Grand Canyon: Running The River

(Sam and Matt take a beating in Deubendoff Rapid, Canon 7D, 70-200f2.8LIS @120mm, ISO400, f5.6, 1/4000th, handheld)

Horn, Granite, Hermit, Crystal and Lava. For anyone who runs rivers, those words are famous. They are the names of five of the biggest rapids on the Colorado River. Horn is technically tricky with a nasty area of holes and waves in the bottom known as “the land of the giants”. Granite has long, breaking, lateral waves that reach out from an encroaching rock wall and threaten to flip any poorly aligned raft. Hermit has the biggest waves on the river. Crystal, created by a flash flood in 1966, has killed more river runners than any other rapid on the river. Lava Falls is huge, simply huge, and the Colorado’s fastest water with speeds well above 20mph. The run through Lava must be done to perfection.

Rapids make noise, and a lot of it. Rarely, at our camps were we out of earshot of one rapid or another, and when we were, the canyon seemed strangely silent, maybe even a little foreboding. Each rapid sounds a bit different from every other rapid. The different holes, waves, and rocks each contribute a tone, or note to the song, and those sounds dictate how the rapid made me feel.

The riffles, the easy tongues of glassy of water followed by a wave train, laugh. They chuckle and giggle, as the rafts roll over the waves and splash water happily into the air. Some of the bigger rapids, like Hermit, also laugh, but deep and throaty. A laugh that can be at your expense. Crystal Rapid snarled, mean and threatening. It’s clear from the sound alone that Crystal Rapids does not like you, and will not hesitate to send you and your boat head over heels into the churning river. It’s done it hundreds of times, it did it to one of our boats and it will do it again and again without regret . (More on that in a later post).

The rapids of the Colorado held some of the greatest obstacles, risks, and joys of the trip. They have to be run, it’s the only way down, but running a rapid poorly can be scary, outright terrifying, and even dangerous. However a rapid shot cleanly, holding the perfect line, riding the waves like a roller-coaster, while dodging the rocks and boat-flipping holes,  is a pleasure beyond measure.

If you can see the faces in the photos you’ll know which side of the white-water coin these boatmen have received.

(Plowing through the huge waves of Hermit Rapid, Canon 7D, 70-200 f2.8LIS @75mm, ISO200, f6.3, 1/1000th, handheld)

(Patrick takes a breather after running a few rapids in his packraft, Canon 7D, 17-40f4L @17mm, ISO100, f6.3, 1/400th, handheld from nearby raft)

(Almost airborne in Deubendorff, Canon 7D, 70-200f2.8LIS @100mm, ISO400, f5.6, 1/2500th, handheld)

(Granite Rapid gives the raft a smack, Canon 7D, 70-200f2.8LIS @100mm, ISO400, f5.6, 1/2500th, handheld)

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