WRITING DOWN THE RIVER INTRODUCTION
Kathleen Jo Ryan

On an outcropping of rock I sit snuggled in a oversized wool coat as a brisk fall wind drowns out the sounds of people and cars. I have re-turned once more to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to feel the space, magnitude, and contemplate the perspective before I turn in the final elements of this book. I am overcome with a tingling sense of gratitude and blessing that I am about to complete this inspired pro-ject, a vivid dream for nine years.

From my perch I am overwhelmed with the contrast of what I am seeing and what I feel. The experience from the Rim is orderly, almost anti-septic and does not require risk or effort. There are paved turnouts and neatly organized guard rails to direct the 5 million visitors who come every year. The Canyon I have come to love appears forbidding, barren, dangerous, almost lifeless and beyond my reach. The magnitude numbs and I am lost in a sea of insignificance. I feel restless, un-satisfied and bewildered. Finally I focus on a view that reveals the Colorado River below and I am immediately transported down into an in-timate heart.

In 1987 I had been crisscrossing twelve western states in pursuit of a photographic book on ranching, totally losing myself in the open spaces of the American West. On one trip into the Southwest, I drove across the old Navajo Bridge, crossing Marble Canyon. I stopped and walked back to the middle of the bridge and looked down at the Colo-rado River. Ranches in Northern Colorado where I had visited hosted some of the head waters for the Colorado. Standing there, I wistfully asked the river to extend me an invitation. I went on my way. That moment was lost in thousands of miles as I drove throughout the West during the next year.

A year later, a surprise invitation did come from a boatman friend who had returned to work on the Colorado River for the Summer of 1988. My friend had introduced me to river rafting with a single trip in 1986 on the Toulumne River in Northern California. By September 1988, my ranch book was in production and I was finishing up the details (Ranching Traditions was published in 1989 by Abbeville Press in New York). I felt a river trip would be 'fun' and a change of pace from traversing the American West by car and horseback. It was an adven-ture, an opportunity to photographically play. I came to the Colorado River and went into the Grand Canyon without expectation, experience or knowledge.

The Grand Canyon seduces us into it's depths as we slowly float down river. The first rapids are playful "riffles" that splash about. Yet there is an imposing silence. The only sounds are the boatman's oars slipping in and out of the water, punctuated by an occasional song from canyon wrens. In the distance is a murmur, a quiet rushing sound that begins to escalate and demand attention. Soon it is thundering. The boatman repositions and alerts the passengers to prepare for the descent into a rapid. We slide seductively down the tongue into a crescendo of energy and water; the water appears to be laughing as we enter for the ride; with applause as we complete each wave. We gasp from cold water hitting our hot skin and from the exhilaration of the rampaging power. As quickly as we brace ourselves we have shot through to the other side of the rapid, all the while the boatman deftly gliding us past the eddies. We have been awakened; our senses aroused. There is an extraordinary power in the passage. The might of the Colorado River has jostled us. The River is deceptive and it could be very easy to accept only the superficial appearance, as with people the real power is beneath the surface.

The River took my breath away. My fears were suspended in a consuming present moment each time we entered a raging rapid. The float time captivated me, overloading my senses with unfathomable perspectives and intimate, finite details. The Canyon and River took hold of my soul and carried me into it's heart. The overwhelming dimensions, profound mystery and meditative silence of the Canyon commanded my attention. As I began to experience the enormity, words lost their descriptive power. My human mind struggled to comprehend the magnitude and magnificence. My senses were tested visually, emotionally, and spiritually.

After returning from the River I began my search for a book to validate and celebrate my feelings for the Grand Canyon and Colorado River experience. I did not find such a book. In June 1990 I returned for another two week trip to seriously pursue producing a book. Over the next six years I received an abundance of "thank you for sharing letters" from every publisher I approached. Finally during a conversation in the Spring of 1996 I was asked, " what about featuring all women writers?" I had another book in development featuring ranch women in the West, so this was a natural evolution. The idea clicked. Last October I signed a book contract with Northland Publishing and returned to the Canyon for a fifteen day river trip to officially launch this project. At last, my vision began to form into reality. At once thrilling and daunting, it was what I had wanted for eight years, yet our publishing time line allowed only one season -- a few months away.

