An Uncertain Bend at Superimposition

Posted: Sunday December 7, 2008 under Lead Myself

I spent Thanksgiving week rafting through the Grand Canyon with eleven friends, six old and five new.

It was fantastic… brutal… life-changing. But I won’t go on about the majestic vistas or the noble river or the unforgiving forces of nature that tested our personal strengths and weaknesses at every mile. I won’t tell you about the day we flipped a raft or the night—our first, just moments after launching—we got ourselves in a tight spot and had tough survival-type decisions to make.

I’ll just tell you about one uncertain river bend.

Our final big challenge occurred on Day 5—the last day—at Superimposition Rapid, just before the Colorado River enters tranquil Lake Mead. The rapid is new, formed in the past year or so due to the Lake’s recession, and it is growing in intensity. We had strapped our three rafts together and motored most the previous day and had camped that night just a mile above the rapid. We rose before sunup being behind schedule with many miles to go to reach our pullout, break down, and load the gear for the long drive to Flagstaff before nightfall. If lucky, we’d beach our caravan just above the rapid, scout it, and determine we could motor through it. If unlucky, the rapid would be too intense—particularly given the low level of the river this time of year—, and we would need to separate the rafts and repack them for a rough ride, costing us an hour above the half-minute rapid and an hour below to bring the rafts back together… assuming we made it through without flipping a raft.

From that perspective… we were unlucky. The twelve of us stood on a high point above Superimposition, watching a rapid more intense than we expected. Stomachs began to boil and churn, matching the water squeezing through the little bend below us. Not only would we need to separate and prepare the rafts, we’d need to prepare ourselves, knowing what we knew about the previous challenges we’d faced on less daunting rapids upriver. Our expedition leader—the only one of the three boatmen with any experience on this river—was brimming with uncertainty and spilling dire warnings.

“Your instinct will be to cower from the wave, but you can’t do that. Throw yourself into it, confront it, cuss it. Put everything you got into it. Otherwise, we’ll flip.”

A passenger from Flagstaff recounted how a woman had recently been seriously injured on this rapid, and another passenger suggested that some of us might hike down past the rapid and allow the boatmen to oar the rafts down on their own.

“No way,” our leader said. “We need the weight. We need everybody working if we’re gonna make it. No one’s a passenger on this one.”

My old friend, Alan, took the first raft down while we all watched from above. He’s a Florida boy but has a lot of river experience and, although it’s been seven years since he last rowed, he was our strongest rower. Jess, the expedition leader, had bruised a rib from an earlier mishap, and Jack was feeling the effects of too much recent software work under fluorescent lights. So, without a clear plan, Alan would navigate rocks, falls, holes, currents, and wave trains—all potential flippers—and hopefully give the rest of us a safe path to follow. He entered slowly and had a clean run off the lip of the monster hole furthest left. Up and down, up and down, up and down, and out.

They made it! Nothing to it, except that Alan appeared to pull with everything he had to avoid that big flipper hole on the left. And he was our strongest rower, the only one who had the right line and strength to break out of a wave train and avoid a dangerous rock collision at Killer Fang Falls Rapid several days before.

I was in the next group, on Jess’s raft. I had been with Alan prior to this rapid, and unlike the whooping and hollering that came naturally from that bad-boy raft as it approached the plunge—we were the haulers of beer and poop—, Jess told us she preferred to enter such situations in silence, out of modest respect, I imagined. We did, simply patting each other on the back with Alan’s group watching from safely below and Jack’s group watching anxiously from above.

We followed Alan’s path fine, but at a critical moment above the big flipper hole, the current ripped the oar out of Jess’s left hand and she shouted for help. James and I both leapt for the grip, but as the current steered us toward the big flipper hole, there was little we could do with it. Jess screamed, “We’re going in!” (The big flipper hole, she meant.) We all braced ourselves to do what had to be done: fling ourselves against a wave, leap on an oar, cuss, swim, whatever.

We dropped, and before we knew it, the powerful currents spit us out instead of in. Up and down, up and down, up and down, and out. We made it! I planted a big wet one on Jess, and we laughed, pumped our fists, and whooped and hollered. It was the same feeling I had at the end of those big essay tests they gave us Lit majors in college.

Now for Jack’s raft, the one that had flipped on Day 2 sending four people plunging from the cold late-autumn air into even colder rapids. This was a moment of redemption for Jack, and we all sent strong positive vibes his way. He must have taken the vibe soaking seriously because we waited and waited for his raft to emerge around the bend and enter the rapid. I was beginning to wonder if the beaver we had seen swimming near our beached rafts had decided to take a bite out of Jack’s (another good one for the list). Eventually, we saw Alan get out of his raft and climb a hill to see upriver. He stood and watched at least five more minutes, throwing large rocks into the river, which, at least, meant the last raft was still afloat.

Then they came, smooth and easy, starting down the same path, but the current was taking them even further left than it had us as Jack fought. He lost his grip on the left oar, like Jess, at the top of the big flipper hole. At the mercy of the current they skirted the hole in a meaner way than us, and they spun and rocked hard. Instead of lunging into a wave, though, Erik lunged for Jack who was nearly ejected as they ripped through the flipper. Erik caught Jack by the shirt and dragged him back in (it was Erik who had received the worst battering in the Day 2 flip). Up and down, up and down, up and down, and out. They made it! Success and redemption! Unbelievable!

We all whooped and hollered as we rowed to the nearby beach for hugs and congratulations. Not long though. We were serious about our business, now fully aware of the repercussions of being otherwise. We quickly got to work pulling the three rafts together for the motor out. By this point, the twelve of us came together easily, and we were ready to go in record time. Jess announced, again, how we were the best crew she’d ever led down the river. We took it, again, as high praise, and we felt good.

On this Thanksgiving, I was most thankful to be in this canyon with old and new friends and particularly thankful to find more than a mere riffle—one we might have simply motored through without a second thought, on schedule and without inconvenience—at Superimposition.

Happy holidays!