Adrenaline Alley—forty miles of monstrous white water roaring a mile deep in the earth's crust. These forty miles of First Granite Gorge are the reason why some of us cannot stop coming back here. They are also the reason why some never return. At this point we had successfully navigated its first twenty miles. unfortunately, what lay ahead was far worse.
Waves below the horizon of Crystal Rapid exploded like claymore mines. What worried me most was the hidden gauntlet of three killer holes into which the Colorado River funneled immediately ahead. The one good thing about these dangers being hidden from me—and from the other four people in my boat counting on me to get them through all of this safely—was that the holes ahead cannot hurt you until you can see them. The bad thing was that we were heading right toward them.
This sudden transformation of the Colorado from a moving pond to a liquid predator here at Crystal Rapid automatically triggered a release of adrenaline. I felt my heart pound faster and the back of my neck tingle. My perception of time warped and the seconds dragged. Crystal is the drug of choice for adrenaline junkies. Even so, it made little sense for me to be here now. No, I was still in good health; I could handle the oars as well as ever. I was not here because money was a problem. Nor were things bad at home. In short, I did not have to be here leading this trip. Indeed, I knew I could lose everything important to me by continuing to court this monster of a river. The simple reality was that I could not stay away.
Abruptly, the entire huge mass of the Colorado River accelerated downward. My stomach rose as if descending in an elevator whose cable has snapped. I had no time to contemplate this. For two miles the river had been as smooth as glass, dammed to stillness and anticipation by the spew of boulders that made up Crystal Rapid. That had been the time to think. Now I was dropping over that dam into the last seconds of sanity in the transition zone of the rapid's tongue—the long, V-shaped slick funneling into the deepest part of the rapid. Now was the time to row, the time for inspired action. I aimed the stern of my boat downstream toward the right. With the demon of failure whispering in the back of my mind, I pulled on my oars as fast and hard as I could to escape. This used to be fun, but it was not fun now. Not since 1983.
---Sent from Steve's iPad...
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