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.

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.

Question: What was the one phrase that the guides said more than any other?

Input on the Left, Output on the Right, Foot Pump in the Middle

Answer: Wash your hands

No, it wasn’t, “careful in the rapids” or “hang on, this is a big one” or “watch out for snakes” or “don’t take any rocks home with you” or any of the other things I would have guessed. It was

Wash your hands.

It seems that several years ago, someone on one of these rafting trips caught a form of the stomach flu. The crowding of 30 people on two rafts every day and one small campground every night made an excellent spreading ground. Within a day, everyone on the rafting trip had a form of the stomach flu. You know, nausea, diarrhea, cramps, a little fever, general misery, hope for death.

Sections of the rafting trip were uncomfortable with everyone healthy. I don’t know what it would be like with everyone ill. I don’t want to know.

Hence, we heard, “wash your hands” half a dozen times a day. When coffee was ready in the morning, “wash your hands.” When breakfast was ready 15 minutes later, “wash your hands.” When people used the toilet, “wash your hands.” When…well, you get the idea.

In the photo is the hand-washing station provided by Tour West (click to enlarge). The left bucket held water and some sort of cleaning solution. In the middle of the line between the two buckets is a little squeeze pump. We pumped that with a foot while holding our hands under the “faucet” clipped to the right bucket. We put soap on our hands to wash in the spray. After that, we put the disinfectant cleanser on our hands. One additional safety step, our hands air dried instead of sharing a damp towel.

I doubt that my hands have ever been cleaner for one week of my life.

That was okay. No one was sick.

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.

by Dwayne Phillips

Don’t let recent events explain a current situation when prior events combined with latency provide a better explanation.

I spent a week on the Colorado River going through the Grand Canyon. I am posting a number of stories from that week. In this post, I return to my regular blogging topics and discuss latency.

As15 an engineer, I’ve often heard people speak of latency in systems. I lived latency in the Grand Canyon. Hence, I finally “got it.”

Let’s try a few definitions:

latent: adjective – present but not visible, apparent, or actualized; existing as potential: latent ability (dictionary .com)

Okay, something exist, but I don’t see it yet. That is like when I send myself an email. I click SEND, but the email doesn’t show itself in my InBox for a few moments. It is present, but it is not visible, apparent, or actualized.

Definitions of latency are mostly self-referential. They mention things like “being latent.”

Wikipedia has a good definition of latency for the engineer:

Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured.

Latency as experienced in the Grand Canyon: Monday through Thursday the water in the river was clear. We would fill white buckets with river water and we saw nothing but clear water in the buckets. Friday afternoon the river was filled with silt, i.e., dirt. What happened? Tuesday night it rained. Wednesday silt washed into the Colorado River from the runoff of the rain. Friday the accumulated silt joined us.

Those couple of days of clear water after a rain was the latency of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. The silt was present in the river (at some point), but was not visible, apparent, or actualized (at our location).

Latency in systems is a peculiar thing. For example, there is

Management Latency: A team’s results improve. This is not because of the current manager, but because of the good work of the prior manager. Time was required for the efforts of the prior manager to become visible, apparent, or actualized. This also happens in reverse when a team’s performance drops not because of the current manager, but because of the harm done by a previous manager.

Health Latency: A person’s health degrades quickly. This is not because of current eating and sleeping habits, but because of bad eating and sleeping habits for several decades. Time was required for the bad health habits to accumulate in the body. Those effects were present, but not visible, apparent, or actualized. This also happens in reverse when sudden good health follows a long period of beneficial health habits.

I could go on with things like:

• mental latency
• psychological latency
• spiritual latency
• financial latency
• marital latency

These could be delayed appearances from good as well as bad habits.

I suppose there is a moral to all these examples. It isn’t poetic, but would be something like:

Don’t let recent events explain a current situation when prior events combined with latency provide a better explanation.

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.

Five days and five nights on the Colorado River means many things – one is that we slept on the shore five nights. We went camping!

I’m not sure why I threw in that exclamation point, but it seemed the right thing to do. Each evening as we were moving to the shore, Jake the trip leader would shout, “Let’s go camping!” Hence, the exclamation point.

One of Our Campgrounds

I had never been camping before. My thought: camping is okay, but camping with 30 other people is maybe not so okay.

Here is a photo of one of our “campgrounds.” We pulled off the river onto a sandy beach, and that was that. Everyone had a cot, a sleeping bag a sheet, a tarp, and a pad. I tried the pad one night, but it was too hot. I had to use the tarp one night, but that is a story for another post. Sleeping bag? Too hot. Sheet? Too hot at dark, but okay at 2 AM.

We camped 14 hours a day. The first time I thought about it, 14 hours sounded too long, but it is correct. We left the river at about 6 every evening and returned to the river about 8 in the morning.

In between, we

• unloaded the rafts
• set up our cots
• the crew cooked
• we ate snacks
• we ate dinner in folding chairs
• we sat in folding chairs (see this photo)
• we went to bed at dark (9 PM, what else are you going to do in the dark?)

