Rafting Through Abbey Country

Edward Abbey has been a source of inspiration for me since I first read Desert Solitaire while in high school, so it was only natural that I dedicated a lot of time to re-discovering his work while I prepared for this trip. His words of wisdom filled my mind as I looked out of the airplane window at the passing clouds and varying landscapes below. My mind kept wandering ahead and thinking of those red rock canyons that Abbey loved so dearly and fought so valiantly to protect. I wondered how the week was going to go, I hoped that I was able to feel the same about the towering red rock walls and wind carved vistas as Ed did.

I worried about what kind of people I was on my way to meet. I was about to undertake a 100-mile expedition with complete strangers. The only connection that any of us had was that we were all veterans from various branches of the U.S. military. We all had different backgrounds and experience in the wilderness. We had been brought together by Outward Bound for a week-long adventure geared towards assisting in the spiritual, mental, emotional, and even physical healing exclusively for veterans.

I had read a lot about Cataract Canyon and Canyonlands National Park as I prepared for this trip. I watched many videos, read reviews and history articles, and I studied hundreds of photos. I was excited! I had already fallen in love with the Utah desert long before I ever set foot there. I fell in love vicariously through the elegant, descriptive, and to the point words of Abbey.

We landed in Grand Junction, Colorado safe and sound; I gathered my bags and exited the plane. After making my way through the glass doors of the small airport, I walked the remaining distance to my hotel. I had a room for the night at the Clarion Inn, a room that I had to share with a complete stranger. Jesse was the first of my crew that I got to meet. We made small talk and got to know one another, had dinner and then went to bed early.

The next morning, we met with the rest of our group in the hotel lobby while eating breakfast. We loaded our gear and bodies into vans and began our two-hour drive through the desert. We passed by ancient stone arches, towering walls that were shifted to the side because of moving tectonic plates, and sheer rock faces being conquered by adventurous rock climbers. We finally reached our destination, a quaint river access point beside Potash, a mining operation outside of Moab. We had lunch and began the process of having gear issued to us. We quickly loaded our rafts and had a safety briefing before pushing off into the muddy waters of the Mighty Colorado River.

The first day was slow and steady through flat waters. We snapped photos of the passing world as we slowly floated by. Our leaders needed to begin testing our abilities, they had to know how we would react to the ice-cold water in the event of an emergency, so they had us jump in and swim around the raft, one at a time. I was the first to go, the water was cold, but I had swum in much colder and completed my lap around our boat before climbing back inside. Next up was Mac, an Army vet from New Jersey, as soon as his head submerged into the icy water, he began to panic, but we talked him around the raft and pulled him back inside. A few more brave souls tested their gall in the icy water before we hooked all three rafts together and motored our way down stream towards our first campsite. We arrived late and laid out our sleeping pads and bags on a narrow strip of beach and fell asleep under the vast desert sky.

I awoke Monday morning to the sound of the river pushing through the canyon and the light of the sun dancing over the ancient walls. After breakfast, I took the captain’s seat and guided our raft down river as we passed monolithic statues carved by Mother Nature. We stopped for lunch and took a short walk to the canyon wall to observe several pictographs and a Grainery that were created by the Ancestral Puebloans about 1400 years before we arrived. There were several prints that were created by placing their hand on the rock and then blowing pigment over it. A large rainbow type shape with a circle below each side extended for a couple of feet across the wall. A little farther down the bluff line was a diagram that is thought to represent childbirth. We wandered back to the boats and filled our stomachs. After our chicken salad on pita bread, we lashed the boats together again and motored down-stream for several miles. We made our way through a section of river called The Loop and set up camp below a crown of rock.

We rose early the next morning and ate a hearty breakfast of eggs and bacon before we repacked our gear. We stayed lashed together, motoring on towards the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. Some of the native tribes of the region believed that the place where the waters of both rivers mixed was a magical and would often journey there to swim. Because of this, some of us decided to jump in and submerge in these mysterious waters. I did it as a show of respect to the ancestral people that called the canyon home and as a tribute to the canyon itself.

