ammo cans. The whole car had to be unpacked.

Tom is even more paranoid about food than DHS is about terrorists. He’s an old restaurateur who had spent months planning the menu.  Each dish has been tested several times and quantities have been measured down to the teaspoon. Recipes are spelled out in minute detail. We will eat gourmet on the trip… or die. The options are clear.

Beth, Peggy and I are dispatched to Sam’s Club with marching orders. We fill seven large shopping carts with food. Think of it this way. There are 16 people going on an 18 day trip and eating three meals a day. This equals 864 individual meals.

When we arrive back at the motel, Tom and Jamie have set up a staging area. Food needs to be organized by meal and day and then stuffed in the appropriate containers. We have yet to shop for perishables and more food is coming from Sacramento. Our room, we discover, is to be the recipient of all food. There is barely room to sleep. I begin to think fondly of Effie the Cat.

The next day is more relaxed. Other trip members begin to arrive and Peggy and I assume air port shuttle duty. Tom takes time for a makeover into something resembling an English Punk Rocker from the 70s with green and purple hair. Homeland Security was right to be suspicious.

Tom prepares for makeover into English Punk Rocker by bleaching his hair. Any resemblance to an elderly lady on a cruise ship is purely coincidental.

The results. DHS was right to be suspicious about this man.

Exploring the Grand Canyon by Car, Mule, Foot, Helicopter and Boat

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The Grand Canyon provides a vast panorama of ever changing color and seemingly endless space.

“Golly, what a gully,” President William Howard Taft was heard to mutter when he first saw the Grand Canyon.

Teddy Roosevelt was more profound: “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”

Each point along the Grand Canyon rim provides a unique and rewarding view.

Both of these thoughts are rumbling through my brain as I think about the 18 days Peggy and I are about to spend rafting 280 miles down the Colorado River.

Few people come away from the Grand Canyon untouched and we are no exception.Its vastness, beauty, and geology have pulled us back time and again, as have its natural and cultural history.

There are many ways to explore the Canyon. For the vast majority of people, some 5 million a year, this involves a drive up to the South Rim and a quick tour of the most popular overlooks.

Sitting on the edge for an hour or two enhances the experience several times over. Hanging out on the rim for a few days while roughing it at a campground or luxuriating in one of the lodges, is even better.

For those wanting for a bird’s eye view, a helicopter trip is a tempting option. (National Park rules limit the obtrusiveness that helicopters and airplanes flying in the Canyon would otherwise create. Specific routes and altitudes are mandated.)

Beyond these more sedentary approaches to the Canyon lies adventure. Even a half hour hike down one of the more popular trails provides a trip through millions of years of history, incredible views and the heart-pounding thought that only a few feet separate you from a thousand foot tumble.

Longer hikes and especially backpacking trips provide a perspective that only a small percentage of Canyon visitors ever have.

"Don't even think about climbing on my back," this Grand Canyon mule seems to say.

If you want to visit the inner canyon but fear you’re lifetime warranty will expire hiking out, check out the sure-footed mules that carry tourists in and out of the Canyon. It’s an outing your rear will remember for years.

At some point or the other in my life, starting with a Rim drive in 1968, I have experienced all of these approaches to visiting the Grand Canyon including trips by mule and helicopter. (Our son Tony provided the latter while he was working for Papillon.)

My most challenging journeys have been six backpack trips into the Canyon, including a week alone. Read about the latter misadventure in “The Tale of a Tail” under Stories on the sidebar.

I view our 18 day raft trip down the river as an exclamation point to my explorations of the inner canyon.  Even here there are options. For example, commercial companies offer trips on large, motorized pontoon boats. These tours are quicker and definitely less work… but my sense is they lack the same level of intimacy and adventure as a private trip.

Rafting the Colorado is a Rapid Learning Experience

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What we have to look forward to: the boat eating Lava Rapids on the Colorado River.

Our Grand Canyon adventure started over a year ago. Tom Lovering called with an urgent message. I had to immediately stop whatever I was doing and climb on-line to sign up for the Grand Canyon Colorado River permit lottery. Apparently the permits are hard to obtain, somewhat harder than walking out of a casino with a million dollars.

I am somewhat immune to Tom’s last minute schemes but the charming Peggy who loves water, loves rivers, and loves sunshine immediately jumped on-line and did the necessary clicking. Early the next morning we received an Email from the National Park Service saying we had won. It took me a lot longer to persuade Tom than it did for the NPS people to inform us.

I am not, by nature, a white water man. I put running rapids right up there with dangling on rock cliffs, playing Kamikaze on ski slopes, and riding the latest death-defying roller coaster at Four Flags.  My approach to outdoor adventure is more in the nature of risk taking than thrill seeking. Consequently, I have only had two real white water rafting experiences.

