The Day We Forgot the Camera
Jerry Nolan
Grand Junction, Colorado
July 23, 2005
Straight from work I drove to the Westwater Ranger Station in Utah where I would meet my wife, Marci. She called just before she left our house so I expected to catch up to her along the way. I first glimpsed her vehicle just as we pulled into the parking lot. Perfect timing I thought to myself.
�I didn�t see the antelope this time.� She commented.
�Neither did I�. We�d been doing the Friday after work shuttle for several weeks and each time we would see a lone antelope on the desert road to the ranger station.
Saturday morning we were a little later than usual arriving at the Loma boat ramp. There was a large assortment of rafts, canoes, and inflatables preparing for their trip on the twenty-five mile float on the Colorado River from Loma, Colorado to the Westwater Ranger Station. A few lucky ones might have a permit to continue on through Westwater Canyon, but most wouldn�t. Most of these trips would spend one or two nights camping and enjoying friends on a scenic float trip.
Marci and I had our canoe ready to launch within a few minutes while the other groups continued loading their gear while they waited for their shuttle drivers to return. On the way back from parking the car I stopped at the registration book to sign in and see who the other groups were. I was especially curious about the four rafts with two full size Colorado flags and two full U.S. flags. Everyone in the group wore blue polo shirts. I couldn�t find any entries in the registration book that matched this group. The book showed about eight groups launching that day. I thought it strange that they all reported Grand Junction, Colorado, as their hometown. There were several Utah plates in the parking lot. Obviously not everyone had signed the registration book.
A new sign this year warned campers about bears. Dan and Warren reported seeing a cub on this section of river last year. I thought the bear might have come down from Douglas Pass but it seemed that would be a lot of desert for a cub bear to cross. Maybe it came down from the Grand Mesa and made its way long the river, but still that is a long distance. The drought has forced bears to come down from the Grand Mesa and into the towns Palisade and Grand Junction in search of food. We were 25 or 30 miles downstream of those sightings.
We backed our canoe into the river in front of the dozens of people on the ramp. Even though it was still early in the day, it was still warm enough to warrant soaking my life jacket in the river before putting it on. I also soaked my hat in the river. It was a bit of a shock when the water from the hat ran down my spine, but it felt good on my head. I reset the GPS on the thwart in front of me and looked at my watch. 9:36 AM. It was a late start for us.
Our stroke quickly assumes the rhythm of marathon paddlers, our preferred technique, except in whitewater where we use whitewater technique. With whitewater technique we slow down and use typical whitewater paddle strokes. Sometimes it�s hard to make the decision when to slowdown and switch techniques. Hopefully we make the switch before the river starts pouring into the canoe. Paddling hard is invigorating, a lifetime sport, a great way to stay fit. But Colorado is whitewater country. Colorado canoeists seem to float instead of paddle. Who can blame them with their long heavy paddles? Most Colorado paddlers have never even seen marathon style paddling. They wouldn�t have a clue how to equip themselves for fitness paddling. I�m sure the concept has never occurred to them or if it did, they wouldn�t have a clue how to go about it. As marathon style paddlers we are the odd balls and we usually get hard stares, and occasional comments, from other boaters on the river where lazy float trips with beer in hand is the norm.
As Marci and I hit our groove I estimate our paddling time will be about three and a half hours. The GPS shows mostly eight miles per hour readings and some over ten in the faster sections of river. The flow is about 5000 cfs and still dropping. Each Saturday morning trip has been getting slower by about 15 minutes as the river drops. The river peaked at about 30,000 this year thanks to the first good snow pack in four years. It will drop to about 2,500 in a couple of weeks and our times will approach four hours. The more we paddle the slower we seem to get, but that�s because of the decreasing flows, not our paddling speed!
For the first time in a long time we have clouds instead of the hot sun. I spot a couple of deer swimming in the river ahead of us. We continue towards them without altering our normal line on the river. If we continue this way our paths will intersect. Who has the right of way? We�d like to get a close look at them so we continue on. It soon becomes apparent that the deer decide that we have the right of way and turn around and swim back to the bank from where they started. Looks like a young male with an early growth of antlers and a female.
The river is flat and wide with 500 foot sandstone cliffs on both sides. Above on the right are popular mountain bike riding trails including the Kokopelli Trail that can be ridden for over 100 miles through canyon and desert to Moab, Utah, provided you can figure out how to carry enough water for such a journey. Sometimes you can see bikers on the trail high above the river at the edge of the cliff. I looked up without loosing cadence with my partner and didn�t see anyone.
