The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko

Kevin Fedarko’s book The Emerald Mile was first published in the summer of 2013 and became an instant hit with river rats and water geeks alike.  It is basically the story of the spring of 1983 when the winter snow pack continued to build unexpectedly in the Rocky Mountains until Memorial Day weekend when it all started to melt all at once.  This snow melt runoff caused unprecedented flooding along the Colorado River systems that stressed the Bureau of Reclamation on-stream dams, their engineers and their operators.  From this adversity came an opportunity for a select, almost mythical, group of river runners and guides.  They seized the moment, as well as the high water, and attempted to break the fastest rowing record thru the Grand Canyon.  These stories are seamlessly woven together in this book to provide an enlightening and entertaining story of the various, often competing, special interest groups, and stakeholders of the rivers and the water in the west.

Fedarko was originally a staff writer for Time magazine and a contributor to Esquire and Outside as well as other magazines.  He is a part time river guide in the Grand Canyon which manifests as respect, almost reverence, for that place and the river that carved it.  This may contribute to his over-the-top storytelling and his fraternity to the culture of the river guides.  Every chapter is an adventure, and every subsequent chapter is an exciting opportunity that is not to be missed.  He also translates the complex hydrologic engineering concepts and numbers into layman terms that flow like water.  The book therefore reads itself and is impossible to put down. 

Along with his complete history of river running and the development of the culture of the western river guides, Fedarko does equally well in describing the operating engineers for the Bureau of Reclamation at Glen Canyon Dam.  They are first seen anxiously watching car sized sandstone boulders shooting from the spillway tunnels and then hopefully putting plywood on the dam’s spillway gates to hold back the relentlessly rising level of Lake Powell.  Only BOR dam operator Tom Gambel really knows how close we really came to losing the dam that year.  From this gripping true story we all become more aware of the power, persistence and patience of the Colorado River from this story.   As these competing cultures converge in a crescendo of crisis, Fedarko navigates the storylines like a well season river guide riding an invisible eddy line. 

The story starts benignly enough at the beginning, where most good stories start.  Don Garcia, a captain in the 1540 Coronado expedition sent to find the seven golden cities of Cibola, accidently stumbles upon the Grand Canyon and is relatively unimpressed.  From that inauspicious first sighting of the Canyon by a white men, to the courageous first navigation of the Canyon in 1869 by John Wesley Powell, the story proceeds systematically to the dam builders, conservationist and the river runners of modern times. 

Martin Linton is presented as the enlightened entrepreneur and environmentalist who perfects the method of running the river in elegant but fragile wooden Dory boats.  He also fights along side David Brower of the Sierra Club against the dam builders for the preservation of the canyon.  His Dorys are subsequently named after environmental tragedies and we are introduced to a beaten and battered boat called the Emerald Mile that is named after an old growth, Redwood clear cut in Northern California.  This bastard boat is adopted by guru guide Kenton Grua and meticulously repaired and rebuilt for its epic run. 

Along with his equally skillful and obsessive friends, Steve Reynolds and Rudi Petschek, Grua ignores the National Park Service closing of the flooded river and, on the night of June 25 1983, launches the Emerald Mile just below the dam into a river swollen to almost 100,000 cubic feet per second.  This book is unmistakably about this historic run but it is wrapped nicely in the other side stories of the canyon, the river, the dams, the conservationists, the guides, the bureaucrats and the competing interests for the American west. 

It could be the text book of a Western Water 101 course and stands among the great books in this category along with Cadillac Dessert by Mark Reisner and Beyond the 100^th Meridian by Wallace Stegnar.  The Colorado River is the poster boy for the exploitation of the waters and the resources of the American West and this book is a revelation of the complex consequences that arise when you mess with mother nature, for thrills or for profit.

This is also the story of hubris and arrogance, confidence and adventure and the surprisingly counter-intuitive forces of nature on our unsustainable life style.   It is a rollicking ride full of the hyperbole and didactic exaggeration, courage and legend and the conquering of the gear and the fear that is the lexicon of the river culture.  Strap yourself in and prepare for a frantic and fantastic journey.  You will not be disappointed.

Simple

I'm sitting down by the highway
Down by that highway side
Everybody's going somewhere
Riding just as fast as they can ride
I guess they've got a lot to do
Before they can rest assured
Their lives are justified
Pray to God for me baby

He can let me slide

 Simple is more of a state of mind.  Simple ain’t easy but it is more than just a desire to streamline or uncomplicate.  It is an effort to clear the mind and the schedule and to prioritize the real things we want to do and think and get rid of the clutter of modern times like; phones, schedules, deadlines commitments, relationships, what to leave in and what to leave out and where you have to be at noon.  It is also a liberation from the constant burden of self-entertainment, self-stimulation, travel and adventure seeking.  It is the desire and ability to recognize and focus on the people that are really important to us, family and friends, partners and lovers, cohorts and comrades, and to serve and satisfy those people the best we can. They say you should have 100 friends in your life but you can only really maintain 5-10 good friends at once.  Life is too short for fast food and bad friends.

