We’ve already been moving for close to eight hours.
The first four went pretty smoothly. The river was narrow and the channel well defined. Following it was pretty straightforward and there were few places that we had to walk. Then we stopped for lunch.
After lunch, Dave and Mama Bear put in and then I go to jump in my boat. I immediately hear what sounds like air rushing out of my boat. I hop back out and take a quick look. I can’t find anything and go ahead and jump back in. The sound returns and as it continues I realize what it is.
It sounds like a woopy cushion under water and that’s pretty much what it is. The inflatable seat cushion has blown a seam, again. I sit and listen as my butt sinks into the water in my self-bailing boat. Within seconds, I’m sitting on the bottom. I think, no big deal, I’ve done this before. And then almost immediately smack a rock with my ass and I realize this is not the same. We’ve been pinballing all day. I’ve got to figure something out.
Improvisation is the most important thing you can take into the backcountry and here I was putting those words into action. First, I tried using my footrest. It wouldn’t stay put and seemed to snag on everything pushing the floor into the river bottom. Next, I removed my PFD placing it behind the seat cushion. This was a small improvement but was not going to be a good solution. I then pulled the foot rest and put it back where it goes. I released the back of my backrest and tightened the side straps. This made a small hammock like seat. I smashed the PFD behind it to give me some flotation and kept me from snagging on every possible spot.
The seat explosion was only half of our problem. I can’t say for sure and it may have only been a tiny bit, but after lunch the river seemed way lower. It felt like we had originally caught the morning flow and then transitioned into a slightly lower afternoon flow just as we were entering a part of the river characterized by rocks and small drops. This turned into walking, flop into boat, float for a few minutes, take the boat for a walk, try to float, get stuck, get out, try to find a channel, flop, float, repeat.
We made about 10 miles prior to lunch and we were now pacing at half the speed.
As we are nearing the end of the day, I have an idea. Maybe we can get out somewhere before Crack in the Wall. I stop and while tinkling I pull out my phone and take a look at Caltopo. I knew there were a few canyons we had been up on this side of the Gulch, but I wasn’t sure how close they were or even if they would be worth attempting to hike out. I look at the map searching for an answer. Our best bet is to stay the course and use the sand ramp out of Coyote Gulch.
We’re deep on the inside.
The Inside
Kim Stanley Robinson has a chapter in his book The High Sierra A Love Story that is dedicated to defining what is the inside and how you know you are there. After a couple of pages, he more or less ends the explanation with the final way to know and that is you just know when you are on the inside.
Within a few sentences of this chapter, I knew exactly what it was he was trying to explain. And I also understood how difficult it is to explain to someone who has never made it there. The inside isn’t defined by distance or geographic characteristics. It’s mostly a feeling you get when you get deep out there. The farther you push into the backcountry, the more life pauses. The signs of humanity fade. If you do see any humans, they smell and act differently.
In the outside, people don’t make eye contact, don’t want to be bothered or to bother. Everyone is keeping to themselves trying to stay away from the masses. Social norms are heavily enforced through group behavior. It’s acceptable to smell like you just sprayed a gallon of perfume on yourself, but not to smell like an actual human. Your clothes must be clean and stylish, whatever that means. And really you are doing your best to avoid and impress all at the same time.
On the inside, all of that is gone. People smell like people. If you do see someone, they are usually excited to see you and are friendly sharing beta, even checking in to make sure everyone is ok when conditions are less than ideal. But, on the inside, you’re not likely to see anyone. That’s the most magical piece.
A few miles in on Day 2, we round a corner to be surprised by a small family getting ready to put in. They had been camped in a small alcove just off the river. They’re in tandem packrafts, two of them. The couple is accompanied by their two small girls. One parent per boat plus a child. To be this far out, with this flow, with two small children, raises some questions, but after pleasantries and a quick check in, we float by half expecting that we would never see them again.
It’s one of the seemingly endless paradoxes of humanity. As social creatures, it is almost impossible for us to live without each other, but we’ve become so successful in surviving that there are too many of us to the point that we often can’t recognize the humans around us. We evolved to exist in small groups and now live in overpopulated cities that create a society that is full of humans and yet everyone feels alone.
I’m fucking beat.
My shins are bright red, both from sunburn and from rubbing on my boat as I get in and out constantly. The last 5ish hours have been incredibly slow going. Once I realized that we had no way out other than our plan, it was just go and here I was with a seatless boat.
We round a bend and the first plausible campsite we’ve seen in hours comes into view. It’s one we’ve used before. It has a big sandy bar with cottonwoods and plenty of flat areas to sleep. It’s earlier than we wanted to stop due to our situation, but it also feels like it’s our spot. We drag the boats up on the beach and everyone kind of just collapses. There’s not a lot of chatter among the group. The yard sale soon happens and then grub is served and we re-commune under one of the cottonwoods.