It addition to doing all the original photography, I am also the project producer taking on all the financial risks prior to publishing. I do this for the "risk reward ratio": the higher the risk, the higher the opportunity for reward. For a project of this complexity the risk is great and my reward is ensuring the integrity and content of images and words that result in an enduring published book. So, I secure the funding for all project expenses, selecting the writers, and organize all the logistics. As with each of my books, my selection process is subjective. After I research each writer's work, I am guided intuitively and respond to how her writing style moves me visually. There were only a couple of writers that I already knew, the rest I wrote or called sharing my vision and inviting them to participate.


Eight of the sixteen Grand Canyon Outfitters sponsored the writers' trips this past summer season. We matched the writers preferred dates and kind of trip with available space on a commercial river trip offered by a host outfitter. The first writer put in on April 1 and the last writer came off on October 2. I photographed on four trips, one motor, three rowing - two raft and one dory .

Physical and emotional risks are required for passage down the River The Canyon is harsh and unforgiving to the overly confident, cocky or reckless. Each step, like the River, requires focus, concentration and appreciation. One cannot go down without effort, without stretching oneself and giving into the wildness. Each woman came to the River with her own expectations, challenges, cautions, excitement, and fears. We span five decades, from mid-thirties to early seventies. Several women had never slept out in the open under the stars or been boating on a river with white water. Two went with spouses, one with another writer, and the rest alone. I traveled with only one writer, my other trips were solo. Each of our journeys was made with a group of strangers who were booked on a commercial trip.

Once each woman was on the river, it was the River, Canyon and river guides who shaped their experience. I trusted this process implicitly and asked them to write about their personal journey. I invited each writer to share her healing, exuberance, revelation, awakening or whatever her experience. The resulting essays reflect each woman's passage - each essay is as individual as the woman. This book is about taking risks; trusting oneself and trusting others; following instincts and intuition; summoning courage to face fears and often buried feelings, longings or desires; and putting forth an effort to seek answers.

Out of fifteen writer's trips and a total of seven trips for me, we had virtually no injuries and only four "river stories" to tell. One writer's boat flipped in the ledge hole at Lava Falls Rapid, one was knocked out of her inflatable kayak by ten foot waves, another writer's paddle boat flipped in Hermit Rapid, and after six "golden trips," without incident to me, the dory I was in on my seventh trip flipped in Lava Falls Rapid. It was an extraordinary summer.


My own personal passage of these accumulated river trips has been arduous, strengthening, and bountiful. My five river journeys of the past year happened after I turned fifty - my most powerful birthday. In my youth I had been an above average swimmer and had worked seven summers as a lifeguard during high school and college. Yet, I have never overcome my panic and terror of being in water out of control, where I cannot see, or having my head held underwater. Intellectually, I recognize it as an irrational fear that my skill had never resolved. Fortunately I did not know the volume and size of the rapids that I would encounter when I first came down the river, so I put in without hesitation or concern.

The spirits of the Canyon are kind and wise to the humble. Yet, it is not for the meek or fearful; the opportunity for fear is abundant at every turn and on every inch of surface, yet it does not impose; it awaits perception, recognition, interpretation. With each river journey my learning accelerated. I soaked up the environment - space, magnitude, colors, textures, wind and water. The power of the water demanded more and more attention and respect. This past summer, the water was running high on each of my trips. On two separate trips a raft in front of me flipped, tossing the passengers into the wild water; no one was hurt and with great team effort each boat was returned to its upright position and we went on down the river.


These events reached deep inside to my old fear of water that fueled a vulnerability already taking hold from my fatigue. I am a former athlete not a current one, although I look capable. We hiked side canyons almost daily on every trip. I pushed myself and by my last trip I was feeling physically vulnerable. Just the thought of flipping sent waves of terror through me. As the boat I was riding approached each major rapid, I found myself praying, "Holy Father, please may I have safe passage." If it was necessary for me to flip to complete my River experience, although I was convinced it was not, I asked the River to be gentle that I might learn without harm.

On my last trip, we scouted Lava Falls where Prospect Canyon had another flash flood resulting in a dramatic debris flow which changed the run our boatmen were accustomed to making. They scouted as I photographed the wild water. We had three boats go first and a few of us photographed their rides, all successful. Then the final two boats - we were last. I was seated up front and remember vividly dropping down into enormous raging water that was much higher than our 18' dory.

