White’s rig, rigged, circa 1967. Photo by Peggy Schmidt
Following Georgie
Into the Grand Canyon on the trail of the first female river guide.
I am rowing in the flat water west of Diamond Creek when an eddy sucks the raft into the upriver current. In a half second, the river wrenches the oar out of my hand and sends me spinning. The power of the Colorado doesn’t give me a chance to fight.
I am pushing an eighteen-foot-long gear boat loaded with the shit necessary to take twenty-four people through the Grand Canyon for sixteen days. Literally the shit. I am rowing the boat with the groovers—the portable bathrooms for the trip—and the boat is getting heavier by the day. By now, near the end of our trip, it is so overloaded and pluggy that it takes me several strokes to start the boat moving in the direction I want. But even in the slow water, the current is so forceful that it can grab the elephantine boat and throw it halfway across the river.
Over the course of its 1,450 miles, the Colorado River drops eight
3,700 words to go
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