Susan Billingsley - Grand Canyon River Guides

survive. Some of these plants need more water, moreconsistently, than the others. The beautiful Redbud bushis one of those. Cottonwood’s another. I may not be ableto smell water, like an animal, but I can watch for theseplants, perhaps hidden under a shady overhang or undera boulder.Time passes, one foot in front of the other, reciting tomyself epic Robert Service poems about freezing inAlaska’s winter, searching for gold. I’ll settle for water. Icome upon another side canyon. Looks promising. Decisiontime.Do I take the much longer route along more openterritory, less chance of deep potholes hidden from thedesiccating heat and therefore possibly having water, butmore likely to access the bottomlands? Or, do I take thechance that this side canyon harbors a hidden routethrough, has some shade, and possibly a speck of water? Iglance down. I can get into this little slot, but it willmean sliding down a steeply inclined boulder andjumping the last few feet to the gravel bottom. I’m notreal sure I could climb back out, once in. Normally, Iwouldn’t even consider taking a route I wasn’t sure Icould backtrack, wasn’t sure led to an exit. But I’mgetting a little close to desperate, and not thinking allthat straight.I throw my pack into the gravel below. Committed. Islide and jump down beside it, the clean gravel soundinglike jamming champagne bottles into a cooler full of ice.I then heft the pack back on, and proceed towards myfate.A half mile of twisting slot-canyon brings the answer.My daze is interrupted by the absence of gravelcrunching beneath my feet, a slate-clean washed flatrock surface leads around the next hidden bend. Mybones comprehend its significance. The flood waterwhich has carved this insignificant slot over themillennia, occurring maybe once every decade orcentury, but potentially torrential when it comes, carriesthese gravels and boulders along with it as it rushes intoMatkat, joining countless other floods, thence to muddythe Colorado River. The gravels are deposited where thepower of the current lessens, as in a slow moving sectionor a plunge pool. They are swept away where the powerincreases, as at the top of a rapid, or, perchance, a waterfall.Yup… a waterfall. Dry, of course, but about 600 feethigh. Probably pretty spectacular when it’s running redafter a storm. Incised into vertical cliffs continuing upon either side of the notch for another four hundredfeet, back up to the Esplanade. Far below but onlymaybe a half mile away as the crow flies, in this samedrainage, is a brilliantly lit pool lined with scatteredCottonwoods. A taunt. The sun is coincidentallyshining just at the perfect angle, making the pool looklike a hole in the earth, with a blindingly bright sunshining back up at me from Hades.I half sit, half collapse at the brink. It’s all over, now.How embarrassing, I think, me, a long time GrandCanyon guide, who should know better than to make allthese stupid mistakes, lost, then found, eyes picked byRavens, mummified in the dry heat. Then, I remembermy signal mirror. I could flash a plane. But I haven’theard any planes. Maybe the flash will reach commercialair liners at 30,000? Oh, sure. I recall the other time Ihad to be flown out by chopper, on another hike yearsago with my friend Drifter on another multi-day faultline hike. It was pneumonia, that time. If twice rescued,I’d be catching up with Elwanger, a guide who’s beenairlifted out three times, the currentl record-holder. Ihope my ranger friend, Kim Crumbo, doesn’t find out.He’ll laugh his head off.Okay. That’s it. I’m really going off my head now.What silliness. Think, man, think. No direct sun here,cooler, but no chance of signal mirror flash. Stay here,find a comfortable nook, muse over your inconsequentiallife, sleep for eternity. Or, get off your fat ass and heavethe pack on and continue on up and try to make it outor die in the attempt. At least that option offers somehope. Salvation. Helps you retain just a little selfrespect.I will myself to arise and begin, once again, the backtrack,keeping my eyes scanning the cliffs on either sideof me, searching for a crack that possibly will lead out.I’m dizzy, confused. I feel apathetic and leaden. I’m sickto my stomach. Pathetic.As I’m dragging myself along, searching for escape, Inotice a broken crack up the vertical cliff face to myright. I can’t get back far enough, or high enough, to seewhere it leads, but it looks like it goes, at least throughthe vertical part, about 150 feet or so.Don’t let go with a hand, until both feet are solid.Don’t move a foot from one hold to the next, unlessboth hands are set. The ideal in climbing, one that islost as the difficulty increases. Never lunge. Well, unlessthere’s no other choice. Test your holds beforedepending on them, in case one breaks off, especially onsandstone or limestone, which breaks more easily. This issandstone. Trail your pack on a rope, so it doesn’t tendto pull you off the face.I move, slowly, deliberately, upwards, jamming myhands and feet into the crack, watching for rattlesnakescooling in it’s shade. I haven’t climbed much for years,since my belly operations required a time-out, and then Idiscovered whitewater. Somehow, though, my fingersand toes respond to primitive memory, and I inch along.I stop on a miniscule ledge and turn around to findmyself scarily high. Exhilarating exposure. Terrifyingpossibilities. I quickly bury my face into the rock, shakeaway the cobwebs, resolve not to do that again, andcontinue the climb. Before I’m aware of it, I’m scramblingup a narrow notch, the horizon above me layingback with each step to a reasonable angle.boatman’s quarterly review page 21