June '05 Newsletter
June '05 Newsletter |
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Our dear friend Beth came down to visit from northern California in April. She and Susan worked together at the City of Chandler two decades ago. We've rafted and internationally traveled together many times and the two of them used to get together every February to celebrate their birthdays. Burned out by the stress of job politics, Beth used much of her time here to rest. It pains us to see many of our friends committed to what seem to us unrewarding life decisions. She joined us for one lengthy hike out back but spent most of her time in the hot tub picking up some rays while doing some reading and talking with Susan. One of those mornings, she spotted an exotic bird in the branches near our bird feeder. Aided by the loan of a cage from our friend Helen, Susan soon had little Pepper the cockatiel eating out of her hand; however not until after he had panicked and landed on a flabbergasted Beth's head in the hot tub. Within 24 hours, Pepper had been reunited with his frantic owner a block away. While Bob busied himself on the computer, the two gals drove up to Sedona for a day where they were pelted with slushy hail. This did not deter them from the tourist shops but hiking was out of the question.
The Black Canyon City Water Improvement District's vice-president continues to live with Susan. Much of the time his unpaid job doesn't require a great deal from him but occasionally firestorms break out. Six months ago, three of the five current board members were re-elected by substantial majorities but there remains a small active clique that wants to recall them, probably including Bob, and sack the management team that keeps the system running. Bob is trying to keep people focused on insuring that water flows through our pipes at reasonable prices. However it usually seems to be about personal animus rather than how anyone could do a better job - small town politics at their worst.
We were recently invited to a going away party for one of the local business ladies who Susan knows pretty well. The funny thing was that the party was organized at the home of one of the fellows who makes life so interesting for the BCCWID board at every meeting. They may not have realized that by inviting Susan they got Bob as part of the package. The party turned out to be mostly a flock of women and the two Bob's for much of the time. Both seemed to take the potentially uncomfortable situation pretty well. Bob got the tour of the house and a better insight into his monthly meeting adversary but there were some long periods of uncomfortable silence. Thankfully they did not get into discussing water board issues. Susan, who is frequently referred to as Switzerland, is hoping that this party helped each discover the human side of the other.
As you will learn from reading about trips in this newsletter, we were emergency contacted by the NPS while on our recent Grand Canyon raft trip. Much to our amazement and dismay, Bob's best and longest friend, Mike Middleton, had a massive heart attack while lunching in a Phoenix restaurant. A number of the fire stations responded but unfortunately their efforts at resuscitating Mike were unsuccessful. Mike was a fellow electrical engineer Bob met in 1964 while working his first job at General Electric's computer division when he first came to Phoenix from Cal Tech. Having just returned from a couple of year's on the DEW line in Alaska, serving in the air force, Mike was working as a technician there.
Mike introduced Bob to travel in Mexico a couple of years later when Mike, his wife Marsha, daughter Denise, and Bob traveled in their camper-shelled truck to Acapulco and back in a bit under two weeks. Driving at night at times they enjoyed serpentine sojourns between cows sleeping on the road, plunged off highways into small towns that had no streets, joined a Mexican cooked chicken raffle in some cavernous building in downtown Mexico City, found the cheapest beer ($0.07/bottle) in Mexico at a small tienda on the campus of the University, introduced Bob to waking up in the short front seat of a truck with a mob of kids staring in the window at the campsite of the moment, . . . One could reasonably say that with that single trip, Mike forged Bob's spirit for foreign adventure travel.
But Mike was much more than that. While working for GE, Motorola, and Honeywell he honed his skills, eventually picking up his engineering degree from the University of Phoenix. After working 15 years or so in the electronics industry, he started a transformer winding shop in his garage, which was built on knowledge he gained from his grandfather as a youngster (winding radio coils) and his father as a teenager (Phoenix's TV Leo of the 50's). His was and still is a family business. Twenty-five years later found him acting as a "doggone good engineer" for a multi-million dollar local company owned by his wife and run by his daughter, Bonnie.
But Mike was even more. His practical knowledge of all things mechanical was beyond belief. You had a car problem; he would know what was wrong after you described the symptoms. Your air-conditioner didn't work; he could help you fix it. You wanted to know something about photography; he knew that also. You needed a welder or a router or some exotic tool; he had those, knew how to use them, and was more than willing to let you borrow them. He was extremely well read and possessed practical information about almost everything. He was exceptionally outgoing and willing to get involved when a friend needed help. I picked his brain and accepted his help so many times in 40+ years that I could never have possibly repaid him. And now he is gone.
As soon as we heard of his death, we arranged to leave the Canyon and our group at Diamond Creek instead of South Cove, arriving home a couple of days before his memorial service. Over a hundred people attended, some family, many friends, and many of his business contacts and employees. An excellent PowerPoint presentation showed pictures of him from childhood on. Several of his family spoke about him and I was able to express my sense of loss with the story of our travels in Mexico and how valuable a person he had been to so many others and me. I will miss him greatly.
Our friend Karen Fiore's recovery continues to be truly miraculous. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she ended up in a coma for 10 days last January. Her situation was worsened when she contracted septic shock from either an unsuccessful surgery that followed her hospital admission or the drug ports that were installed in her body. The family was huddled around her bed, the minister was called to say some words, Susan spent a couple of very iffy nights in her room, and the worst was expected. But then she rallied. They started giving her chemo that was broken down into thirds and given more frequently. While still very ill, the cancer began to recede. Day by day she improved until they were eventually able to successfully excise much of the remaining cancer. Chemo treatment continued and after a couple of months she was transferred to a recovery unit for physical therapy.
Well you can imagine our surprise when we came home to find her back home in Sedona and doing quite well. She is still weakened by her three months of intensively fighting cancer but she gets better day-by-day. With the help of her many Sedona friends, she now is occasionally going out to movies and getting around pretty darn well. After the Middleton Memorial we went up to visit her. She was strong enough to go out for breakfast in Sedona (we ate on an outdoor patio with the wonderful redrock country of Oak Creek sprawled out in front of us) and then took an extended drive up Oak Creek Canyon with us. We're expecting her to be fully recovered by the time we return from Alaska this September.
As usual for this time of year, it is hot here. Daily temperatures are soaring into the over 110 degree regions and it isn't getting much below 80 degrees at night. Fortunately the humidity is still fairly low and the evaporative cooler is working pretty well. While looking forward to the upcoming Grand Canyon raft trip with our family and friends, neither of us will be too disappointed when we leave in early August for the cooler climes of Alaska and the Canadian northlands.
Susan: Climbing to the top of Secret Canyon. Celebrating Bob's 65th in the company of old travel buddies we hadn't spent much time with lately. The unusual scarcity of traffic on the Lake - it seemed to be picking up as we left. Ernie: Reflection & Wetherill Canyons, Hole In The Rock; being able to see so much canyon country in a week with the combination of house boating, speed boating and hiking; solitude and quiet of the night (which would not be possible in high season with high water and high temperatures); good food & good fellowship; superb organization, preparation and execution by the Marley/Groth team. Sandy: All the great people on the trip; Cathedral In The Desert; the geological processes being temporarily restored by the low water such as silt being eroded and white disappearing from the canyon walls. Dave: Rainbow Bridge to himself after hiking above it to the packer campsite; his barefoot hike in Davis Gulch to La Gorce Arch; climbing down to pools from our Oak Canyon campsite. Bob Kerry: Seeing a beaver in Face Canyon; meeting Mike Mills; seeing Ernie & Sandy Hildner again; hearing Harold sing "Crazy" in Music Canyon complete with reverberations. Lynn Kerry: Poling up Secret Canyon and the Face Canyon boat ride. |
Jim: Wetherill slot canyon complete with reflections in the water; La Gorce Arch; finding an old Indian camp above Dungeon campsite; the singing cook crew; last dinner where he ate three large pork chops reclaiming his title as best "eater". Bob Marley: Wetherill slot canyon hike; Music Temple Canyon; Reflection Canyon complete with 180 degree turns and Bob Kerry jumping safely out of the boat to take our picture coming back on ourselves but one canyon rock formation over. Ken: Cathedral In the Desert and the dancing sunlight reflections on the canyon walls in several different patterns; excellent Thai food; picking stickers out of his socks. Mike: Group songfest of "Western Show tunes"; seeing Rainbow Bridge again with the Marley's, almost 20 years after backpacking there with them. Harold: Watching Bob Kerry scamper up cliffs where I dare not go; Hole In The Rock climb; Twilight Canyon boat ride with Mike (my first complex, narrow canyon ride); Lynn doing "Singing In The Rain" at Music Temple; Mike's star talks and sleeping under the stars on the houseboat roof afterwards. Char: Wetherill slot canyon; Marley Margaritas; bunking one night with the fellows and their symphony of snores; seeing Ken McGinty in shorts would have been a highlight but alas it was not to be.
