Cataract Canyon on the Colorado River - Ladies ONLY

Brant, Lisa, Nicole, Joelle, Jocelyn, Aimee, Niles, Karin, Ellen, Senta, Amy

Last fall, I started planning a rafting trip on the Colorado River from Moab to Lake Powell. It took about nine months for nine ladies to make arrangements for work and kids and everything else. And the time finally came...  There were five girls from Book Club (Aimee, Nicole, Joelle, Jocelyn, Karin), one new friend from Chicago (Senta), one old friend from lots of Florida vacations and one triathlon trip (Ellen), and two new friends of hers (Lisa and Amy). We met up on Sunday morning for a quick drive to Moab and a hike to Morning Glory Arch in Negro Bill's Canyon in 100F+ heat and sun and tons of poison ivy. We had to buy a jug of water from a family at the trailhead because we were somewhat unprepared.

Aimee, Senta, Nicole, Ellen, Lisa with Morning Glory Arch above us.
 

While still sweaty and slightly dehydrated, we checked in with M-Y-K-E at Adrift Adventures to pick up our river bags and our ammo boxes and drop off all our drinks. (Really, it was a lot of drinks for not that many girls.) Myke gave me a lot of ribbing for working him over for a deal and for insisting that he put no toddlers, no teenagers, and no men on our trip. I didn't think I was that tough of a negotiator, but we did pay about half of what the trip cost if we had signed up that day, and it was just us and the two sweet and sensitive young guides at our service.

We cleaned up for a second in our swanky Sleep Inn rooms and had a delicious fancy dinner at Desert Bistro. Then back to the hotel to pack up all our gear for an early start the next morning.

Senta, Nicole, Amy, Joelle, Karin, Jocelyn, Lisa, Ellen, Aimee

On Monday morning, crazy Dr. D took us on a 30 minute ride up Potash Road to the boat ramp. We were out of cell service halfway up the road and everyone (except me) promptly freaked out for a second, then eased into the out-of-touch experience. We met our guides, Niles and Brant, at the boat ramp and found that Niles is the son of Ellen's long-time friend. He is TWENTY years old, and he is in charge of us. Brant is 25, and just as young as Niles. Once we got over the phone thing, we were super excited to hit the water.  

The intrepid boatmen, Brant and Niles. I think they were shocked by us. They haven't had enough girlfriends or wives to anticipate how weird it was going to be.

We had a triple rig of 16-foot boats with a motor so we just had to lounge on the boat and eat snacks and cold drinks. We were pulled over by State Park Police and NPS Rangers who checked the guys' papers.

Brant and Niles look for all the right paperwork for State Park Police.

Senta in Canyonlands

Joelle, Aimee, Jocelyn, Nicole

I was the first one to swim. It's weird that I turned out to be the biggest scaredy-cat on the trip.

The views in Canyonlands National Park were beautiful in every direction.

We did a lot of this.

We stopped for a short hike to an alcove in Canyonlands National Park.


We stopped again for lunch and another swim. The water was a chilly 66^o and really sandy. When our lazy day of floating and swimming was over, the guys found a nice beach and they set up a kitchen and a groover station (bathroom) with the most beautiful view. We pulled out a bunch of tumbleweeds to put up four tents really close to each other, just to be cozy. We bathed and washed our hair in the river (not that clean!). The guys made fish tacos and cake for dinner. Everybody was tired so we kind of went right to bed and right to sleep.

In the morning, we ate eggs and ham and packed up camp. We headed down the river, but our engine quit. The guys worked on it for a while, but they said that our schedule didn't really require a motor, so we just floated for a while. We pulled over on a beach to wait for another guide and six additional rafters to arrive by jetboat. This older guide (the guys said he was early-30's, but if that's true, he never wore sunblock!) did in fact fix our motor and made a few jokes.

