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.

There were five guides on our rafting trip (see the cast in this post). Well, two river runners, one guide, and two helpers. As best as I could determine, the guide was a river-runner-in-training, and the helpers were on the trip without pay. The trip was their pay.

These five people worked hard. They woke first in the morning to prepare breakfast and went to bed last at night after ensuring that everyone else was settled for the night.

The passengers – the other 26 of us – helped. We carried our camp gear and our water-proof duffel bags to the shore in the morning and carried the same away from the shore in the evening. We set chairs in the evening, and collected them in the morning. The crew, however, did at least twice as much loading and unloading of the rafts. And on top of all that, when worn out, they prepared meals for us. There were no cooks along for the trip to do nothing but cook.

The crew did all of this heavy and tedious work everyday for one thing:

they love being on the river.

The river runners are paid money, but that isn’t it. They are certainly not paid enough to work this hard. The helpers were there for no pay other than being on the river.

I sat in the rear of our raft each day (Hey, I’ve been wet before and had plenty of adventure in my life. I left the bouncing and splashing to my sons and nephews.). I talked a lot with Andy and Scott. I listened a lot as the two of them talked. Scott is married to Andy’s cousin, and they have many shared experiences. They talked about this river and that river and some other river. I don’t know rivers, but I know something about expressions of joy on faces when people reminisce. Scott and Andy reminisced. They had been on rivers in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, and even some east of the Mississippi.

One afternoon Scott took a short nap. When we woke, he was a bit disappointed. “I’m on a boat in the Grand Canyon and I was sleeping…but I woke up on a boat in the Grand Canyon.”

Scott was a good whistler. He could whistle Amazing Grace like no one else.

I listened on shore as the guides in the other raft spoke of similar experiences. I watched as they helped people on our hikes in side canyons. They dove into those walks; they dove into the water in the creeks. They loved it all. They lit up when they saw someone else love what they love – the river.