Anatomy of my Ambition

Sometimes after I've made a decision I realize later that there was no decision at all. As soon as the idea had me, choice became illusion.

Canyon walls campsite

And so Thursday night found me frantically preparing for a weekend solo rafting trip down part of the Grand Canyon. I pulled my coat off its hanger and a cockroach fell out from somewhere in its folds. I don't get a lot of opportunity to wear it anymore. Oh well, this would be a good one, winter in the canyon is cold.

Dessicated Swamps - I'll never complain about hiking uphill again.

And so I set out, my raft, little more than a pool toy against one of the world's most powerful rivers. I didn't have time to raft the entire 277 miles so my plan was to hike across the desert and launch where I intersected the river.

Launch site.

The hiking portion of the trip was brutal, the worst conditions I have ever experienced. Each night I spent bordering on hypothermia, each day I clawed through the miles of thick, dead brush. The dams that now hem in the canyon seem to have created vast wastelands of dead wetlands on the western banks of the canyon. More than once I sat among the shattered branches, utterly hopeless, wondering if I could make it out of this hell, let alone to the river.

But eventually the dessicated swamp began to give way and soon I heard the rushing waters of the Colorado River. All around me the cliffs had risen to majestic heights from nowhere. Obscured by the brush I had not noticed their rise. Overwhelmed after days of the claustrophobic shrubbery I stopped and stared for hours. Finally, muddy and bleeding, I inflated my raft and prepared for myself for the cold waters.

For a day I drifted down the canyon. As evening set and the cliffs slowly fell back into the swamplands I pulled my raft ashore. A couple of tourists stared as I staggered out of the waters. I waved and they waved back, and taking a last look at the canyon I waved to the cliffs now miles away.

My appetite for the Grand Canyon has only been whet, the thirst for the Colorado not yet been slaked; I'll be back I think.

I'm not done here yet.

-2012-
sandstorm
sinister 2
sinister 1
dehydrated
anatomy
sleepwalking
new chapter

-2011-
like sedona?
torn in two
blink
bridge to nowhere
door
hitting the wall
elusive 2
elusive 1
ascenders
voyage
hole
icarus

-2010-
revisited 2
revisited 1
which way?
the pit
lost mines
narrow
snowfall
chute
false floor
monolith
crack
freeze
slice
bunker
in their footsteps
resolution

-2009-
goodbyes
undercurrents
casting the bones
mountain thief
the deer hunter
strange temple
sanctuary
burial pt. 3
burial pt. 2
burial pt. 1
scarlet fever
return to hell
forsaken
the lower depths
underground lake
stretch sewer
crypt
still waters
shadow movements
meager rations
sw pt.8: geothermal + ending
sw pt.7: lost gold mines
sw pt.6: big tube caves
sw pt.5: gold!
sw pt.4: el calderon caves
sw pt.3: redondo
sw pt.2: ghosts
southwest adventure pt.1
the river
dark salvation
reflections
dreams
the underdark
night odyssey
beginnings