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The weather was a bit cool for us southern Arizona folks but fair. Fortunately the bad weather that was forecasted for mid-week never materialized and we had excellent hiking temperatures for the entire trip. The houseboat was available early the next morning. Mike picked up the powerboat and a staff member assisted me in running the houseboat over to the loading dock. It was a good thing because my houseboat driving skills were extremely rusty and I might have taken the dock out pulling up. We quickly loaded and were under way without damaging the marina.
After motoring most of the day up Lake, the first night's campsite was in a back bay of Oak Creek. At the low Lake levels, Oak Bay had pretty much emptied and there were fewer good sites to be found. Mike scouted around with the powerboat for a while and then directed us to an excellent site. We stayed there for two evenings, during which time we checked out all of the side canyons nearby and took the mandatory trip to Rainbow Bridge (now a significant walk from the mooring dock). We used a system of having half the folks on the houseboat and half on the powerboat each day, switching at lunch so it would never seem crowded. Everyone took at least one independent hike up into the slickrock of Secret Canyon or Oak Bay.
The next morning, we headed down to Warm Creek Bay to locate our last night's campsite. The plan was to tow the powerboat to save gas and turn it loose when we got close, have them go to the Navajo marina for gas, and then go sightseeing in the very long Navajo Canyon arm. We found a great campsite but were well into happy hour when they returned. Just when we were really starting to wonder, a power skiff pulled up with our powerboat folks on it. Apparently the powerboat's water pump had failed close to the marina and the motor was seizing. Our folks were unable to get any help from proximate Wahweap Marina by either land phone or radio. Of course they couldn't reach us because all the folks on the houseboat were technologically challenged - the radio was off.
Of the sixteen folks on the trip, we knew about half of them from past river adventures. Susan and John, the Flagstaff Lupos, were already on the trip, as was Rip Blaisdale. Herm had set up a server to aid pre-trip communication and there was a flood of information and questions flying around there. I quickly found that Herm wasn't the greatest about taking advice and he seemed to want to meddle into everything rather than delegate, even when he had little direct knowledge to contribute. I came to believe that might have been part of his problem with the two rafting support groups he had already terminated. Still, everything was going well enough with the planning, Lorie and Dave were successfully dealing with his many foibles, so I drifted away for a month or two rather than get Susan and I thrown off the trip. One thing I noted at his server was that the group had appointed me the on-river Boat Captain. Their hope was I would be able to give "great advice on good campsites with shade in morning and late afternoon, and great short hikes up nearby canyons and waterfalls".
The group met in Flagstaff. Dave rushed down to Lees Ferry from Colorado with three boats and dumped them in the campground. He then drove down to Flagstaff and loaded his huge trailer with 30 or so rocket boxes of food, 4-5 coolers weighing 200-300 pounds each, and several dry boxes. Three rafts were then piled on top of this and six people road in the truck cab. One dry box was full of eggs for all the breakfasts; that's right every breakfast was going to have eggs. I'm thinking of submitting the 50 dozen or so taken to the Guinness Book of Records as soon as I get a firm count. It has to be the trip record for any group of 16 folks leaving Lees Ferry. When totally loaded, Dave's trailer springs had depressed so far the wheels were practically touching the fenders on the front axle of the tandem. That required changing the trailer hitch to a higher one so we could level the trailer some. Of course, the permit holder was missing while all of this was going on. Our drive to Lees Ferry was taken slowly but went uneventfully. We arrived to find all of the equipment that Dave had dropped earlier in the fisherman's campground moved to the launch area. Rigging was well under way.
