Traffic Flows Like Water

 With apologies to my old roommates and City leaders, Bruce and Candy Erickson, the roads leading to Park City are an embarrassment.  They were of the school that said ‘if you do not build       big roads, people will not drive here’.  I’m a water-guy but traffic flows like water, for politics and money.  I’m here to tell you that they all still drive here, in droves.  Winter, spring, summer and fall, morning noon and night, 224 and 248 are packed with service workers, skiers, students, commuters, tourists and us.  It is time to abandon the old idea that these byways are gardens or parkways or sidewalks or bike paths, they are roads that should move people from what generates them to what attracts them.  Roads are not deterrents or tools, like water and housing, for politicians to limit growth, development or desire.  That is what political spine is for. 

It doesn’t take a half billion dollars of new infrastructure to fix this.  Let’s wisely use the roads we have.  We could do it now with two buckets of paint and restripe the pinch points.  Get the 15-foot planters and islands out of the medians of these roads and get rid of the 20-foot-wide bike lane - shoulders on both sides.  These are highways and not botanical gardens.  Let bikers ride on the bike paths.  Put artistically painted and architecturally aesthetic, flexible divider walls, taller than our oncoming headlights, in the middle to separate traffic and maximize capacity.  Then we can have 4 uninterrupted lanes from Kamas to the Bonanza and Kimball Junction to Deer Valley and Main Street.  From there traffic can split to the various attractions.

 

There can be bus lanes and shoulders or emergency access and snow storage as needed.  Stop messing around with County Ubers and Apps or traffic circles and competing bus systems and just repaint the damn roads.  We cannot afford the luxury of all these unused lanes, medians and shoulders. In Boston, for example, during rush hour everyone drives on the shoulders.   In Aspen they built a mini-Glenwood Canyon to get people up-valley.  In New York they stopped building new roads in the 60’s and maximized the roads they have.  Sometimes, as Freud said, ‘a cigar is a cigar’ and I say, ‘a road is a road’.   

We have rebuilt 248 every year for 5 years where it shrinks down to two lanes by the schools, for tunnels, crossings and pipes, but we have not considered fitting four lanes through there, since UDOT proposed it in 2017 and we respectfully, but foolishly, declined.  Now we are at the bottom of their list and have a low priority.  And 20-30 years ago, we told UDOT we were ‘not fly over type people’ at 224 north onto 80 west and are still stuck with the back-up from Kimball to The Canyons all winter.  Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.  UDOT doesn’t often have time for ‘those people up there’ and they would rather serve the conservatives from Utah County who vote for them and embrace their plans and prejudice.  It is political, and we need to know what to kiss and when to kiss it, especially with Olympic money ostensibly coming due.  UDOT priorities can change in the blink of an eye, depending on whose winking. 

Our new UDOT representative is Commissioner Tom Jacobson who is a lawyer who understands transportation and the political process and is a good guy.  Let’s lean on him for advice and influence.  Better yet we should take over jurisdiction of 224 and 248 and do what we want, as creatively as we can, with flex lane barriers and multi-use shoulders.  The best way to control land is to buy it and the best way to control roads is to own them.  I am embarrassed, we are embarrassed, UDOT should be embarrassed and something must be done, soon.   Let’s work smarter with our representatives and elect sensible people like Diego, Tana or Beth who can take action now for a transportation vision for the Olympics and beyond.  I’m sure both pragmatic Bruce and aesthetic Candy Erickson would approve. 

 

Matthew Lindon, PE

Hydrologist & Traffic Engineer

WaterandWhatever.blogspot.com         

Courage and Cooperation

             I attended a meet-and-greet for friends Diego and Tana the other night.  Last names are not needed for friends and family in our small town.  If you don’t know who they are by now, you haven’t been paying attention.   I was so impressed with the committed people they were and the powerful personality they each exhibited.  Tana is a wile veteran of the Town Council already, after only one term, and she gave us the inside scoop on how things really work, and how they don’t.  Diego is the relative novice with dreams and aspirations but instead of promising us the world as most desperate upstarts do, he outlined his concerns with potential solutions.  Most of all he listened. 