We are loving it, my wife and me.  We have been retired for ten years so we have had some practice.  Waking up when we want or when it is warm, with no list or agenda, opening one eye at first light or at full sunrise on the meadow to gage the day for what it might become.  Then enjoying a leisurely breakfast with correspondence and conversation, avoiding any contact with the real world, for that is too depressing.  Self-disciplining to de-cafe coffee, juice, Zinc and an occasional breakfast chocolate, eggs only every other day and bacon only once a week, no TV or drinking until 5, but anything else goes, all day. 

After my morning douche and yoga practice on the east facing bedroom deck while howling with my dog Eva, I take my patient canine companion out for her morning frisbee session.  Then I look around and let the day come to me.  If it is cold, cloudy, or snowing, I’ll turn the heat up a notch or start a fire and hunker down in the house for a while, reading, writing, dabbling or fixing and improving stuff.  If it is sunny and warm, I will wander around the backyard or garage to see what calls out to me.  Sometimes I will trick myself with a small, pre-determined and easy  chore to get me started.  I usually quickly find several other things to do and start mutli-tasking until a natural priority develops and the less important or non-fun chores fall off until tomorrow or next week or never.

Today it was removing half a tree encroaching on the backyard stream, by hand.  My wife Tracey and I started yesterday with a hand saw on a two foot diameter branch.  We took turns sawing the day before, 100 strokes at a time each and then jagging-off in between, talking to friends in the field, laying in the hammock or playing with the dog.  By lunch we were exhausted and by dinner we were only halfway thru.  So today we continued with little headway in the moist dense core of the tree.  The spring buds were emerging so the juices were flowing.  We thought of quitting and letting it leaf out on the branches on the far end of the moment arm, or let it fill with heavy spring snow to bring that big bad branch down. 

But we got impatient so we threw a rope up and over the far end of the branch and Tracey and I yarded rhythmically on it, up and down, until it cracked and we ran screaming while it came down with a fantastic crash, exactly where we wanted it to fall.  Then we took the ax to the downfall, chopping up the big logs and trimming the small branches off and stacking them next to the fence to build a more natural branch fence.  It was exhausting so I took a nap and then went for a long ride on my bike.   Live deliberately.  Then go for a bike ride.

So I ride the back roads back to my house on the meadow where life is simple and easy, uncomplicated by our innate desire to stimulate, challenge and entertain ourselves.  A place where we can just be.  Where mobility is overrated and freedom, liberty and independence are a state of mind,  Where the pursuit of happiness is a game and contentment is a journey, not a destination.  Where my personal legacy of good intentions is hardly noticeable, a slight improvement in the world I found or easily mitigated.  As Thoreau would say 'Richness is measured in the amount of things we can afford to leave alone'.

Cause I've been up and down this highway
Far as my eyes can see
No matter how fast I run
I can never seem to get away from me
No matter where I am
I can't help feeling I'm just a day away
From where I want to be
Now I'm running home baby
Like a river to the sea

JB

Climate, Cars and Crowds

 So we are back in Utah, unpacked but yet unsettled, two weeks late.  This is home but it seems different, weird with the cold and the clouds, snow and the mud.  Something is just not right.  

We had a nice two day drive home, stopping for some friends in Flagstaff for lunch and in Kanab for a 'Kalzone' and the night.  Pulling into Park City with our snow packed driveway was bittersweet with the mountains covered in new powder but with mud season at its peak in the backyard and meadow.  

We started unpacking an unreal amount of luggage and bikes, beds and chairs, motorcycles and golf clubs, antiques and accessories, with the relaxed realization that we did not have to do it all in one day.  We were home for the summer and the long haul.

Driving the van home for the first time in months helped me regain my freedom, liberty and independence and was another baby step in the right direction.  It also helped to remind me that there are some real bad drivers out there who don't pay attention, anticipate or drive aggressively.  The best defense is a good offense, I have always thought, and I have been told that my driving is very offensive.

I have ridden a two wheel vehicle over 100,000 miles in my life and a 4 wheel vehicle almost a million but now I get in the car maybe once a week and go down to the big city maybe once a month.  I don't miss it.  I still ride bikes and Motos a lot but mostly for entertainment and exercise on back roads, not to go anywhere in particular.  When I do, I am surprised by the speed and stupidity of the real world, as manifested by driving habits.  It is mostly people expressing their individual rights to drive dumbly.  There used to be a silent, social contract we had with each other to drive our 3 ton missals right next to each other without crashing.  Not so much so any more.

Apparently we have forgotten this contract and it is now do-what-you-want-to.   It is more apparent and acute when riding a bike or motorcycle where someone else's mistake could rag doll you or turn you into a big slice of pizza.  I was driving my moto next to a weaving young Latino woman texting wildly in an early model Saturn.  When we stopped at a light I caught her eye and gave her the two finger pointing symbol meaning 'eyes on the road'.  She understood and promptly gave me the universal one finger salute.  At least she had moxie, if not common courtesy.