As we were dropping down I had barely completed the thought "this is really big" when the boat flipped us into rampaging frothing water. I could not get air as I was being tossed about like a rag doll. I felt total panic. I could only make guppy gasps as I was thrown about. I saw no land marks, no other boats only mocha colored water. I was panicked not able to breathe. Finally, I saw the upside-down dory coming toward me and grabbed the edge. The boatman had grabbed the other side and was urging me to get onto the top of the bottom of the dory.

At last, I started to catch my breath, but did not have enough strength to pull myself up onto the dory. As I struggled, my knee popped out of its socket, an ungainly event that happens at inappropriate times. The boatman pulled me up and as I flopped onto the dory my knee popped back in place. I was not aware of how quickly we and our boat were being swept toward the wall at Lower Lava. All the water crashing through Lava Falls rages down stream and slams against a rock wall on river left. Our boat was headed directly for the wall.


The boatman remained very calm and directed me to hold my flip line, which encircles the bottom of the boat, and lean back away from the approaching wall. We missed the first sharp edge by inches. We were within a couple of inches of the next edge when the force of water rebounding off the wall caught the edge of the dory and flipped it back over. We were thrown back into the water; the boat was swamped but upright. One of the other boatmen maneuvered his boat next to ours, all the while in raging current, and pulled us up into the boat. The entire event took about three minutes. We stopped on the beach to regroup, my sunglasses were still held in place by my Chums and miraculously, I had not swallowed any water.

When a boat flips it becomes a social event for the entire group. Adrenaline is high, crisis over, waves of emotional relief circulate and it is time to celebrate a positive outcome. But for me, it was a night to seek solace. I felt emotionally rearranged and humbled. I needed comfort. As I lay awake, secure in my cocoon sleeping bag, watching the canopy of stars, I played the whole scene over in my mind. My worst fear had been realized: I had panicked, was totally out of control and could not catch my breath. It might have been fun had I given my self to the moment and to the current. But I had been filled with terror. I wept quiet tears of reassurance, of ownership, of overcoming and acceptance. I had been baptized, a right of passage earned. A shooting star winked at me.


Why is it we interpret a dramatic event as negative or bad? A crisis. This particular river season was abundant with dramatic change. Late monsoons brought huge flash floods that rampaged though side canyons. The evidence: vegetation wiped out, house size rocks tossed like marbles, and tons of debris and gravel dumped into the river. We were stunned by the power and called it damage, destruction, or devastation. Our valuation of what we observed was negative - a bad thing. Did we see that this was only change? Did we understand that we were witness to an intimate natural process of life in the Canyon - life in a continuous state of change? Did these rearrangements of the Canyon threaten our perceptions - our psyche"

The Grand Canyon has been formed by cataclysmic events as well as millions and millions of momentary changes we call erosion. We interpret erosion as being reduced from a whole to something less. The Canyon experience demonstrates that the whole is ever present, changing, but still whole. Why are we afraid of dramatic or devastating change in our lives? In ourselves? Is it possible to reinterpret our negative value as one of beauty, sculpting our lives, our psyche, our souls? Are we like the Canyon remade new again and again, yet always infinitely whole.

Going down the River into the heart of the Grand Canyon is adventuring into a place of spirit. I have a warm, overwhelming feeling of gratitude, respect, and humility to have been allowed to float and play through this majestic canyon. It demands now that I return with an even greater sense of openness and receptivity - to then start to learn of the infinite secrets that are held within. It is a gift to each of us who have been blessed to participate in this book and it is our gift to share these images and words with you.


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There are two ways to float the river: oar powered trip - by raft or Dory (small wooden boat) or motorized raft. Each writer selected how they wanted to travel down the river and how long a trip. There are several options on the length of a trip:


Full trip - oar powered - put-in at Lee's Ferry and float the entire length 226 to Diamond Creek or 280 miles to Lake Mead - 12 - 14 days;
Full trip - motor powered - put-in at Lee's Ferry float the entire Canyon in 6 - 8 days;
Partial trip - oar powered:
Upper Canyon - put-in at Lee's Ferry - 6 - 8 days to Phantom Ranch and hike out Bright Angel Trail, 7.5 mile ascent to the South Rim;
Lower Canyon - hike down from the South Rim on the 7.5 mile Bright Angel Trail to Phantom Ranch and meet up with river trip and take out at end of trip.