Housing and traffic, new development entitlements and respect for old residents were the theme as usual but there was a tangible sense that it is time to rise above our self-absorption, petty squabbles and differences and get things done.  The Park City Five Way code is; the downhill skier has the right of way, as does the up-hill biker/hiker and the vehicle IN a round-about, but finally and most importantly, have fun and don’t be a dick.  Diego and Tana get this, which is more than I can say about some others. 

With the Olympic pressures already here, this may be our last chance to define the town that we want, instead of the one we can no longer abide.  Wallowing in analysis paralysis, we are continually surprised that every new final study and analysis ends with the need for more study and analysis, while we ignore the educated and objective recommendations of a very professional staff and council.  Eventually it takes temerity and courage to move forward, with a solid master plan but with flexibility to adapt and improvise. 

Inside conflicts and outside pressures must be identified clearly for their intentions and motives that may not be in the best public interest.  Backroom deals or Sate intervention should not decide City or private development entitlements.  It takes candidates with backbone to stand up to these pressures and make decisions to move forward.  These two candidates have the spine and resilience to recognize and address all of the contiguous issues and interests, to get the job done. 

In the end it is about coordination and communication of our entire community of people.  Wasatch and Summit counties have an incredible amount of development on the books that Park City is undoubtably driving.  Deer Valley is doubling in size in the next five or ten years and the affiliated suburbs are stretching from Deer Creek to Echo.  These people are not going to go to Heber or Coalville to go skiing or for dinner.  A free cookie or an App is not going to get them to carpool or get on a bus or gondola.    The gap between local homes and affordable housing is insurmountable and the loss of local character is lamentable. 

We built this town for our families, not for fly by night developers, and we want to stay here.   We need to face these issues together. I believe Tana and Diego have the ability to learn, listen and lead with all the stakeholders’ interests balanced with the common good and social welfare, to keep Park City cool and keep Park City kind.   Vote Tana and Diego August 12, for the new Park City and for the old Park City.

Matthew Lindon, 1979.

Follow the Water - 3 - Park City

 

 

Water use in the Park City area was historically focused on surface water, which was used for agriculture and mining processing. Ground water was a nuisance to mining and was pumped or drained to the surface for disposal.  Now it drains through the mine tunnels and is fed by gravity to our new 120-million-dollar water treatment plant that removes heavy metals such as Arsenic, Mercury, Cadmium and Lead Zeppelin.  Streams have dried as this water has been used in the city and sold to purveyors in the Snyderville Basin to help pay for the new treatment plant.  Everything is a tradeoff.  You don’t get something for nothing.

 

With the modern change from mining and agricultural water use to municipal uses, the demand has shifted from surface water treatment to the capture of cool, clean groundwater.   Municipal wells in the Park City area therefore withdraw water from consolidated rocks, such as the fractured and faulted limestone and sandstone.  These rock formations are locally broken into separate block formations that can inhibit or isolate water flow and withdrawal, which can make finding reliable water difficult.  Water that recharges in the bedrock outcrops in the mountains, typically takes 15 to 40 years to move through the system, although much older water can still be found stored in the underlying bedrock and aquifers.  Because of the low capacity for bedrock ground water storage, the hydrological system is very dependent on the amount of annual precipitation and is therefore sensitive to prolonged drought and climate change.  Less than normal precipitation or overuse can result in substantial groundwater level decline, both in the bedrock (affecting municipal wells), and in the basin fill (affecting stream flow). 

 

In addition, the under-drain effect of the system of mine tunnels below our town also influences surface waters and subsequent ground water flows, inhibiting recharge and draining some water out of the basin toward Jordenelle, East Canyon and Echo, and even Snowbird and Brighton.  Mining related sinkholes, historically opened along Silver Creek and elsewhere, can capture the entire stream and direct it underground towards our aquifers or towards other drainages.   Because of our increased use of surface waters and springs, the local stream flows have diminished and historical recharge to the aquifer have suffered.  Unfortunately, in-stream flows are hard to protect in Utah where only the DNR Divisions of Wildlife and Parks can hold an in-stream right.  Protecting stream flows and establishing a base or minimum flow for water quality and wildlife or for riparian habitat and aesthetics, is difficult in this climate of low supply, high demand, and expensive water rights.  This protection may require cooperation of all the stakeholders and leadership to enable new legislation of in-stream flows. 