Now that we are home in the Park, perhaps two weeks early, it is cold and snowing again with only indoor reading and writing and short bike rides, just like we did in Tucson when it got too hot.  You can't always find a place where it is perfect all the time but we try.  Climate isn't everything and we hate to be ultra-mobile climate snobs, but we are.   First world problems.

Tucson is nice in the morning but hot in the afternoon, Park is cold in the morning but warm in the afternoon.  The summer sun in Tucson comes up at 5 o'clock in the morning while the it doesn't go down up north until after 9 or 10 o'clock so you have to pick your moments and adapt accordingly.  Tucson has a lovely winter but also had 100 days over 100 degrees last summer and 50 days over 105 degrees with no real Monsoon rains leaving them with 4 inches of precipitation out of and average of 12 inches per year.  It may be unlivable there by 2050.  

Park City is a international skiing destination mecca but has only a 40 day growing season, not necessarily in a row, and it has had limited snow and precipitation the last few years with the biggest snow storm this year finally coming in mid April.  It may be un-skiable there by 2050.  We used to think that water would be the limiting factor in Park but if you have money you have water.  Now I think it is traffic that will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.  You can't buy you way out of a traffic jam.  

Our secret beach town of Cayucos California on the temperate Central Coast, which has a stable population and a dog friendly beach, a sea level rise of a six inches could wipe out the beach and the houses that hang over the coast making this surf town untenable by 2050.  We might not be the only ones needing to adapt accordingly in the next few years.  It is ironic that to beat the growing Utah crowds we have to go to Arizona or California.

So we surf the wave of substantial home equity in our mountain ski-home and rent monthly in the desert and on the beach, off season, for roughly what the owners are paying in taxes.  We don't need to own and although we are losing substantial equity gains in the VRBO game, we have no worries, nothing to fix and nothing to paint. At this point we don't need that, we don't like that and don't want that.  We just want to simplify.  

Park City is our home, with all of our friends and associates, so we will stay there while exploring different places and changing climates.  It may have to be far from the maddening crowd or have a noxious component that keeps people away; like lack or water, ski lifts or an international airport.  We are looking for a place without exploding traffic or mindless growth, and a place that is neither too hot or too cold.  A place that is just right.

Refresh. Revive. Restore

 A month ago Friday I got on the bike, tentatively at first, not knowing the best way to mount without stretching, hopping or falling.  Trial and error proved that there was no best way but the best thing to do was to get on and stay on and go.  Once up and away I was free.  What started as a spin around the neighborhood turned into a ten mile sojourn.  Sore and sorry I went swimming, just to tread water but wound up swimming laps with a slow triathlon kick and a one foot flip turn.  The next day I rode twenty miles and swam some more.  The following day was 30 miles but no swimming because there was a cloud in the sky and I decided to rest.  Bad call since the swimming is critical in the process.

Swimming, an activity they reluctantly approved for me at PT only after warning me about the danger of getting in and out and flip turning.  Bike riding was also reluctantly approved without warnings of awkward mounts and dismounts.  I even looked on the interweb and they heartily endorsed riding and swimming even during The Covid - as it is now called.  

When talking with a medical professional I am aware that I'm talking to a lawyer and an insurance company that tries to minimize risk and liability.   They therefore give the most conservative advice, to the least common denominator and don't consider the actual patient in front of them.  They don't want to overpromise.

I'm no Jim Thorpe but I'm reasonably athletic or sporty and I recover and heal fairly well.  I've had enough practice.  Although at home in PC I'm near the bottom of the proverbial barrel physically, since everyone else is an Olympian, but here in Arizona they consider me an athlete at the doctors, at PT and on the Pickle-ball courts.  I laughed at this until I looked around one day and see all the old, big people shuffling around, taking it slow and easy.  One mans floor is another man ceiling.

So we left Arizona two weeks late, weeks full of hot record temperatures, and come home two weeks early, full of snow and cold and clouds and bare trees.  We forgot about mud season and soring storms that blow salty snow on the windows and cars.  We hate to be weather snobs, but we are, and the timing is critical.  Spring in the desert, summer and early fall in the mountains, late fall at the beach, early winter in the desert again and full winter in the mountains when you can embrace the cold and the snow.  

Its not hard to do since rentals are cheap, especially out of season, and there is always a friend to rent or watch our home.  The key is to go and stay for a while, a long while.  It cuts down on painful frantic travel and maximizes feelings of 'being there'.  Rent for more than a month and you get to know a place and its people, tempo and rhythms, and there are no rental taxes in most states.  A change is as good as a rest and it is good to go to different places where you don't know every trail and road, river and stream, where exploration is the game and everything is new.  It is refreshing, revival, restoring.