It has been a slow rafting season for me this winter. I usually get the boat out in December and January and go visit the ducks and geese somewhere along the Colorado River. I haven't even had my boat inflated since my last trip down Cataract Canyon on the Colorado in early November. This winter I have been skiing, working and focusing on staying warm.
That all changed last weekend when I made the first 2008 raft descent down Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River. I convinced two friends to join me on the stretch from Loma to Cisco, about 50 river miles. We arrived at the deserted boat launch at about 2:30 on Friday afternoon, under cloudy, heavy skies. During the summer, the launch would be jammed with boaters from far and wide, racing their way to the best camps and a glorious weekend at "Black Rocks." But on this day it was just a trio of hearty adventurers and a blue Hyside raft. Another friend pulled up and would float the first section with us, spending one night and leaving us before the thundering rapids in Westwater.
It didn't take long to realize that camping was going to be difficult. The entire left bank was under 2 feet of snow. In all my winter rafting experience I have never seen this much snow. We didn't worry about it. The guitar came out and the first beers were pulled from the cooler. The highway faded away as we rounded the first corner and encountered our first wall of Entrada sandstone. A cloud of doves leapt from their stone house and flew in wild, zigzagging formation, old friends from previous voyages.
Rattlesnake Canyon entered on the left. The camp was in deep shade, there was not a human footprint to be found. Best to keep going. The miles slipped by and the day darkened. We found a shelf near Salt Creek and set up the tents in a bank of tamarisk and assembled the kitchen and the two fire pans on the patch of grass just above the river. One fire pan was soon pouring off heat as the other pan was prepared for grilling a tremendous feast. The Willie Wonka-chocolate Colorado River was silently slipping by at around 5,000 cubic feet per second. As the damp darkness dropped, the distant glow of Grand Junction was visible against the horizon.
That night the rain came in and the crew hunkered down. On Saturday morning the mist was low on the water and surrounding snow-covered canyon walls. The silence of the surroundings was only interrupted by the nagging clanging of the bells of doubt sounding in my mind about running Westwater in the dead of winter. A patch of blue appeared in the sky and grew into a skywide sun festival. We pushed off with newfound optimism because of the weather.
The wind came up and blew cold and tried to push us back. The Amtrak came roaring by as we stopped for lunch. I wondered what the passengers would think when they saw our odd trio picnicking in the snow at Black Rocks. We pushed on into the afternoon and pulled into camp at State Line. The sunset was red and pink and blue and white and we all took it in, knowing that no one else could see what we were seeing.
The rattling of my snoring that night was briefly interrupted by the slap of a beaver, on a midnight beaver mission. Before getting back to sleep I listened to the silence, just a slight hiss from the river as it moved past. I woke to snowflakes bouncing off my rain fly. The morning was cold, snowing and dark, not the best conditions for class IV white water. We pushed off and made the five miles to the Westwater ranger station in about an hour. No one had been at the station since November and we were not going to glean any helpful information about river conditions in this spooky place. We shoved off.
The entrance to Westwater Canyon was a scary jumble of giant blocks of dirty ice. We wondered if ice would get in our way when the river narrowed. We pulled over and battened down the hatches, double-checking the rigging, the safety gear and the helmets. We entered the narrow Marble Canyon and the water began to rush. A bald eagle swooped overhead and wheeled off downriver, something we viewed as a positive omen.
There was no room for error, no help coming from upstream and no one to cry to if we flipped, crashed or swam. Foreboding walls of ice up to 20 feet high laughed at us from the banks as we went crashing through the rapids named "Surprise," "Funnel Falls," "Skull," and "Sock It To Me."
The white-knuckle ride was over almost as soon as it started. We emerged from the canyon shivering, smiling and safe. The eagle reappeared just overhead as we gawked at a frozen waterfall. The water is going to come up this spring and Westwater is going to be changing its colors again. I plan to be there for the flood.
Steve Skinner has a remarkable cooler that keeps beer from freezing in the winter. Reach him at nigel@sopris.net.
