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.

I don’t know how many rapids we traversed on this rafting trip. I suppose I could find this information on the Internet if I tried. Several of the rapids were noteworthy; one such is called Crystal.

I don’t know much of anything about rapids. I do know something about the looks on the face of our guide Andy. Before running the Crystal rapid, Andy parked our raft on the shore as did Jake with the other raft (see the cast on this post). They stood on the shore doing their best Lewis and Clark looking out over the horizon pose. Enough drama.

We went through Crystal with seeming ease. Right after finishing the run, Andy said something like, “A B C. Alive below crystal.”

Again, I don’t know much about rapids and rafts. Andy talked about a “rock garden” at the bottom of the rapids. He had a look of great relief on his face. One of those the IRS-might-have-audited-me-but-they-didn’t looks.

After returning home, I searched for “alive below crystal.” I found this story. At the end of April this year, an 18-foot raft with three people on board became stuck in the rock garden at the end of Crystal. They were stuck real good. A Park Service helicopter had to come and lift the three people from their raft and set them on the shore. The helicopter returned the next day to lift the raft from the rock garden.

When you get stuck on the rock garden, you get stuck.

Alive below Crystal. Well, yes we were. I understand Andy’s look of relief.