It was serious business from then on. The boats were separated and the engines were stowed. We all put on life jackets and helmets. We got a safety lesson and a whitewater lesson with a bunch of scary directions: If you don’t give us the ok sign, we’ll put the boat and your friends in greater danger to get to you faster. If you fall out, don’t swim to the bank. If you’re trapped under the boat, try to get out by going in one direction only. If you die, may God have mercy on your soul.

There were about 26 rapids in this section of the river, and our adorable 25-year-old boatman had not been down Cataract this year, and had only done it three or four times before. The river at this point was flowing at about 20,000 cfs. We were all nervous. Joelle had been tossed from a boat and overturned in one on a trip in Laos. Lisa was afraid of water anyway. Nicole didn’t have enough life insurance. Jocelyn is kind of hard to perturb. After the first wave hit me in the face and knocked  the air out of my lungs, I was determined to be terrified for the whole day. I would have been knocked out of the boat several times had I not held on to the chicken line (rope around the edge of the raft) for all I was worth. We had to bail with a five-gallon bucket after every other rapid and it was hard work and made me more nervous. We did about 20 of the rapids before we stopped for a recon of the biggest obstacles. 

Aimee, Lisa, Nicole

We stopped for a break so the guides could walk out on some rocks to scope out Big Drop 2 including Little Niagara, The Claw (which is now a “hole” which means a big drop into a huge standing wave), and Satan’s Gut. Those are Class 4 rapids. Class 6 rapids are not boat-able, so this was quantitatively crazy. I didn’t scope out the rapids. I didn’t want to know the names of the features, I didn't want to think about it any more than I had to, and I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t have a choice, so I tightened my life jacket (If you can't breathe, you can't drown) and strapped on my helmet and held on to that chicken line.


I'm waving goodbye...forever.

Thought I'd try getting swept down the river without a boat just before Big Drop 2. I only considered it for a second.

The other two boats went into the Big Drop before us, and their rides didn’t seem to be too crazy, although watching a boat go through the rapids and being in a boat going through the rapids are not comparable things, so I don’t know what it was like for them. We headed out with a somewhat apprehensive captain and crew. Our boat hit the Ledge Wave sideways and Brant got knocked out of his seat and almost out of the boat. We hit some other wave (maybe the bottom of Little Niagara?) hard and our boat filled up with water. As in: it was as full as it could be. Water was sloshing in and out over the edge. Brant later reported that after he regained his perch and the oars, he got in four or five strokes before we hit The Claw which went straight down and then straight up about 15 feet. Our boat went almost vertical, then slammed down upside-up…which is good, because I would have died if it went over. Not that flipping the boat would have killed me, just that I had already decided that I would give up if I got any more scared. I was just going to give up on surviving. It was shocking to me that my connection to life is so tenuous. During the next few days, I realized I don’t feel very tough, and I certainly am not survivor material, not the reality show kind and not the kind in reality. Our boat weighed like four tons by now, full of us and all our stuff and all the water possible. I was surprised that it was still floating.

Niles's boat with Karin and Amy on this side and Senta and Ellen on the other. Niles has done this canyon a few more times than Brant, but this was the first time this year for both of them. They both say that have not flipped a boat, "commercially".

Both the other boats had pulled into an eddy after Big Drop 2 as previously planned. Apparently a boat full of water is not navigable, so Brant couldn’t get ours over to them. As we passed the beautifully calm water of the eddy, I seriously considered jumping out of our boat. I didn’t want to be river rafting any more, but I had tossed my fate in with those girls and I just hyperventilated and held on tighter. We took another couple of huge direct hits right into the biggest part of the waves that were in front of us. Brant said, "Good job holding on, ladies." I guess it's easier on him if we don't end up swimming, and we really didn't want to make his job harder, so we held on. He yelled for us to BAIL, which sounds like “jump out of the boat” but which means “get the water out of the boat”. Unfortunately, our bail bucket had been violently ripped away by one of the huge waves. It hit me on its way out and I have a huge bruise on my thigh to prove it. Lisa, Nicole and I tried bailing with our hands, which means that we were flipping water in each other’s faces while the river sloshed in and out over the edge of the boat.  We were all choking, so we quit doing that after a couple of minutes. Joelle tried kicking water out with her dainty little foot and Jocelyn held onto the Oreos that were threatening to float away. Brant managed to get the boat into an eddy and onto a beach. I didn’t get out then, because I knew I wouldn’t get back on the boat if I did. I only barely thought my chances of survival were better sticking with the guide, my friends, and the food and water than getting out and free-climbing the 2,000 foot cliff and hiking 30 miles alone in the wilderness. One of the other boats gave us a couple of buckets and we bailed 5,000 pounds of water out of the boat.