They tell me it gets light about 4:40 AM in the Grand Canyon in late May. I wouldn't know. By 5:00 AM the permit holder had his Kaldi's coffee brewing. I wouldn't really know about that either. Amazingly we were re-rigged and off the beach by 8:30 AM the first morning. Soap Creek Rapid was fun and everyone was looking forward to the Roaring Twenties. We carefully scouted House Rock Rapid from river left. Our kamikaze group ran the left side into the big hole successfully. The rest of us "cheated" it with a rock dodging run down the right. We had lunch near Rapid 21.5 and then the big water began. A humongous hole ate Herm and one of his kayaker friends for our group's first out-of-kayak experiences. There would be many more to follow. I think Herm had eight but I may have missed a couple. The hole at Indian Dick surprised Maury, flipping his 16' cleanly and quickly. After righting it on a sandy beach downstream, we spent an hour or so drying our 21-day supply of bread out before moving to camp at Upper Fence Rapid at mile 30.5. A twenty-mile day of paddling. The 8000 cfs water level actually made these rapids seem more difficult than normal. Indian Dick and Georgie's were especially tricky. This was the only day we didn't get our desired campsite (Shinumo Wash). Unfortunately it was taken by a commercial oared trip that passed while we were drying our bread. It gets dark at 8:00 PM and everyone was tired enough to be sound asleep by 8:30 PM. This pattern was to persist throughout the trip.
Most wanted to go hiking at Saddle Canyon the next day. Susan and I decided to drift down to Nankoweap immediately to miss any possible late morning winds. My everyday bailer, Georg, went hiking with the group so the two of us tied our two rafts loosely together and floated downstream with some raft bumping and scrubbing in the minor riffles. It was a short seven-mile day on 13,000 cfs to the main Nankoweap Campsite. After hiking at Saddle, Dave and Herm swapped rides, 14' NRS raft for a WaveSport Big EZ. One of the virtues of early camp breaks and short days was getting to hike in the afternoon. Herm hiked up Nankoweap Creek for 2.5 hours alone while most of the others climbed to the Nankoweap Granary. The view from the latter is probably the most photographed section of the Grand Canyon. Late May was still a good time to see the desert in bloom.
The trip seemed to be dividing into conservative and gungho boaters. As lead boat, I made conservative runs to insure someone was upright downstream. Rip, Susan, and Maury tended to do much the same but both Dave and Butch liked to challenge the biggest holes and usually did. By now the high number of out-of-kayak experiences had me convinced we had five intermediate kayakers with us. There had been much talk the first day about what the proper method was for being rescued by a kayaker but I'd noticed it was the rafters who were doing the rescuing. Indeed after one swim, one of the kayakers put his boat away on Rip's raft and became a rider for many days. The kayakers had figured out that Rip, Susan, and I were going to find an easy line if such existed so they were duplicating our runs most of the time.
After filling all of our empty 6-gallon containers from the water tap near the beach, everyone took the walk up to the ranch and spent some time drinking $3.00 beer or $1.50 lemonade in the cantina. We had lunch at Pipe Creek. As there is no way to cheat it, Horn Creek Rapid at 8,000 cfs was expected to be challenging. Everything narrows down so once you commit to a particular line you are going to end up in nasty big holes and huge waves at the bottom. After the trip Herm rated Horn along with Lava, Hance and Granite as the biggest rapids he'd ever run. I might modify that to the biggest I've ever seen. We arrived at our Trinity Creek Camp at 2:30 PM. Thunderstorms with light sprinkles and an upstream wind created a great cooling effect for those hiking up the side canyon. While it had been expected that we would be sweltering in the somber, black granite gorge, we were experiencing a wonderfully cool evening.
Hermit was a bit easier with a center-to-left move by the kayakers. I've developed a very reliable low threat run there that pulls sharply off the tongue to the right, surfs a large standing wave to drive me further right and then peacefully motors down the right side. It worked again. After Boucher, with a surprising hole about half way down that tried to fill my bailer boat, we scouted Crystal Rapid. Crystal was disappointing at 9,000 cfs. It was easily cheatable on the right and the left side was also open. Dave attempted the left run and ended up in the hole at the top as I had many years ago. After scrambling around on the raft to high side, he and Lori came through upright. The Gems (Tuna?, Sapphire, Turquoise, Ruby and Serpentine Rapid) hit us with surprising yet playful intensity. The prize for this lengthy, rapid-filled day was getting to North Bass camp by 3:30 PM. We weren't certain if there would be another group laid over there so we pulled in at South Bass where Maury was ran over the top and took a quick look, giving us the all clear signal.
