fall 11 / 24:3 - Grand Canyon River Guides

spend your days just working, in such an incrediblybeautiful place, it was like heaven. Who needs to die togo to heaven—I’m here! And the river was this wonderfulpresence. She…I always think of the river as a “she.”I suppose a lot of people do. The river stopped beingThe River and became this personality. So the river iskind of the ever-present mother, teacher, lover, friend,whatever it is. So there was this wonderful presence.And then, I’m not gonna lie, there is something so incrediblywonderful and powerful about having all thesepeople look at you and say, “Wow! You’re so incredible!Look at you! You can row this boat! And you can cook!And you can hike! And you climb around in your littleflip-flops! You’re just so amazing!” I guess I’m as vainas the next person. It was like complete and utter acceptancefor whatever it was you were doing. You comefrom a world where, for whatever reason, you need toget better grades, or you need to do this, you need todo that, or you’re not quite pretty enough, or you’re toowhatever—just all the stuff that we have in our worldup here. Then you go down there, and it doesn’t matterwhat you look like, doesn’t matter how well you did inschool, or what you might end up doing for a livingwith your life, or how much money you make or don’tmake, you’re just loved. That, at first, was really powerful.I think in more recent years I’ve come to recognizethat we’re not any more special, I’m not any morespecial than anyone else, we’re just good at what we do,and we’re doing it in such an amazing place. I thinkTim Cooper said it really well when he said the actionsof the men and women down there take on the grandeurof their surroundings. And it’s true. Nobody says,“Wow! thank you so much!” when you open the doorat the post office. So I think that’s faded a lot, but in thebeginning it was just an amazing sense of confidence.I mean, I was beautiful down there. Why do all thoseboatwomen wear these great dresses, and they put onall their best jewelry? It’s because we’re beautiful downthere, and the men are incredible. It’s just this wonderful—inthe beginning. You start to see a lot more later.Steiger: How’s that Vaughn Short poem go? “Girlsget prettier, the men get wittier!”Sadler: Exactly. Obviously I’m exaggerating, butI did, I felt so beautiful down there, just using mybody all day long, using my muscles and hiking. Andthen you’re in this incredible place, and you’re meetingpeople under the best of circumstances, which isboth a positive and a negative thing in a way. I mean,they’re on vacation, so they’re free, they’re not worriedabout the usual things that make people grumpy.But they’re also in your care, and so that makes thema little more likely to…what’s the word? It makes it alittle easier to sort of mold the trip as you want it to…You watch people, and they’re doing things they’venever done before—or maybe they did when they wereseven, but now they’re forty-seven and they’re not doingit anymore. And they come to you in the morning,“I couldn’t believe the stars last night! I haven’t seenstars like that since I was a kid.” Or, “I’ve lived in NewYork City my whole life, I’ve never seen stars like that.”There’s something really powerful about that. I thinkthat’s part of what kept me going all those years. It wasprobably selfish, I was having fun and loving it. But itwas also just watching this place through these people’seyes, and knowing that that’s what they were here todo. So anything I did to help them do that was great.* * *I had a guy on a trip many years ago, his name wasDave, and he was, I think, probably in his early thirties.He was blind, and he’d lost his sight slowly overtime, but by the time he was about thirteen, it waspretty much gone. I think he had the ability to seesome weird shapes from the corners, but nothing thatyou could actually see. And this guy hiked everywhere.We got him to the top of Tabernacle. He went up andover Surprise Valley. I mean, he was incredible. I endedup being one of the people who hiked with him mosttimes, and I think it might have been a combinationof my height and…. But what he would do is basicallyFirst paid guiding trip with CanX.page 34grand canyon river guides