 

The public owns the water of the State, and the State Engineer distributes it to all for ‘beneficial use’ and economic development, till it is all gone.  The State Engineer must consider other issues when approving a water right, such as availability, interference, speculation, economic feasibility, recreation, natural stream environment and ‘public welfare.’  Fish and flowing water unfortunately are not considered a ‘beneficial use’ by the State Engineer and public welfare is hard to define.    But if the people lead, the leaders will follow.  It is we, who dictate what the ‘public welfare’ is, that must be protected by The State Engineer and our legislators.  We must send policy and law makers a strong message that we value clean, flowing water and the riparian environment that contribute to the quality of life that we all cherish.  Clearly, drying up the Great Salt Lake or The Colorado river is not good for public welfare.

 

The changing picture of the future of the Park City water resources is full of challenges.  This is a system, surely affected by man and climate, which is a system out of balance.  Our water supply is now being taxed to its limits both in water quantity and water quality.  Park City’s historical punitive-conservation rates have been repealed recently, at the request of some fat cats, allowing big users to waste water at the expense of small users who conserve.  Water flows downhill, but it also flows towards money.  How much will we pay for good water when we are thirsty?  What are the full costs of our consumption?  Water is an inelastic commodity and when we need it, price is not an issue.   Our affluence enables us to access the water within our basin and reach beyond its borders for augmentation, but it also inhibits our desire and ability to live within our natural basin means, as John Wesley Powell encouraged us to do more than one hundred and fifty years ago. 

 

We need to consider the needs and rights of our neighbors, the cost of our desires to the streams and wildlife as well as the limits of the natural systems that sustain us.  If we work at it, together we can live in harmony with our environment and with each other.  Picture the Native American Utes at their summer camp in our basin only 200 years ago, with grasses up to the belly of a Bison, a hydrologic system in balance.  Let that be our guide and goal.  Sustainability will require good science and engineering, legislation and regulation, conservation, and cooperation, which will respect the limits of nature and our environment and reveal the priorities and character of this great community.   

 

Keep Park City Kind.  Keep Park City Cool. 

 

 

 

Matthew Lindon, PE   

                                                         

 WaterandWhatever.blogspot.com                                                                                       

Follow the Water 2 – The Snyderville Basin

Follow the water on its frantic gravity trip downhill, not knowing where it is flowing, but going there directly.  The stream in my backyard, Willow Creek, still flows wildly during snowmelt season, recharging the local aquifer along with its related wetland but it shuts down abruptly when the snow is gone and our local water companies start capturing it for peak summer irrigation use.  Local lawn and garden irrigation increases water demand on our municipal suppliers tenfold but Willow Creek recovers nicely in the fall when irrigation ceases.  The diminishment of surface stream flows also inhibits the recharge of the meadows and Park areas that serve as a storage sponge for late summer stream flows, like The Snyderville Meadow, Park Meadows, Deer Valley, Heber, Midway and the Rhodes Valley of Kamas.  The groundwater discharge areas and wetland behind my house flow nicely all spring in conjunction with Willow Creek and the high local water table.  As the creek flow abates in the summer and autumn, the discharge stops and the wetland dries up along with the local aquifer, which does not recover until next spring.

The Snyderville Basin geology is bound by folded and faulted sedimentary rocks, mostly sandstone, quartzite, shale, and limestone to the west and south, and by the Keetley volcanics, tuffs and breccias to the east.  The basin is filled with unconsolidated alluvial (stream) and colluvial (glacial) deposits, as thick as 275 feet deep.  These deposits are typically coarse grained at the mountain interface, which is great for recharge, but are unfortunately fine grained in the basin and therefore do not yield water as easily as many of the unconsolidated fill basins in Utah like Salt Lake City or Heber. 