 

Brant was shaken, I was on the verge of dying, Joelle and Jocelyn were calm, and Lisa and Nicole were quietly freaked out. We had a few more rapids to do, so we plowed right through them and no one let go or fell out and and we made it to the lunch stop. We didn't lose our (borrowed) buckets again, but Nicole did get smacked in the chin with one of them. We needed more lectures on bucket management and bucket safety.

Lunch break on Day 2: Joelle, Senta, Lisa, Jocelyn, Aimee, Nicole, Amy, Karin, Ellen

The bruise on my leg is about an hour old in this picture. It's more impressive now.

I can't believe we didn't die. I was so sure we would.

The guides put our boats back together and put the motor back on and started looking for a campsite. They found a nice beach with space for the groover and the kitchen on the water and an “upstairs” that looked like the surface of the moon with a weird grey color and huge mud cracks. Jocelyn and Joelle and I put our tent near the water where it was breezy. Nicole was down by the water too, and everybody else was upstairs.

The "upstairs" tent space was weird. These mud cracks were about three inches wide and a foot deep. That is me in the tent with a magnifying mirror. Yes, Ellen had packed one and I spent a good two hours staring in it trying to fix my contacts. My eyes were irritated and light-sensitive the whole time. Luckily, I'm a complainer so I got a lot of sympathy.

The guys made vegetable lasagna and carrot cake in Dutch ovens for dinner. They made a campfire for us too, even though it was too hot for it. It was the perfect ambiance though, and we talked about the stars and whatever else a bunch of moms and wives who were without children and husbands might think of. It was a hilarious conversation and I laughed as hard as I’ve laughed in the past five years and I felt like a different person.

Lisa, Aimee, Niles try out a hot campfire on a hot night.



We stayed up until about 11 pm, then headed to our tents for sleeping. I didn’t sleep. I laid there for a couple hours thinking my post-traumatic-stressy and -disordered thoughts. It felt like the river was running right through my brain. Beavers kept jumping into the river with a loud splash. Mice and toads were scurrying around our tent and spiders were crawling on it. I walked to the groover, which made me afraid about cougars. I did every yoga breathing exercise I could think of so I could just go to sleep. I didn't know what time it was. Eventually, I gave up on calming myself down and tried something else: I headed over to the boats where our young guides were sleeping.

1 am, Wednesday morning

Me: Hey guys. Hey. Hey. I need some help.

Niles: WHAT HAPPENED?

Me: Of course nothing happened. I'm a little freaked out so I can't sleep.

Niles: So what happened?

Me: Really nothing happened. I just wanted to say that I'm having a panic attack.

Brant: Hmmm. Have you seen the stars? Can you see the Milky Way?

Me: I just feel like I could die any second.

Brant: Yeah, camping can be weird.

Me: It's just that I can't stop picturing that flash flood washing away our tent.

Brant: Have you ever been camping? This is what it's like.

Me: I think I've had a psychotic break.

Brant: Ummm, it is kind of chilly by the water.

Me: I know it's crazy, but I have this real sense of my impending death.

(crickets.)

Me: Well, maybe I'd feel better if I was upstairs.

Brant: That's a good idea.

