Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

From June 28th through July 3rd, I had the privilege of being on a raft on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This was part of a family trip “for the guys.” On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three sons, two other grandsons, one grandson-in-law, and one great grandson spent five days and five nights on the Colorado River. These blog posts are part of the story.

While camping (see yesterday’s post), we slept “under the stars.” That is a romantic way of saying that we slept without cover, i.e., no tent. Tour West did have tents available. There are, however, two disadvantages to using a tent. (1) It is hotter with the tent. (2) Your cot won’t fit in the tent, so you sleep on the sand.

Allow me to expand on these two disadvantages. Camping in the Grand Canyon during the first week of July is already hot. It is at least 90 degrees F at 9 PM when it becomes dark and you “go to bed.” A cooler breeze hits about 2 AM. You wake and move at 5 AM. Yes, you may sleep four hours during a night. Why do anything that will make it warmer?

Second, the cots were the thing that made sleeping possible at all. The cots lifted you off the ground and were made of a mesh fabric. The fabric and the distance from the sand allowed some of your body heat to escape into the air. Ah, a little air conditioning happening. Sleep on the ground? I repeat, why do anything that will make it warmer?

We slept without cover. You know what is coming.

Tuesday the 29th of June – in the evening while eating dinner, we can see rain falling in the distance. It is one of those rains where the water evaporates before it hits the ground. It is just too plain hot and dry for those poor little drops of water to reach their God-intended destination.

A few mental calculations – when night falls, the temperature will eventually fall, those rain drops won’t all evaporate, and they will hit ME. Before attempting sleep, we pulled our plastic tarps from our bags and set them on the ground next to our cots. That was a smart move.

Soon after going to bed, the first rain drops fell. I put my tarp over me like a sheet. This worked pretty well with a few problems. The bigger problems were (1) the tarp was too short to cover my length and (2) it was hard to breathe with a plastic tarp on my face. I solved problem (1) by curling my body a bit. Curling reduced my surface area and helped me to retain more heat. Why do anything that will make it warmer? I solved problem (2) by holding the tarp above my face by lifting my arm up. Have you ever tried to sleep while holding your arm up? That doesn’t work well.

Somehow I fell asleep with a tarp on my face. Through the night I would wake with the tarp down around my waist. I had fallen asleep, the rain had stopped, and I had lowered the tarp. Then I would wake to the sound and feel of rain drops. Repeat the process. Cover, fall asleep, wake, rain, cover, and so on.

5 AM came. I stood, slipped on my sandals, and didn’t move. I was dizzy, my head hurt, and my entire body hurt. Two days on the river, one hot sleepless night, and one rainy sleepless night accumulated and peaked. I looked about and saw many large rocks in this camping area. If I fell I would hit my head on one of these big rocks and that would not be a good start to the day. I lied on the cot for a while.

Camping under the stars is okay. Camping under the stars in the rain? Not okay. It was, however, a learning experience, and being on this side of the learning experience is a good thing.