 

The Silver Springs behind the Park City Nursery and Church is the source of most of the culinary water for our subdivision of the same name.  It typically flows about 500 gallons per minute (gpm) of cool, clean mountain water, suitable for bottling, although it is considered relatively ‘hard’ because of the limestone source.  This flow can increase to as much as 5,000-15,000 gpm in the spring because of surface snowmelt runoff infiltration.  This high flow, however, is not usable due to water quality issues. Recently the springs ran red at high water because of golf course construction above it in the Nugget or Navajo Sandstone.  In our effort to get more golf we nearly ruined our perfect source of gravity-fed spring water.  Luckily, the spring cleared up in a few months, on it’s own, and has not run red since. In addition, the Silver Springs Subdivision was built in a wetland, before that was illegal,  and has an extensive underdrain system that depresses the local water table, so our homes do not flood, or float and our foundations do not implode.  The underdrain system flows several hundred gpm in the spring and never really drops below 100 gpm all year round, draining a billion pounds of water safely away by gravity every year.  Some homeowners want to abandon this underdrain system, due to maintenance costs, at our own puerile.  This illustrates the conjunctive relationship between surface water, groundwater, nuisance water and casual water along with water quality concerns in our local neighborhoods.  Hydrology, along with politics, is local. 

 

Our population in the Snyderville Basin is expected to double in the next 25 years, bringing with it challenges and choices between conservation and consumption, balance and blind ignorance, sustainability, and selfishness.    Snow making water demands are increasing and even though this use is more like winter water storage in the snowpack than depletion or consumption of the resource, it is somewhat indulgent and energy intensive.  A quarter section of local agriculture alfalfa can use as much water as Silver Springs Subdivision and our big landscape trees drink more free water from the near surface aquifer than we pay for through our water meters.  Much of the local mine water is being collected, used and sold, drying up local streams.  There is no more casual, free or extra water. 

 Importing new water into the basin is expensive but necessary and critical as we outgrow the local supply that we have. A punitive conservation rate has been in place for years that cuts our use and the costs to reasonable homeowners but as much as sixty percent of our water is pumped over Promontory from the Weber River, ten to fifteen miles away. There is a huge pumping station there with a full-time, live-in caretaker to watch the huge pumps.  Water is power and energy, and vice-versa.   Local private water companies are running dry and need to buy this expensive water for millions of dollars per year.  They are starting to realize the value, worth and cost of water.  Their water bills are going up.  Something has to give.

 

We can over pump our wells and import expensive new water to the basin until the cows-come-home but eventually, we will have to balance supply and demand.  This will involve charging a price reflecting the cost of what water is worth, so we conserve it and recognize its value. Despite years of consternation and conflict that wasted time, money and water there has been recent foresight and success.    There has been an effort to regionalize and coordinate the wholesale and retail companies in the basin for efficiency, redundancy, and reliability of our shared resources.  With prudence and good leadership this is possible, but only with cooperation and conservation by all of us. Brown is beautiful.  

 

Keep Park City Kind.  Keep Park City Cool.

waterandwhatever.blogspot.com

Share the Trails

 

After several cool, late spring days in the dessert riding on our own private White Rim Trail on the Lower Flint Trail in the Glen Canyon Recreation, we had exhausted the deliberate micro hikes in the slot canyons around our camp and decided we decided to head north to and higher for some cooler climes.  At the top of Indian Canyon between Price and Duchesne we found a nice cool and quiet campground on Reservation Ridge at 9400 feet that we never knew existed.  We congratulated ourselves for knowing how to read real maps and for finding the secret camping destinations in Utah that would take our entire lives to explore. 

After dinner I took a reconnaissance loop around the campground and, on the advice of some French Moto riders, I found an old ATV logging road.  It was technical and rocky, thin and steep but I put my e-bike in Turbo mode and was able to power up the 45-degree slopes without flipping over backwards, mainly because of 40 years of riding experience.  I decided it was ridable and that I would explore it the next morning when heart was fresh and my eyes were clear.   

