The Best Travel Writing 2011 - James O'Reilly [57]
At this water level the forgiving left chute is too shallow to run. The center hole must be avoided at all costs. So we’ll run right. The first of the other trip’s two rafts, a solo boater on a catamaran, drops in. The boat is buried by a crashing wave; when it emerges, its pilot is gone, swept out by the rushing waters. The next boat gets slapped sideways by the first couple of grinding curlers, by the third its downstream side starts to rise and we watch helplessly as the boat flips, dumping everyone on board into the hammering current. We exhale when we see everyone flush out safely below.
At each of the life-threatening rapids we’ve run, Owen has rallied us by sounding his kazoo-like horn, a sort of Cavalry rallying cry. Each boat captain taps the top of his or her head, river sign language for “O.K.” and “Ready.” Owen blows on the kazoo but there’s no sound—it’s waterlogged—an ominous sign. He blows the water out and tries again—nothing. Then he shakes it out; the third attempt yields a warbled call, enough sound to give us superstitious guides inspiration for the run ahead.
Our map-guide says running through Lava takes twenty seconds. But we all know how long twenty seconds can be if things don’t go well. And if they don’t, it will take much more than twenty seconds to pick up the pieces and put everything back together again.
Steve, in our lead boat, drops in—we can’t see his run from above—but Boy Band stands atop his boat and shouts: “one boat through!” Nathan follows and gets slapped around—he looks a bit sideways and one side of his boat starts to rise, but then it comes down and he’s through. Kristen and Neil roll into it; we drop in just after them. It’s hard to see exactly where we planned to enter—the frothy green and white maelstrom makes it almost impossible to chart a course.
But Owen is on target and hits the first wave hard and straight, just like you’re supposed to. We break through the first hurdle, hit the V of the second wave right where we want to and punch through. Several fifteen-foot curlers break over our boat then we hit a wall of whitewater. The Black Pearl seems to stop, suspended above the mighty Colorado in slow motion. Then the river grabs us and drags us through the final drops. We’re through the worst of Lava Falls. From here it’s a roller-coaster of waves to the bottom of the rapid. We pull over at Tequila Beach, named for post-Lava celebrations, break out the Sauza and Hornitos, and pass the bottles around. The group that had the flip and swimmers is there too. We compare notes, borrow their hula hoops and whirl as ecstatically as dervishes.
We’ve made it through the big rapids; all we need to do now is find a beach to sleep on. Kristen pulls us over about a mile below Lava, but the beach is tiny and covered with prickly shrubs. The group revokes her status as trip leader for the rest of the day. Owen, the only sober one among us, is given command. He locates a fine camp, and we play bocce on a spit of beach so close to the river that we sink up to our ankles in the watery sand.
Powell’s journal suggests his party portaged the boats around Lava Falls and had a clear sense that they were near the end of the journey. They too celebrated after Lava, stumbling upon an Indian garden with ripe green squashes. Powell excuses his “robbery” by “pleading our great want.” After so many meager meals, the captain is exultant: “What a kettle of squash sauce we make! True, we have no salt with which to season it, but it makes a fine addition to our unleavened bread and coffee.” Powell estimates his team covered thirty-five river miles that day. “A few days like this,” he writes, “and we are out of our prison.”
Canyon veterans warn that trips can fall apart during the final few days. Once Lava has been run, the theory goes, all the pent-up and buried resentments