The first was with Tom on the Mokelumne River in California in the 70s. Within five minutes he had dumped us into something known as Dead Man’s Hole. “Paddle!” he screamed. River rats love to give their favorite rapids scary names such as Satan’s Pool and Suicide Bend. They can wax eloquently for hours over the qualities of these death dealing anomalies. Our detour “was a learning experience,” Tom explained as we emptied the water out of the raft and lungs.

My second white water trip was on the Middle Fork of the American River. This time I was travelling with Mark Dubois, his wife Sharon Negri and a friend. Mark, sometimes known as the Gentle Giant, once chained himself to a rock in the bottom of the Stanislaus River to stop the Army Corps of Engineers from flooding the canyon with water. He also co-founded Friends of the River, an organization dedicated to saving the wild rivers of the west.

Our trip was rather mellow up until we came to the large rapid. Mark was having us do such things as close our eyes and lean backwards out of the raft with our hair touching the water so we could ‘listen’ to the river. He’s a spiritual type guy, one with nature. Apparently Nature had rejected me. “Now, Curt,” he directed as we approached the rapid known as Guaranteed to Drown or some other similar name, “I want you to climb out of the raft and float down it.”

“I know, I know,” I groused as I rolled out of the raft into the icy waters. “It’s a learning experience.

And that’s how I classify our trip down the Colorado, a learning experience. But I know it will be more. I’ve visited the Grand Canyon many times over the years and have always come away with a feeling of awe and reverence each time. How could a trip through the Canyon’s inner core be any different?

On Being Squirrelly

/ Curt Mekemson / 3 Comments

(Today marks the beginning a series of blogs related to an 18 day trip Peggy, Bone and I made down the Colorado River in May and June. It starts with us arriving in Flagstaff…)

Bone tries on his Grand Canyon/Colorado River life jacket.

Five squirrels with long tufted ears just went charging past our van… in a row. I think it must be love and Peggy agrees. We speculate a female is leading the boys on a glorious romp. “Catch me if you can!” she giggles. The Albert Squirrels are excited to make babies and perpetuate the race, or species, if you want to be biologically correct. Lust is in their hearts. Or maybe it’s just the guys working out territorial differences.

We are located at a KOA in Flagstaff, Arizona as we prepare for our trip down the Colorado River. It’s a big campground. Everywhere we look men and women wearing yellow shirts are busily preparing for the onslaught of summer tourists. It feels like a beehive, or squirrel’s nest. The camp cook tells us 28 people work here. Jobs are highly specialized. The man who straightens out misplaced rocks stopped by to chat with us this morning.

Yesterday we watched two employees struggle for an hour on laying out the base of Teepee. It had all the flavor of an old Laurel and Hardy film. They kept measuring and remeasuring the angles, first one way and then the other. I expected one to leap up and start chasing the other around camp with a 2×4.

We wonder what the Kachina deities who live in the San Francisco Mountains overlooking our campground think about the squirrelly activity taking place beneath them. There are bunches of them up there, over 300 according to Hopi lore, and each one has a lesson to teach, wisdom to disperse. They come down from their perch in the winter to share their knowledge. I suspect they would have made quick work of the Teepee project.

Peggy and I hike up the mountain following Fat Man’s trail. Of course there is no irony here as we desperately try to beat our bodies into shape for the Canyon trip. The trail’s name suggests this is a gentle start. Instead it takes us straight up into a snowstorm. The Kachinas are rumored to mislead people under such circumstances.

Bone celebrates having received official Coast Guard approval for his PFD (life vest) from LT Tony Lumpkin (Lumpy).

Once they had the mountain to themselves but now they have competition. Technology has arrived. Tower after tower bristling with arrays of tracking, listening and sending devices look out over the sacred lands of the Hopi, Navaho and other Native Americans. It’s hard not to think Big Brother is watching. Or to be disturbed by the towers’ visual intrusion. But their presence means we can get cell phone coverage and climb on the Internet. We are addicted to these modern forms of communication so it is hypocritical to whine, at least too much.

But back to the squirrel theme, Peggy and I are a little squirrely ourselves as we go through our gear and get ready for our grand adventure. I am nervous. This is my first multi-day river trip. What have we gotten ourselves into? Do we have the equipment we need? Will we survive the rapids? What will the people who are joining us be like? What challenges will we face that we are ill prepared for? There are many questions and few answers.

Bone too must get ready. Peggy makes him a bright red life jacket and Lieutenant Tony Lumpkin (Lumpy) of the Coast Guard certifies the life vest is approved for travel down the Colorado.

SPECIAL NOTE: Bone will be travelling at the end of August to the unique event in the remote Nevada Desert known as Burning Man. In preparation for this adventure, I have added a new tale to the story section. If you’ve ever wondered what this modern-day extravaganza is about, check out the story.