As we round a sweeping bend in the river and look up river we see a large flotilla of rafts, inflatable kayaks, and touring canoes. They are miniatures dwarfed by distance and huge canyon walls. We close on them steadily and prepare to absorb their stares. As we pass through them we are careful not to look them in the eye and tend to our business of efficient cruising. Summer rain starts its dance on the river. I wondered if the floaters would stay warm. They probably didn�t even know that putting on their life jackets would be enough to keep them comfortable. Being on the Colorado River without a life jacket is uncomfortable for me no matter what the weather conditions. I knew the rain would be short lived as it always is in this area. I could already see blue sky above the sandstone cliffs downriver.
As we reach a designated campground we encounter another group just breaking camp and getting started on the river. In another mile we will encounter an eagle nesting area. There is a large bottom with cotton wood trees. In every tree there are two or three eagles. Some are mature with white head and large brown feathers. Others are completely brown, almost black. Maybe some of these are golden eagles. You can paddle right under them and they are undisturbed. Are they habituated to the river runners or do they just feel safe up in their trees? We always see blue herons on this river. They will wait on the bank until you are almost downstream of them before they will take flight and fly across and downstream in front of you.
The GPS shows we are eight miles from our start. I look at my watch and it shows we have been paddling for exactly one hour.
�Time to stop and drink.� I call out to Marci. We both put down our paddles and start gulping our drinks. With both no one controlling the canoe we drift quickly into some swift shallows of a gravel bar. I cut my drink short to guide the boat back into the deep mainstream.
We pass a shortcut at an island. This shortcut disappears at low water. At this water level the shortcut still looked good but we skip it anyway.
As a long stretch of river opens before us, the blue sky meets the sun and brightens the distant cliffs with browns, reds, and tans that are spotted with the deep sage greens of Juniper, Pinion, Cottonwood and Willow. It is clear and colorful after the fresh morning rain and a breath of relief from the haze and smoke of the wild fires in recent days.
We sight a couple of rafts ahead. I�m surprised to see them taking the river right route that has slow water. The left channel offers fast water and lively whitewater. We choose the left channel starting river-left then shooting over to river right after the first drop to run the eddy line along right side of the waves. I glance down to see the GPS register 12 mph. If this were a race this would be the way to go. Maybe I should host a race on this section of river I think to myself. No, forget it, there just aren�t any racers around here. The area doesn�t have a big enough population to support canoe and kayak racing. Even whitewater racing is dead these days. Kayak rodeo and freestyle is all the young paddlers are interested in. I�m an antique and an odd ball around here. No wonder other boaters stare.
As we reach the turn in the river before heading toward Mee Canyon we notice a Centennial Canoe Outfitters encampment. All their canoes are on high ground and their tents are still up. They must be out hiking. It�s a commercial trip that takes vacationers from all over the world on canoe trips on this section of the river. We encounter them often here and on the Gunnison River which is also near our home in Grand Junction. (The name of Grand Junction comes from the junction of the Colorado River, formerly the Grand River, and the Gunnison River. They should have named it Grandgun, instead of Grand Junction.)
Straight down river we can now see Mee Canyon. We immediately notice that there was a recent wild fire. One side of a hill is gray while the other is tan where the grass didn�t burn. The hills below the cliffs show artistic swirling patterns of gray burn areas and unburned tan grassy areas. We are certain it burned between our trip one week ago and today. We wonder if the fire started by lightning or a careless camper. Fifteen years ago a careless camper dragged his burning tent across the dry grass to the river. The fire destroyed most of the 100 year-old Cottonwood trees in the area. I toured the burnt area with the BLM rangers and the damage was devastating. Now fifteen years later the cottonwoods have grown back and are green and healthy. It looks like this fire didn�t kill the cottonwoods this time.
We see a group camped at Little Black Rocks at the mouth of Mee Canyon. They have their tent pitched on the burnt grass. We see them hiking up the trail into Mee Canyon. About eight miles up the canyon there is a huge cavern carved out by a stream that circles 300 yards back into the cavern and forms an island in the middle. I don�t know anyone who has successfully hiked from the river to this canyon although I know plenty of folks who have tried. The canyon is easier to access from above by four-wheel drive roads and hiking trails. Even from there it�s not easy to get to, but if you go through the effort, you might as well visit the nearby arches of Rattlesnake Canyon that are the single largest collection of arches outside of Arches National Park.
