Sprinting down the Colorado

"One hundred and seventy-nine miles downstream from Lee's Ferry, directly below the Toroweap Overlook, the greatest river in the West runs up against a picket line of submerged boulders, roars over the edge, and detonates. This is Lava Falls, a quarter-mile stretch of white water that is considered by many to be the biggest navigable rapid in North America."

(page 133)

This is the epic story of the fastest boat ride in history (at the time) through the heart of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado river. With a gigantic release of water from the Glen Canyon Dam, the Colorado River was closed. So Kenton Grua evaded park rangers and launched his wooden dory, the Emerald Mile and barely completed his historical run. The story is very well told, and includes a solid history of the formation of the Grand Canyon, and the first efforts to navigate the river by John Wesley Powell.

In the spring of 1983, massive flooding along the length of the Colorado River confronted a team of engineers at the Glen Canyon Dam with an unprecedented emergency that may have resulted in the most catastrophic dam failure in history. Engineers were forced to periodically close the Colorado downstream of the dam so they could release large amounts of water as part of an effort to repair the dam.

Grua, a professional guide, saw his chance. The Emerald Mile, at one time slated to be destroyed, was rescued and brought back to life by Grua, who intended to use this flood as a kind of hydraulic sling-shot. The goal was to nail the all-time record for the fastest boat ever propelled down the entire length of the Colorado River from Lee’s Ferry to Lake Mead. He copmpleted the trip, but was very fortunate he wasn’t killed.

My brother Craig is an inveterate river rafter, who invites me along on some of his river adventures with he and his friends. He has rafted the Colorado twice. On the second occasion I was invited. I read this book, among others, in anticipation and in preparation for the trip. But I had a nasty bicycle accident a few weeks before the trip, and was unable to participate. The trip, by all accounts, was amazing.

Here are a few other books related to the Grand Canyon and/or the Colorado River that may be of interest: