At the crack of dawn, I was astonished to hear Marc Venable's voice exhorting me to get up and get cracking. Ordinarily Marc is more, ahem, sedate in the mornings, but he was fired up to get on the river and I agreed with him. The more miles we made this day, the more likely it would be that we would make the hike to Goblin City at river mile 37. I assumed we were in the mid-70's as far as river mileage went, so we hadn't done as well as I'd hoped, due to the late put in and the fact that the river was only averaging 3mph, more or less. Regardless, we made a quick breakfast, slammed everything in the canoes and were on the river.
Once again, wildlife came out to greet us. A red-headed pheasant strutted proudly along the bank as Marc and I passed, and then came the treat; as we crossed into officially designated public land, a bald eagle coasted over our heads and landed in a tree, from whence he eyed us boldly. We saw yet another one kicking it in his nest later on, but from there on out it got dry, and hot, and we passed through groves of burnt trees that looked like white bones with black gristle pounded into the earth. The river seemed to be moving more quickly (after checking, the White was in fact gaining steadily in cfs all weekend long) and we began encountering some class II rapids, particularly along the cliff walls. Sometime around midday we passed a fat old bald man wearing a black loincloth. He looked like a sumo wrestler, or a wild injun, or an insane idiot, I can't tell which one was more likely to be hanging out where he was, grinning at us. I asked him if this was Cowboy canyon and he said something like "Sure, yeah, Bob's canyon, Jim's canyon, they're all here." As if I knew him and his crazy bastard friends who dress up like sumo wrestlers and stagger about leering at passing canoeists.
Bigger rapids (class III) came up around mile 60. A particularly large wave formed on river left, and Patrick and Steve went through it sideways and all of a sudden the river was full of tupperware and ziplock, as if a Carnival Cruise liner had sank. At this point the crack team snapped into action, it was amazing. Two canoes went for the stuff, and we went for Steve and the canoe, which was pretty much submerged but floating. Alas, we tried to recover where the water was still moving quickly, and Steve's canoe rammed us into a large log strainer, which beat me and Marc on the head. So we let the canoe go and kept Steve. The rest of the group salvaged the canoe and all the stuff and pulled up on the side of the river. Patrick floated down to them. Steve got a ride on the Short Bus down to the river, looking like an oriental potentate sprawled out on our coolers. All he needed was a fan and some grapes.
So a quick flip, a quick recovery, and no serious consequences; Steve and Patrick had waterproofed everything well, so the only thing that needed drying was them. Patrick and Patrick T bailed about two hundred gallons out of the canoe in about ten minutes and we were ready to go again. I was elated, really happy; this was the first trip I'd led through that sort of rapid and the recovery had gone by the book, more or less. Was more beer-cracking in order? Indeed it was. The rest of the day was a happy blur. We bungeed our canoes together and I took a picture of Katrin, who'd duct-taped a bag/ kitchen glove over her arm cast and looked like the cyborg wife of Mister Clean. Everyone we met was very polite to Katrin. By the end of the trip we just called it "The Claw."
We passed the put-in where Group 1 had been the night before. They put in and shuttled in the darkness, the crazy bastards, and braved an ornery rancher to boot. Nevertheless they were far ahead of us at this point and we wouldn't see them until the next day. Unfortunately, it appeared that the entire population of North America had signed up for a Centennial "canoe adventure" that weekend. Enormous groups of pale people on the river, decked out like they were traveling by camel in the Negeb, interspersed with a small private group from Salt Lake City, who griped with us about Centennial and had apparently stocked up on dogs before they'd gotten on the river. We asked each other cautiously about our plans, wondering who was going to find the best camp site.
I don't know about them, but we found a good one, in the shade, around river mile 50. Nothing beneath the Bonanza put-in was clearly marked as public or private land, so we assumed it was public. It wasn't officially "super-sweet" but the timing was perfect and it had plenty of space and a decent view, albeit one partially blocked by a bank full of tamarisk. But a short walk up to an escarpment in the cliffs and we could see across the whole valley, and drink Butterscotch Schnapps (a.k.a. "The Buttah' a.k.a. "The Lightweight Traveler"") while we did it. It's difficult to say what separates a good campsite from a great campsite; this one was a bit too enclosed for me, but it had a lot of shade from the cliffs to the west, which was perfect. Big thunderclouds had been building all day, and towards twilight a rainy wind sprung up and kept us from lighting a fire until it died down. This pattern repeated itself the next day. Dinner was chips dipped in the famed Nacho Cheese Dip, followed by boil-in-a-bag chicken for Marc and I. I dunno what Alicia whipped up, but avocados were involved. More beer, more crackling, more cackling. Our tent nearly blew into the river with all our stuff; note to self- always stake down tents when camping in a river canyon. Other than that, we all slept like logs that night. Marc's snoring was audible from the campfire, so I put in earplugs, but I took them out after a while. Combined with the sound of the riffle in the water nearby, Marc's snores sounded like a tugboat chugging up the river, it was rather peaceful. At one point I had to wake him up, though, because it sounded like the tugboat was running into the dock. Stone asleep, he was still cantankerous. "You've been snoring too, I heard ya," he said, and rolled over.