Niles: Maybe you would. Great. See you later.

So I moved upstairs to crash in Ellen, Amy, and Lisa’s tent. They kindly made space for me and I went straight to sleep. In the morning, I found that Joelle and Jocelyn hadn’t even noticed that I was gone. So much for safety in numbers and the buddy system and all!

The next day, Niles said, "Did you sleep better upstairs?" I mumbled, "yeah thanks" without looking at him. For the rest of the day, every time Brant offered a hand to get up or down a big step or to get my bag on the boat, I didn't look at him and I didn't take his help. I was so embarrassed. I consider myself to be a brave person and it was devastating to discover that I am not brave and I am not reckless. (My story from "tell us a hidden talent" roundtable around the campfire the night before was about my hitchhiking from St. George to Tijuana and back. I really did that. I was honestly more scared to sleep by the side of this river than I was jumping in strangers' cars. I'm smarter now, but it mostly feels like I'm way less cool.) It was a little bit of a bummer to find out that I am such a solid mom and wife figure that my showing up to the two river guides' camp in my pajamas (ok-stretch pants and a long-sleeve T) illicited more surprise and annoyance from them than anything else. I consider myself to be friendly and loyal and all that, but I was disoriented at feeling really alone in the middle of this crowd of friends and mountain lions. So I thought about all that for a couple of hours in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere and I found that I couldn't stop thinking about it when I wanted to. As soon as I felt safer, I was quickly comfortable with my newly discovered position in life as a not-brave, not-reckless, hot-only-to-my-husband, not-alone friend as the fourth person in a three-person tent and I promptly fell asleep.  I was just left with the embarrassment in the morning, but seeing how I AM NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN, I shouldn't run into the guides again, and my friends seem to be the forgiving type, so no harm done.

Leaving Camp #2

Wednesday morning, we woke up to French toast for breakfast and the most beautiful view.  We loaded into the boats for a short ride to Dark Canyon. We hiked past ginormous tumbleweeds to a little waterfall and swimming hole. Brant, Nicole and Jocelyn jumped in. I’m not big into jumping off things, so I carefully lowered myself into the cold water and swam around long enough to get a picture.

Amy, Ellen, Nicole, Aimee, Jocelyn

 

Senta, Lisa, Joelle, Brant, Amy, Nicole, Karin, Ellen, Jocelyn, Niles, Aimee

We hiked back out to the river and the guys made lunch on the boat. The best views of the trip were on the last day.

Aimee and Karin

My biggest problem on the trip were my contacts. I must have had sunblock in my eyes all day, every day, because my eyes stung and burned in the sun and watered. I need eye surgery.

I think I had the most injuries with two big bruises on my legs and this little cut from kneeling on diamond plating.

We jumped into the river and floated off much faster than the boat. We had a scary moment when we were getting back in the boat and the guys had to turn on the engine to get away from the cliff and Nicole was still in the water, nearing the back of the boat. She screamed instead of giving the regular "kill motor" sign. Brant promptly picked her up and threw her in the boat. It was sobering, but Niles predicted our excitable state and pre-emptively said, "This is not a story. Nothing happened."

We sadly arrived at Hite Marina in Lake Powell, 45 miles and 54 hours after we started. I felt like a changed person. I feel like I’m only just barely alive, but not like I actually almost died. We rode in a van back to Moab to get our cars and drop off our river bags. We had good burgers and shakes at Milt’s.

It was epic. On the ride back to Moab, someone said, "Raise your hand if you'd do it again." Nine hands went up, and one was mine. I might be foolin', but maybe not.

All the ladies asked what was the next adventure. I don’t know how to top or to match that one. It was the perfect opportunity for us to really do something together where we were all well-matched and cared for by adorable young guys who did all the organizing and lifting of the heavy stuff. I’m thinking another river trip (a way less exciting one), a dude ranch, a snowmobile tour of Yellowstone. Any other ideas?