I go about finding a few flat rocks and the Aquaseal from my patch kit and go about repairing my whoopie cushion. A wide swath of the sealant is applied across the whole and the extra bit of fabric extending past the seam. I then take small flat rocks to apply specific pressure to where the hole is. This is capped with a larger flat rock to ensure nothing moves and that there is good pressure. Then I leave it for the night.
The conversation returns to the family. After our crazy day, we question their whereabouts and safety. There’s even talk of sending out a message to the rangers to let them know they are down here and probably in deep trouble.
As we lounge in the shade, shooting the shit, Mama Bear says, “I hear kids.”
She and Mike walk down to the river’s edge and sure as shit here comes the family. Mom and Dad pulling the boats and the two girls smiling and walking down the river. Mama Bear and Mike engage in conversation and invite them to camp on the sandbar near us as there really hasn’t been nor are there any other good spots. They drag their boats up and set up an orderly camp.
Day 3 breaks.
My alarm goes off at 5 as per the usual and I just turn it off. There hadn’t been any planning on a start time and I wasn’t motivated enough to crawl out of bed. I fall back to sleep until the light has begun to warm on the horizon. I roll over to see what is going on and to my surprise, Mike is up and more or less already packed. His tent is down and his gear is in the dry bags.
I sit up and light the stove to get our coffee rolling and wake up Mama Bear with my typical, “Ready for some coffee?”
She sticks her head out of her bag, says yes and then flits the covers back over her head to catch a couple more winks.
The previous morning, there was immediate talk of waiting until things warmed, not on this day. The team was up and moving and we were on the river as soon as everyone was packed. We all knew we were going to have at least one more long day ahead of us and possibly two if we didn’t make it to Coyote Gulch.
As we put on, I started my watch and pulled up the map from our last day on the Escalante in April. We had 17 miles to go.
When we landed the night before, the small rapid at our take out had looked impossibly too bony to float through. This morning, it looked doable. I gave it a go and to my surprise it went and we were cruising around the bend. It would seem that our estimation of a morning rise and evening drop in the river might be something. We also found that the river quickly transitioned from smaller boulders to house sized boulders. The river tended to be narrow and deep around the giant rocks and we began to make descent time.
The wondrous thing about getting to the inside of the outside is how everything just melts away. It’s my main motivation of pushing to get deep. Day 1, my brain was all over the place. I was excited to be there but still fretting about work. Day 2, I was forced to focus on the task at hand and my brain settled. Day 3, I was in. Day 4, I might as well have been feral.
Getting out there and finding the inside was like a giant reset button. The difficulties and simplicity of our situation pulled me out of the outside and dropped me inside. By the end of Day 2, you couldn’t have payed me to leave prematurely. I was suffering for sure, but nothing could have been more glorious than paddling and dragging my small vessel down that river.
As Adventure Journal says, “The deeper you get, the deeper you get.”
17 miles turns to 16 turns to 15…
I watch as the miles click down on my watch. Being able to see our progress in miles as it slowly passes by eases the difficulty of our situation. Soon we are at 10. And then 5. And then 1. We round the bend, my favorite bend in the river, to see the giant alcove and Steven’s Arch towering above us. It’s always a pleasure to round that bend, regardless of how low the river is or how hard it was to get there.
Pulling up on the sandy beach at the mouth of Coyote Gulch, we know we’ve made it through. There is a feeling of relief and also of longing. I can feel that we are nearing the outside, but we still have one more night and we aren’t about to let anything ruin it.
Trashed would be a proper adjective for our condition. My shoulders are shot, my legs are tired, I’m sunburned and chaffed. All I want is some food and sleep and that’s exactly what we do.
This evening we do make a plan. It’s going to be warm crawling out of this place. 5 o’clock wake up and we hope to be moving by 7ish.
Back to the Outside
The walk out isn’t easy. There are three main obstacles to get out of the canyon. The initial ramp which is a sandstone wall you scramble up that is typically, and in our case, covered in sand. Then there’s the almost vertical sandstone ramp picture above. This is a leg burner. You drop it in four low and just keep the gas on until you get to the top. If you stop, you’re probably going to get scared and then you have to have someone else come save you. And lastly, the Crack in the Wall, where packs have to be hoisted and dragged up to the top as you can’t fit through said crack with them on.
We make our way through the obstacles and are soon standing next to the 4Runner sipping warm beer. There is a group of ladies that had hiked out just ahead of us. We chat them up and despite them having been in there for several days, someone is wearing perfume.
I guess we’re out.
Embrace Chaos. Seek Discomfort.