In the photo are (click to expand and see everyone):

• son #3 (just barely visible)
• son #1
• nephew #2
• father-in-law
• brother-in-law #2
• son #2
• brother-in-law #1

There are two non-liquid things in the Grand Canyon – rock and sand. We camped in the sand. Sand is nice in its place. Sand isn’t so nice in your clothes while trying to sleep.

That wasn’t so much of a problem as I didn’t do much sleeping. At 9 PM, it was about 90 or 95 degrees. I lay waiting for either relief from the weather or simple fatigue to take its course. At about 2 AM, a cool breeze would arrive. I would pull by sheet over my legs. That was enough cover.

As the saying goes, “I probably slept more than I thought I did.” As the other saying goes, “It wasn’t a restful sleep.” I hurt every morning.

At about a quarter to 5, it was light. By 5, it was fully light. Roll off the cot, put on the sandles, and try to find a place to set my camp mirror so I could shave. I was one of the few men to shave every morning. Someone once told me that doing something like that was a great aid to morale. It seemed to work for me. After shaving and brushing my teeth, I wrote in my journal for about half a hour. Coffee was ready before 6 (I never thought Folgers coffee could be good, but for five mornings, I thought it was good), with breakfast shortly after 6.

Eat, pack everything, load the rafts, on the water by 8.

All in all, camping was pretty good, even with 30 other people.

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.

The one thing that defined the trip through the canyon on the river in a physical sense was the temperature of the water. The water in the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon comes out of the Glen Canyon Dam. That dam is 700 feet tall. Lake Powell, behind the dam, is about 130 feet deep. The water from the dam into the river comes from the bottom of the lake.

The water is cold. The guides told us that at Lee’s Ferry, the starting point, the water is 45 degrees F. Sitting in that water is the same as sitting outside in your underwear on a 10-degree F day. I wasn’t able to measure the temperature of the water and I have never sat outside in my underwear on a 10-degree F day. I do know that the water in the river was cold. Several years ago I underwent weeks of physical therapy on one of my feet. I would put an ice bag on my foot every night. There was a cycle of pain and then numbness from the ice bag. When I stood in the river ankle deep, I experienced the same cycle. My feet went numb in less than five minutes.

This was the main disappointment to me of the trip. We were on a river, but I would not jump into the water. It was just too cold for me.

The guides told us that the water temperature rose one degree for every 20 miles south that we traveled. We traveled about 200 miles, so the river would have been about 55 degrees F on our last day. We did jump from the raft into the river on the last afternoon. It was still cold, but refreshing. The refreshment was due to…

The hot sun – blazing hot. Every day we reached 100 degrees F. My guess is that on the last day we reached 110 degrees F, but, as everyone says, “it is a dry heat.”

My biggest concern, after avoiding falling into the water, was avoiding sun burn. I wore a long-sleeve shirt everyday. I wore a hat all the time. I carefully applied large quantities of sun block twice a day. I am happy to report that I experienced no sun burn during the week.

Per the dry heat – yes, it is dry. I read that the relative humidity rarely goes about 5 percent. This is weird for someone from Louisiana where a dry day is anything below 50 percent humidity. It is easy to dehydrate in dry heat. You perspire, but your perspiration evaporates immediately. It is easy to assume that it “isn’t that hot” when you are not covered with perspiration. That is a bad assumption. The salts from your perspiration cake your face and the rest of your body. One morning I washed my face and washed my face and washed my face for five minutes before I removed that salty taste.

Washing your body? Yes, it needed it to remove all that salt. How did I wash? Not very well. Some of our hikes into side canyons revealed relatively warm water. I would submerge myself. One evening I recall standing knee deep in the water and actually using soap. I was able to splash enough cold water on me to rinse the soap. That only happened one evening.

On the last afternoon (more about that in a later post), with 110 degree F heat and a hot wind of 30 miles per hour, we did jump from the raft into a calm section of the river for about five minutes. That was great. That was my hope for the entire week. Alas, that hope was not fulfilled.

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.

One of the more unusual and beautiful parts of the trip was the Little Colorado River. The water in the big Colorado River was clear 4 1/2 of the 5 days. It becomes dirty when rain up river catches you a few days later. Given the depth of the water and the bottom, the water looked green. When you scooped the water in your hands or in a bucket, it was free of silt. Great.

The Little Colorado River is different. Search for images on the Internet for this gem. Here is a link to one photo and here is another – aqua. What a wonderful contrast to everything else in sight.

I loved the Little Colorado because the water temperature was fine. I jumped in and floated. This river gives you a unique opportunity to ride the rapids on your own. You take your life jacket off your chest, poke your legs through the arm holes, and sit in the water. This was great fun.

One side note, Australian dad lost his hat in the little rapids, and no one could find it. While walking on the shore back to the main river, I spotted it drifting under the surface. Brother-in-law #2 was standing nearby and grabbed it. All was well.

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.

The first morning on the river – Tuesday – we had pancakes, sausage, and the fruit for breakfast at our camp.  The pancakes weren’t plain pancakes, they had bananas and nuts in them. Some people said the nuts were walnuts, I don’t know. I just know they were crunchy. Great stuff.

