Holiday Expeditions

The Times Picayune
June 6, 2001

Going with the flow

Rafting down the San Juan River is a time-honored way to slow down the pace of modern life.

By Bob Marshall

SAN JUAN RIVER, UTAH – High above us, in the slice of blue sky framed by the canyon walls, jetliners are leaving white tails as they race across the continent at more than 350 miles per hour. Yet, inside those aluminum tubes, hundreds of people are checking their watches, worried about time, afraid they're not traveling fast enough.

On the floor of the canyon, we're concerned about traveling too fast.

Thirteen rafters are scattered along the shoreline, surrounded by a rainbow of rock soaring into the sky and working hard at not working at all. Ron Ward opens another beer, turns to another page in his novel. Shelley Furre is offering the back of her body to the sun. Steve Griffin, stretched out under a sprawling cottonwood, is drifting toward his second nap of the day, wrapped in the sweet scent of flowering Russian olive trees.

"This is why I'm here," mumbles Griffin, a writer from Michigan. "This is the one thing I never make time for. This is what's so great about a river trip: time to do nothing."

Time is a story you can't avoid, a perpetual headline that dominates life. In today's microchipped world, progress is measured by man's ability to squeeze more and more into less and less time. TV anchors breathlessly announce the jump from megahertz to gigahertz, news magazines herald the development of computers that can move faster than the human brain, compressing time, letting us move through life without giving it a second's thought.

But in the middle of the Colorado Plateau, time management has a different meaning. Take a seat on a rubber raft, push away from a sandy shore, and the current of a desert river will embrace you, carrying your body and soul on a trip through time that defies modern convention. You'll travel across 350 million years in four days, and you'll do it at a speed that is breathtaking – because it is so slow.

The San Juan is one of the several rivers flowing through canyons they have cut in the Colorado Plateau, an ancient seabed stretching across southeastern Utah. While the sun bakes tree-less mountains and tortured desert on the surface, the rivers twist, turn and sometimes tumble deep within the history of this land, shaded by the shadows of canyon walls that can rise 2,000 feet.

They call this whitewater rafting, but that is a gentle deceit. If you want to spend a week with a paddle in your hands and your heart in your throat, go somewhere else. Sure, there are rapids on this river, some of which will make your pulse race for a few seconds – especially if you're traveling by kayak or open canoe. But the San Juan doesn't need fast thrills. It raises goose bumps another way, using the story of time to soothe and awe the most harried and jaded travelers.

It is a story of the land told in the stunning, multi-colored layers of rocks constructed over hundreds of millions of years. And it is the story of the humans who lived here, told by haunting rock paintings hand-applied 800 years ago, and in the crumbling ruins of cliff dwellings hanging over the river's edge.

Anyone can read those stories in books sold at shopping malls across America. But you can feel it only by entering the world of the river.

Most adventurers do this by signing-up for a San Juan trip with commercial companies that offer two options: paddle rafts, which feature a guide at the stern, and the six passengers paddling for four days; or "oar boats," which feature a guide rowing the raft with two long oars, and six passengers lounging about on other parts of the craft, working hard at watching the scenery unfold.

Oar boats were the easy choice for this group, a choice applauded by the guides.

"Being on the water is just part of the trip," advised Emma Wharton, one of the two guides from Holiday Expeditions, a rafting company based in Salt Lake City. "There are a few rapids, but they're not very big. And we'll have rubber duckies (inflatable kayaks) people can play in.

"But this is one of my favorite trips because of all the things you can see and do off the water. You'll want to bring shoes you can hike in, some binoculars and plenty of film. This is probably a different trip than anything you're used to in the east."

The San Juan difference is visible upon first look: Its water is the color of café-au-lait. Though born of melting snow in the San Juan mountains in southwestern Colorado, the river loses its clear water when it tumbles out of the high country and turns westward to begin weaving across the soft, flat desert of the Four Corners area.

By the time it reaches the small community of Bluff, Utah, the San Juan has the highest silt load of any river in the vast Colorado River system. It also has the steepest vertical crop, falling 10 feet a mile. The silt and speed have helped the river carve one of the continent's most impressive canyons, stretching 83 river miles from Bluff to Clay Hills Crossing, where the San Juan meets an unnatural end in the huge reservoir known as Lake Powell.