We proceeded to motor on until we stopped at the sign noting the entrance of Cataract Canyon. We had to go ashore and sign the log stating that we were in the canyon and where we would be camping along the way. We separated the rafts and proceeded towards our destiny. Just above the first rapid of the trip, we stopped for lunch and conducted a safety brief to prepare for what was to come. The river came alive before us, we could hear her growling as we rounded the final bend. We rowed all ahead into the chaos of the rapids. The river reached up and drenched us immediately. We ran through a total of ten rapids that day, one of which Mac was rowing the support boat and got thrown out after hitting a rock.

We stopped to camp at the mouth of a small side canyon. We unloaded our gear onto the sandy beach, but before we set camp, we swam through a series of class 3 rapids for both fun and preparation. I chose an area on a rock, above everyone else, under a pinion pine to lay my bedroll. A fat lizard on the tree caught my attention and I studied his behavior for a while. After dinner, I walked up the side of a steep slope to look at the Claret Cup cacti that were blooming brightly. They have vibrantly red flowers that only bloom in April. The night turned social with a group meeting and deep conversation around a fire. I fell asleep gazing at the same stars that Ed Abbey studied several decades before.

Wednesday morning, I helped make breakfast burritos to fuel everyone through a day of 21 rapids. After securing all of our gear into our rubber steeds, we set off into the unknown. Seemingly immediately, huge waves reached up and soaked us as the river welcomed us. Around almost every bend through the canyon there was another series of rapids. We hit Big Drop One and Big Drop Two as the river tried to pull us into her depths. Finally, as we fought our way through the giant waves of Big Drop Three, the river took a victim as she reached up and grabbed Jesse and pulled him under the boat. We quickly captured him and fished him out of the water as he gasped for air.

We thought that the Mighty Colorado had her sacrifice for our passage, but she proved us wrong on the next rapid, called Repeat. We were swept into a rock and within seconds high sided. The raft flipped, putting us all into the icy water. I came up under the raft and pulled my way to the side of the boat and surfaced. Grabbing the outside line, I began rescuing paddles and water bottles. Luckily, there were no injuries. We swam the raft into an eddy and flipped her back upright.

After our swim, we continued down-stream passing through the deepest part of the canyon, a 200-foot-deep hole in the bottom of a huge eddy that serves as a grave for an old seaplane that crashed there several decades ago. We ran the last few rapids and then hit flat-water where we hooked the boats together and motored for 14 miles until we found camp.

On our last day of the expedition, we packed all of our gear and motored several miles until we reached the mouth of Dark Canyon. We secured the boats to some large boulders and put on our day packs to explore the canyon and the creek that flows through it. Waist deep water had to be forded, we crawled through holes, and climbed over boulders as we worked our way between the towering red walls.

After several miles of strenuous hiking, we climbed down some rocks and found ourselves in a magnificent part of the canyon. A waterfall flowed into a deep pool surrounded by green, desert vegetation. Here, we conducted a ceremony to the fallen and separated for some reflection time.

I climbed about 30 feet up a rock-face and found a comfortable spot to meditate on an outcropping that overlooked the beautiful oasis below. After about 40 minutes, we began our trek back to the rafts where we continued to motor towards Lake Powell and our exit at Hite.

After several miles, we were hit by really strong headwinds and the big choppy lake water. We pushed through and finally made it to the historic Hite Landing. As we were offloading our gear, a young gosling swam across the river to keep us company and didn’t want to leave us alone. After loading the trucks with gear, we drove to our camp for the night, about 40 minutes up the road. It was an extremely sandy campground, but the area was very beautiful. Big wind carved rocks that led into tight canyons beside us lead to a view of the snow-covered Henry Mountains in the distance.

Travis, another vet in the group, and I went for a walk just before dusk and discovered a wall covered with petroglyphs. Unfortunately, there was graffiti on the wall, but the glyphs were amazing and one of the highlights to the trip for me. The next morning was a blur. We woke up and de-issued gear, packed our personal effects and loaded up for our final drive back to the airport in Grand Junction. We had great weather the entire time and it will be a trip that I always remember. I cannot recommend enough, the amazing opportunity that Outward Bound offers to our veterans. If you are an honorably discharged veteran, you owe it to yourself to take one of these amazing trips.

“This is the most beautiful place on Earth. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.” -Edward Abbey