Susan Billingsley - Grand Canyon River Guides

Susan and George in the river below Hermit Creek – November 1968.were having…Billingsley: No. No, I don’t think they did. Theygave wonderful trips, though. I can remember almostevery… O.C. always ran kind of the other two boatsthat went down at the same time with us—O.C. andsomebody with him. Every time we’d take out, he’d havethese young girls sobbing on his arms. And he’d justhave this huge smile on his face.* * *I don’t know if you read Breaking Into the Current [byLouise Teal]. That story I told in there was becauseGeorge was working on his master’s thesis on the NorthRim; and Dr. Butchart suggested we try going across thecanyon, because it was an old Indian route.Steiger: Had Dr. Butchart done it?Billingsley: No.Steiger: So you did this hike and it was down… let’ssee, what is it, Mohawk?Billingsley: And then crossed the river and went upStairway, and then out Tuckup. Hiked around theEsplanade and out Tuckup.Steiger: Boy, that seems like a long way—to Tuckup.Billingsley: It was. It was. We hiked—we got stuckFriday night. It had been raining in September. We gotstuck on the plateau. We hiked thirty miles. Well, wehiked ten miles that night, in the dark, to get to wherewe were going to begin the hike. The next day we hikedtwenty miles down to about two miles above the river.Then the next day we crossed the river and hiked up tothe Esplanade. The next day, it took us all day long tohike from the top of Stairway and around and out to thetop of Tuckup. Because that’s where George and Jan—they went around to the North Rim, George wasworking on his master’s thesis in Tuckup.Steiger: So they were going to pick you up?Billingsley: Pick us up. Yeah. That was always theplan.Steiger: And then, because you guys were late, justto fill in the story, how did that go then?Billingsley: We weren’t late. George blew it. Wemade a double set of plans, so nothing would go wrong.We had these huge firecrackers that Jimmy Searsbrought that we were going to use for making signals,and we were going to build these huge cairns: two if wewere able to cross the river. Then if we weren’t, and wehad to go back, we were gonna knock one of them downand just leave one big cairn. So they could hike out andlook over and down and see if we had even gotten to thepage 36grand canyon river guides