As we pass Mee Canyon we sight a Peregrine Falcon gliding over us. We see the familiar multi-colored swirls of cliff that signals the entrance to Black Rocks. Black Rocks is a place where the river narrows to ten feet at one point from resistant pre-Cambrian gneiss. The black rock stands in stark contrast to the surrounding sandstone and causes the Colorado River to get a little pushy. At higher water levels the river becomes very pushy. Above 10,000 cfs canoes start getting tipped over from the violent swirls and whirlpools. We slow down through this section and choose a route on river right. Next weekend there won�t be enough water to take that route and the left side, the drought route, will be the only choice.
Black Rocks, with its clean sand beaches, offers several nice camping locations. We use it as our lunch spot on each Saturday�s run. Today we choose the same spot we chose last Saturday for its shade. It was my turn to prepare the lunch so I get out the single Army surplus MRE for both of us. �Macaroni and Chili�. I use the chemical heater to heat it. I only get lunch duty about one out of ten trips. Marci does it all the rest of the time. She usually prepares sandwiches on homemade bread, fresh salad, and home-style potato chips. She makes a better lunch than I do.
We finish our lunch and begin backing the canoe out when Marci points out a snake coming out of a natural black rock pot at water level. It seems to take a long time for the snake to clear his entire length of the pothole. The snake swims up to me. He is close enough to reach out and pet but I choose not to. His head looks diamond shaped but the markings tell me he is a common Gopher snake. The snake travels a short distance with us and then swims away.
After we leave Black Rocks our GPS shows we are cruising around seven mph. Are we getting tired or is the river getting slower? We pass McDonald Canyon on river right. McDonald Canyon has some nice petroglyphs. There is supposed to be the only known petroglyph of a Spanish conquistador in the canyon. Marci and I have explored this canyon and found plenty of nice petroglyphs but never found the conquistador. Ahead is one of the longest, flattest, widest sections of the river with 500 foot cliffs on river left and a quarter mile wide bottom between the river and the cliff and the right. We paddle steadily along the right bank that is overgrown with tamarisk.
The monotony of this section is suddenly broken when I sight a bear going into the water ahead of us on river right. �Marci, there�s a bear.� I say thinking that I am probably mistaken. But the shape is clearly that of bear. We stop paddling and drift. As we approach with the slow current, the bear sees us. He holds his position and does not run. We are really close, about 30 yards. I begin back paddling to hold our position. The bear is sitting in the water shoulder deep. He drinks. He�s cooling himself. I allow the boat to point upstream to make it easier to continue observing the bear. The bear continues to watch us. Thirty yards of water is our buffer zone. We know the bear can�t swim as fast as we can paddle and the bear knows we can�t paddle toward him as fast as he can disappear into the tamarisk. This goes on for several minutes until the bear gets up, turns, and walks out of the river, all the time keeping his eyes on us. He takes a few steps downstream and stops to excrete bright red excrement. He must be eating the red berries in the area. I don�t remember seeing red berries in this area. I worry that there is not enough food for him, but this bear looks very healthy and well nourished. He appears to be an adolescent weighing about 150 lbs. He turns in the tamarisk and disappears. I�m impressed that he can walk through the tamarisk so easily. It looks so impenetrable.
Marci and I are so excited and happy to have seen this bear that we can hardly contain ourselves. We hope the bear will have a good home in this area.
Marci points out a flock of wild turkeys along the bank. They are clumsy, slow, lazy, and awkward as they make their way to high ground one by one. How do these things survive the coyotes and cougars that inhabit this area?
As we cruise into the Westwater Ranger station boat ramp we maneuver between rafts waiting to begin their trip down the canyon. One of the rafters, the volunteer ranger judging by his BLM cap and shirt, says, �We were admiring the rhythm of your paddling.�
� I just follow her.� I reply and happy with the compliment. I tell them about our bear sighting and they seem pleased to hear about it.
�Marci, look how long it took us.� I say holding my watch so she can see it. I predicted 3 hours and 30 minutes. The watch indicates 3 hours and 32 minutes.
Driving away we top a hill on the desert road and see three buzzards scavenging some road kill. Sadly it was our antelope that we had always seen on the Friday afternoon shuttle drive and that we missed seeing yesterday. Some jerk had to be driving too fast and killed the poor thing sometime between yesterday�s shuttle and today.