My eyes are bad from falling on my head too much and do not process well dynamically, which causes me to fall on my head more, so it as a compounding effect, like compound interest of my brain.  My eyes can’t focus quickly so I have learned to look further up the trail.   My pulse had dropped to 30 beats per minute (bpm) a few years ago and my four chambers were uncoordinated.  So, they gave me a pace-maker that topped out at an orchestrated 120 bpm.  That didn’t allow me to ride very much but over the years I have convinced them to pick it up to 150 bpm.  I’ll buy the damn batteries.   The only downside is that if I exceed 150 bpm I can black out for a half minute or so, which is inconvenient, at least.  Without my Class-1 e-bike I would not be able to ride at all, and that is unacceptable. Mountain biking is apparently very dangerous, but I need to get out.

The next day after breakfast, I took off on the trail that was very steep, challenging and technical.  It wound through some great north facing forests and south facing clear cuts and I had to blaze some deadfall now and then to open the trail. It trended generally to the Northeast, and I figured it would contour around eventually to the campground entry road.  As I got further out, I realized that I was burning up battery power quickly on the unreal steep climbs and pushing my pulse rate.  I slowed my roll to save power and keep my pulse reasonable.  I soon realized that I had burned more than half my battery and therefore was unable to turn around and go back the way I came.  I became nervous and it became an official adventure at that point.  No one would find me out here. 

When worried I usually consider the worst-case scenario and then admit that, like a million times before, I would figure it out.  Comforted by that realization, I powered on.  I took some wrong turns and got lost a few more times but tended in the right direction and right before I ran out of juice, I found the road that led back to camp.  Tragedy narrowly averted, I pulled into camp where my wife and dog were, glad to see me, and I them. 

The point is, I would not be riding a bike without help and I would not have ridden this trail without a fair bike and some good skill for the great experience that makes me feel alive and nineteen again.  Some of my young or healthy friends will ride with me, as long as I ride in the back and do all the talking, so they don’t have to try to keep up.  Others are less inclusive and can’t stomach a ‘cheater’ that might challenge the exclusive right to trials to only those who are healthy, wealthy and wiled.  I just relish the opportunity to get out-and-about, see some nature, have an adventure and get some moderate exercise that won’t drain my battery or break my heart.  Ride on my friends, share the trails.  Ride a mile on my bike.

“I am Exalted by Water”

 

I am defined by water. I can’t imagine life without it.  I come from water and return to it whenever I can, daily, seasonally, yearly, constantly.  I was born on an Island, surrounded by water.  A Long Island near The City island.  My grandfather and father were in Public Water Works.  My first job was painting fire hydrants for my dad, Public Water Works.  My favorite job was being a lifeguard, languid and bittersweet.  My first sport was swimming, fast and furious.  My first friend was a high diver, daring and death defying.  My first love was a swimmer, warm, smooth and wet. My first broken arm required 9 casts since I kept jumping in the water with them on, lucky for me my uncle was my orthopedic.  My first major was Fluid Mechanics, Bernoulli, Newonian.  My first occupation was hydrology and hydraulics - surface water - repairing dams and rivers in the desert.  My retirement is spent partially on the central west coast where the sea is clean, blue and cold and I can watch it every day, even if I don’t go in much anymore.  Water encompasses and embodies me.  It is who I am.  We are all something.

 

My first recollection was of my dad taking me out in the ocean on his shoulders at Jones Beach and then launching me on a wave to ride towards the shore.  I must have been 6 or 8 and fearless.  The feeling of the ocean pitching me forward swiftly, all the way to the beach was incomprehensible. It felt alive, powerful and a little menacing.  Dad showed me how to catch waves myself, looking for sets with size and shape, and catching an early one before there was too much water on the beach.  It opened a new independent world to me, similar to learning to cross the street or tie my own shoes.  With his supervision, I moved out into deeper water to catch better waves, without losing my toehold of the seafloor that kept me from washing out to sea with the mysterious Under Toad.  Emboldened, I dropped into a big one but I was late and inside and It flipped me up the curl and crashed me down to the floor and sat on my chest for what felt like eternity.  Sputtering to the surface eventually and crying for my mother, I raced to the shore but found my dad there laughing and smiling incongruously.  WTF I said with my limited lexicon as he shook a mound of sand out of my little red surf shorts.  He asked me how I liked the ‘washing machine’ and I knew instantly what he meant.  He said next time drop my head and hands and go out the back door.  I asked him if there was anything else I needed to know and he just said yes.  I wasn’t sure what that meant but would figure it out after a PBJ sandwich, a Coke and the half-hour mandatory rest that seemed to be the prudent law of the beach. 