We were off the next morning at 8:20 AM with a bunch of good rapids to run: Forester, Fossil, Specter, Bedrock, and the ever-ugly Deubendorff. Three motor-driven rafts were at the Doll's House when we arrived. With the low level, the river pulled hard to the rock in the middle of Bedrock with not much water on river right. All the rafts and all of the kayaks made it through the rapid without any problem. One raft went left. Deubendorff looked nasty as usual. The run was down the picket fence hoping to keep tight to it and end up in the center to right portion of the river downstream. The left looked really bad near the bottom. We had varying degrees of success accomplishing the plan. Somehow Susan cut loose into the big stuff on the left and ran it all successfully.
With our 5:00 AM maniacs in charge off the river, we got another early start. We were off by 7:45 AM this time because we were on a mission. This was a hiking day. Nine folks were going up Tapeats Creek to Thunder River, across Surprise Valley and down Deer Creek (Georg, Rip, Butch, Naomi, John S., Chris, Dan, Maury and Herm). This nine-mile hike through the desert required lots of water and an early start. Tapeats was running so strong that they were unable to cross it. This required a couple of boats to pull in at the head of the rapid for water resupply and the rest to take the hikers below the rapid so they would be on the right side of the creek. There was some confusion over Georg's boots so a couple of them got a later start than the rest. However it worked out fine and everyone eventually met us at Deer Creek.
We awoke to thunderstorms and everyone, including me, "slept in" half an hour. After drifting downriver for an hour or so we took a two-hour hike up Kanab Canyon followed by an hour hike at Matkatamiba. I was reluctant to run down to Matkatamiba first thing in the morning because I suspected the motor rafts would be there. Everyone enjoyed the short Kanab hike and by the time we reached Matkat the mouth was empty. It was adequate to get all of our rafts and kayaks into though a recent flash seems to have loaded it with debris, making it very shallow out some way into the river. We were fortunate to have it all to ourselves again. We continued on stopping to scout Upset Rapid. No one had trouble running this one hard right, although it was much bigger once committed than it looked ashore. We were blessed with another day without winds. We camped at Ledges to position ourselves for an early Havasu hiking day. The Ledges spring was running well so we refilled our water supply.
Lava Falls day - very high anxiety. With most of the boats rigged, Herm was giving his friend guff for not helping Susan and I get rigged fast enough. I really wasn't in a particular hurry to get to Lava. The previous night I told Herm that we would be at Lava well before noon and that would be plenty soon enough for me. Regardless we were on the river at 8:00 AM with no wind again. This put us at Lava for scouting by 10:30 AM. We had done 15 miles in 2.5 hours on 11,000 cfs! After a half hour of scouting it was clear we were all going to run right and it might be pretty nasty. We would commit to the "bubble" lines on the right of the nasty ledge hole, slam the v-wave dead center, and attempt to keep the raft straight for the North Sea-sized waves below. The kayakers reported lots of excitement. Herm rolled twice to escape unscathed. John was flipped four times. Chris got flipped early and ran most of the rapid upside down before rolling. Dan had the "best" (no flip) run of kayakers. Susan made a great positioning run but got sucked out of her raft at the v-wave and got to swim the big stuff below. Her boat did fine. Ever-ready Georg jumped off my raft onto hers just above Son of Lava, pulled her back in and got her behind the oars just in time. We reached our camp at Upper Chevron by 1:30 PM. That night we had the traditional ABL (Alive Below Lava) party, celebrating Dave's birthday with a pineapple unside down cake.
Our first thoughts were that one of our aging parents was ill, so we phoned both families on the satellite phone. They were all alive and well and glad to hear that we were also. The mystery deepened. All of a sudden a light bulb went off and we phoned the NPS. Since the message was two days old, they could only remember that it did not concern my immediate family. We were asked to call back in 15 minutes and learned that I was supposed to phone Bonnie Middleton. Unfortunately, my best friend Mike had died of a heart attack and the memorial was to be on the day we would get off the river. We immediately phoned Paul Lupo in Prescott and made plans to be picked up at Diamond Creek the next day around noon.