Preparing Dinner One Evening

A big thanks to the Tour West crew. The camp food was excellent. They baked cakes, e.g., pineapple upside down cake one evening, brownies, and lasagna in cast iron dutch ovens (this link points to an example dutch oven). The photo here shows them preparing a meal. They never retrieved a bag of pre-sliced anything from an ice chest. Whole vegetables, fruits, and such came from the ice chest to be sliced and diced by hand on the cutting boards. (Click on this photo to see some of the Tour West crew – from left to right Karen, Scott, Colin, and Jake).

The food for the week was:

Breakfast:

• Pancakes (fruit always a side dish)
• French Toast
• Scrambled eggs with either ham or sausage
• Breakfast burrito
• English muffin with sausage, egg, and cheese

Dinner:

• Chicken fajitas
• Barbecue chicken
• Pork Chops
• Lasagna (with meat or without)
• Steak

Lunch:

• Sandwiches everyday – cold cuts three days, tuna salad one day, chicken salad one day

Now come the “problems.” Nephews #1 and #2 have a limited palette. Pancakes are great, i.e., plain pancakes. Why put nuts and bananas in them? French toast is great, plain french toast. Our french toast had almond slivers on top – great for me, not so much for Nephews #1 and #2. Chicken salad is great, but ours had grapes in it. I loved it, but, well you get the drift by now. Sigh.

Oh, one more note on the food – the mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks were great. There is nothing like a bite-sized Butterfinger to cut the appetite in the middle of the afternoon.

And one more note on the food. Each evening while awaiting dinner, the crew presented hors d’ouveres. Several nights these were chips and salsa. We had great guacamole one night. The best was shrimp cocktail sauce on cream cheese with chips.

My nephews? They survived the week of fancy food. They brought lots of their own groceries; good anticipation on their part.

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.

Out West (shouldn’t there be a book or a movie or a song with that title?) you can see a long ways. That is one of the reasons I love to go out West. Not the West Coast mind you, but the West: Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, and other states out West. In Louisiana – a place I have spent much of my life – seeing more than a hundred yards means that you are probably driving on the Interstate and looking straight ahead. The trees are in the way. The same is true in Virginia. The hills and the trees are in the way.

There are places in the Grand Canyon where the walls of the canyon are only a few hundred feet apart. You can always look ahead or back, but sometimes the bends of the river reduce your sight to a hundred yards. Fear not, look up and you can see for a few thousand feet.

Most of the Grand Canyon allows you to see for miles. A problem with this – at least for people like me who like to put a number to the size of an object – is that you don’t know how big anything is.

One day we pulled onto the bank to look at a cave. Maybe it was a small cavern or a large cleft in the rock. I couldn’t tell. It was there, but there was nothing familiar next to it. There was nothing of known size in view to tell my brain that the cleft could hold ten or a hundred or a thousand people. Finally, some of our cast stepped into the cleft and provided the information my brain was craving. Holy Cow! That cleft could hold thousands of people! At least that is what I though at first. (See below)

I walked up the sandy beach into the cleft my self. Finally, a few of our group reached the point where the floor of sand met the declining wall of rock. Those people were small; that cleft was a small cavern. I had seen lots of such clefts in the canyon wall. Were they? Yes, they were all probably as big and bigger than this one.

Another  factor that helps with “how big is that?” is time. One day we spotted was is called “the chicken train.” A set of rocks on the highest rim. The first rock looks a little like a chicken with the rest looking like boxcars in a train. I had no idea of how large those rocks were. The best clue I found was that the next day I could still  see the chicken train. I had seen it for some 40 miles. I concluded that those rocks were each bigger than my house – much bigger.

Perhaps if I had brought a surveying tool, I could have shot the angles on all these far-away objects. I would have been able to compute their sizes. Sometimes, however, it is best just to wonder about the wonderful. The Grand Canyon is just that, Grand. It is full of wonder.

I later Learned that the cleft is called Redwall Cavern. It is 33 miles south of Lee’s Ferry, a.k.a. mile 33. Here is a photo. There are large rafts and people standing at the water’s edge. This is a B I G place.

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.

The Grand Canyon is spectacular; the views are magnificent. If you like to look at rocks and all that is geology, rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon is the best place on earth. No equivocation – the best place on earth.

We started on the morning on Monday the 28th in the Marble Canyon at Lee’s Ferry. The rim was 500 feet above us. As the day passed, the rim rose ever higher above us. The views were magnificent. Hour after hour after hour of magnificent views. The next day was the same – hour after hour of magnificent views which expanded into day after day of magnificent views.

I hate to admit it, but at times the magnificent views became boring. Each view was better than the last one, or was it better than the next one, or was it better than…I lost track of the “betters” and “bests” and “magnificents.”

I discovered that I was telling myself, “Pay attention. You’ll never see anything like this again. Pay attention. This is magnificent.”

I think I kept my excitement at a high level the vast majority of the time. I maintained the wonder of the magnificent. It was, however, easy to slip into monotony. What a shame. Such is the state of man that we can become bored with the magnificent.