Bet ya thought we'd drown.

We've been out to Burma Shave, although I have not seen one in years.

What is there about driving in the desert at night that so mesmerizes the mind? Unseen possibilities and interactions hovering just beyond the edge of detection. No lights, warm air buffeting through open windows, the strains of the Eagles blasting out of the tape deck, the empty road seems to stretch to infinity, narrow-halogen high-beams illuminating moths flitting through them like flashing meteors. The freedom of flying through the night is perhaps close to the feeling an astronaut experiences as he hurls through space, the feeling of technological man out there alone in his machine, railing against a vast organic universe which does not recognize his existence and where our puny species is merely a speed bump in its endless history.

The above experience is so antithetical to the feeling one experiences beyond the canyon rim. In these isolated island wilderness one can peel away the layers of civilization to uncover the hidden spiritual being within and its connections to the beauty of our little world and the wonders of the vast universe beyond.

I am at a loss to describe what I saw and experienced out there. Those experiences are suppressed by the noise of the civilization I have returned to. Ed Abbey's gift was to be able through the noise, to depict the awe and beauty he saw. Suffice it to that only where the road ends can the journey to El Dorado begin.

It's snowing as we slide into our kayaks and pull away from the road. I am shivering now, but in a couple of days I'll be seriosly sunburned. Down the river (photo)

As the river carries us into the canyon country, it cuts through Mesozoic sandstone laid down 200 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the Southwest. Mammals were an emerging line of small quadrupeds resulting from random mutations whose existence was tenuous and future prospects dubious. Down and down though layers of rock the river cuts canyon walls that become a mural of geologic history containing the fossilized remains of whole families of extinct organisms which were far longer lived than juvenile humanity... the ephemeral and transitory nature of all living things in general and mankind in particular diminish the plight of humanity. From such an ignominious beginning the evolutionary pathway leading to creatures who manufacture plastic kayaks would have been difficult to extrapolate.

Soon (very soon geologically) humanities brief presence here, our scratchings and desecrations will be marked by a thin layer in the Earth's crust. The Earth abides. As I sit watching the river carry the past downstream a grain at a time, I contemplate the landscape 200 million years hence.

I attempt to reintegrate my connections to the web of life from which our ancestors slowly withdrew. I endeavor to become non alien in this environment that Anasazi called home, but in which we would perish without the technological support that alienates us from mother earth. Still there are moments, occasionally hours or days when I transcend the shackles of civilization and become human. Cliff dwelling (photo)

The vibrant-green bands of vegetation hugging desert water courses contrast with sparsely vegetated bare red rock and vertical canyon walls, capturing the eye in an infinite kaleidoscopic challenge to ones perception of: wet and dry, large and miniscule, ancient and recent, and, the vital and the trivial. Side canyon (photo)

Numerous side canyons bring additional water to the river. They quickly twist away hiding their secrets from view and inviting exploration. Petroglyphs pecked into the walls stare at me. Sometimes it seems that the ghosts of those who created them more than 700 years are laughing just out of visual or hearing range. Pictograph (photo)

Sign of beaver abound, gnawed stumps, some beaches are an impenetrable tangle of beaver felled cottonwoods, beaver slides punctuate the banks continuously. We saw nine: swimming along side our kayaks, feeding on the bank, and scrambling in panic to reach the safety of the river at our approach. Inevitably they submerge with a distinctive tail slap.

Three afternoons of thunderstorms entertained and awed us with their magic light shows, crashing thunder and drenching hydraulic power. On the first day, blue-black clouds, searing-white lightening, the rolling echoes of thunder, and cool-descending wind chased us as the afternoon passed. We took cover under a ledge as a storm commenced. Minutes later a roaring preceded a huge cascading pour-off next to our shelter. Small hailstones ricocheted off the walls to sting our faces. One pour-off we saw was almost equal in volume to the river itself. Another storm caught us on the river. We paddled under an overhang and watched as high-velocity marble-sized hailstones created a million six-inch fountains erupting on the rivers surface.

One cloudless evening as we were finishing dinner on a bench a few feet above a small side canyon, we heard the roar of water and then watched as the creek flashed. The creek changed from an ankle deep stream to a several foot deep torrent in moments.

The thunderstorms brought three days of thick-chocolate-brown water which overflowed the normal channel and ferried us swiftly downstream.

Finally after seven days, the river empties into the abomination abomination of a reservoir cynically called a lake. The graded road runs eagerly back to the asphalt arteries of civilization. But even as the wilderness island recedes I am dreaming about future forays.

"Out there" the wilderness at the highway's edge is an alien inhospitable environment for frail unconnected-modern humans passing by in their hermetically-sealed air-conditioned cars. Keep moving assholes - genuine Indian curios one mile ahead.

Happy trails,

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