In late May, the river is swollen with spring runoff from the distant mountains. It is 70 yards wide, running at a swift 6-8 mph and a bon-chilling 55 degrees – an inviting counterpoint to the oven-dry, 95-degree air temperature. Our trip will cover the entire system in four days, traveling across Navajo tribal lands, as well as federal lands, most of which are protected from development.

"Each river has its own personality, " says Marc Foshee, the senior guide on the trip. "The San Juan give you plenty of options. There's always something interesting to see and do. You can relax, and you can keep busy at the same time."

The San Juan's personality becomes evident within minutes, as massive red and salmon-colored sandstone walls close in on the rafts. Some are solid blocks of stone as tall and sheer as One Shell Square; others rise like crumbling rock cakes, with countless layers stepping off into the sky.

Most of the layers are sandstone, limestone and shale created 300 million years ago when a shallow, warm sea covered the region. Rivers crossing the ancient continent carried loads of silt from distant mountains as well as local landscapes, dropping their cargo on the sea floor the same way the Mississippi deposits silt in the Gulf of Mexico. Fossils and clays from marine environments added hundreds of feet if fossils. These sediments were compressed by the tremendous pressure of their own weight, as well as that of the sea. The layers were cemented into stone by minerals such as calcite, and gained their colors from other minerals, such as the red from iron oxide.

The canyon was formed when the Colorado Plateau was gradually pushed more than 7,000 feet above sea level. Rivers that had moved lazily across the region like bayous drifting across Louisiana's coast picked up speed supplied by gravity, beginning a rock-carving process that continues today. The River's work reveals the history of the region in scores of rock layers varying in thickness from a few inches to dozens of feet. Their colors cover a spectrum of reds, pinks, yellows, grays and even black.

As stunning as the story may be, there are even more impressive chapters below the river, where some rock layers – exposed in the deeper Grand Canyon – date back more than a billion years.

Drifting quietly through the canyon, the rafters stare up at the unfolding drama in awed silence, waiting for the next turn in the river to offer another surprise. But Wharton is busy alternating oar strokes with an excited point-and-shout exercise.

She points right: "Petroglyphs!" and we see a series of figures etched into the ancient sandstone. Men, hands, animals and a range of geometric figures, all left by the Anasazi , the people who lived here as early as 2000 BC.

She points left: "Grainery!" and we see a low wall of mud bricks guarding the entrance of rock overhangs. These were constructed by the Anasazi to hold their corn and other grains.

She points right again: "Moki steps!" and we see small, plate-size holes that angle upward across the sandstone and away from the river. These were steps carved into the rocks by the Anasazi.

And just six miles from our put-in, the rafts are beached at a long, wide meadow, shaded by cotton woods. Lunch is prepared by the guides, naps are taken, swimming trips are planned. But the real treat comes in the cooler evening hours, when the group hikes across red, pink and blond sandstone, over a cactus and sage meadow, then along a huge overhang to "River House."

This is the ruin of an Anasazi dwelling, complete with walls, windows and petroglyphs. All of it has a soothing view of the San Juan as it twists through the canyon, heading west.

"The Anasazi selected their home sites based on protection form their enemies, but also from the river," Foshee said.

By nightfall, the river seems like a friend to the 13 rafters. Our tents are scattered along the flat meadow, and even in the starlight, the canyon walls seem to glow with color. Overhead, the Milky Way is clearly visible, stretching across the river, distant and timeless.

"I'm getting there," Griffin said, preparing for his first night's sleep on the San Juan. "I can feel myself really letting go and getting into this trip. This is the routine I need."

It's the routine we keep. For the next three days, we'll take turns relaxing on the raft and paddling the more exciting kayaks, engage in water-gun fights, go swimming in the bracing water, and watch Canada geese, raves, hawks and deer go about their daily lives. We'll explore stunning side canyons of polished sandstone, swim in spring-fed pools under a broiling desert sun, hike over high ridges and take mud baths.

We'll read novels, write in journals or just nap. We'll reach out and drag our fingers across a yard of rock wall, crossing three layers of sandstone and 4 million years of history in 10 seconds. We'll unroll our sleeping bags on limestone ledges at the base of a 1,500-foot canyon wall 350 million years in the making, and talk about the insignificant speck of time a human life represents in the history of the planet. About noon on the fourth day, as we pull into the take-out, we'll realize just how magic these canyon trips can be.

And, as we pile into a van and leave the river behind, no one will look twice at his or her digital watch, or think about cell phones or even care about the headlines we might have missed.

Time won't matter, except that it moved too quickly.