Conversely, I was swimming with my stepdaughter in big surf one day and she got caught in a riptide.  She wasn’t a strong swimmer, and I didn’t want her to be alone, so I followed her out.  She was besides herself due to the lack of control and distance building from the shore.  I calmed her down as we tread water and asked her calmly what she thought we should do.  She wanted to swim to an adjacent jetty and climb out.  We looked at the jetty and saw big waves cashing violently on it so that was out of the question.  I told her it was a rip current that would eventually dissipate and let us go in deeper water, but we couldn’t fight it. 

The lifeguards looked oblivious so I told her to swim parallel to the beach with me until we could find an inbound current.  We did this for a while with me asking her periodically if she was all right, and she would say yes, until she didn’t and said she was struggling and going down in the turbulent waves.  I told her swimming is 90% relaxing and calm breathing and I had her float on her back with her hands on my shoulders while I swam slowly.  She laid her head back and breathed rhythmically, trying to relax and recover.  Finally, we felt a current flowing towards the beach, and we turned and rode the waves in.  As we walked from the water a lifeguard ran over and asked if we were ok. I said YES and she said NO but we walked back to our blanket for some tuna sandwiches, a beer and the mandatory half hour beach nap.  After a while I asked her if she wanted to get back on the horse and go for a swim.  She said NO, never again. 

 

After freshman year of high school, I reported to our summer swim Club on the Great South Bay for our first practice.  There was a new saltwater swimming pool built between the docks of the bay and the nautical Clubhouse and lawn.  After practice I walked past the women’s locker room on the canal and out swung my old fiend Gina Sweeny in a bright yellow homemade polka dot bikini.  I didn’t recognize her out of her one-piece racing suit and she swung her hips that could sink ships, and brand knew tips way up firm and high, like most young women know how to do, instinctually, like holding a baby on their hip.  I had been in a carpool with Gina for years and knew she was crazy and funny, the best swimmer in the Club and exactly 10 months younger than me, when that was import in swimming and life.  Swimmers are not like racehorses, all born on Jan 1.  This woman Regina was all new to me and I was coming of the age where I would appreciate it. She was an athletic Goldie Hawn with a butterfly upper body and strong legs.  Va va va boom.  Wasting no time, for if you snooze you lose, I asked her to go for a swim, and we spent the rest of the day playing water ballet and swimming through each other’s legs blowing bubbles and laughing innocently.  We would spend the next four years growing up together swimming and sailing and going back behind the boats to smooch.  She loved Cat Stephens, Winnie the Pooh and me, not necessarily in that order.  We all love something. I eventually grew up and moved away from Gina to landlocked Indiana and worse yet, Utah.  All the kids still swim and sing:

 

Gina Sweeny had a ten-foot weenie,

And she showed it to the guy next door.

He thought it was a snake,

And wrapped it with a rake,

Now it’s only five foot four.

 

I also had a great friend, appropriately named Willie Hooper, who was a great swimmer and diver, football, basketball and baseball player.  Not William or Bill or Will but Willie.  With rugged Brad Pitt good looks, a baseball build, blonde hair and blue eyes, he personified and espoused ‘cool’ and was funny as snot.  We would bounce on the high diving boards all day long, doing clown dives and serious dives in our Bonner Bob, banana hammock Speedos.  One day we decided to skip swim practice and smoke surreptitiously in the white rocking chairs on the screen porch, incognito.  It was a blast watching the others work until big coach Reese snuck up behind us and banged our heads together and made us swim a double practice that day. 

When Willie wore a Dungaree Jacket with his Varsity A letter from Amityville High School on it, my dad asked him what the A was for, Willie looked down at the letter, perplexed for the moment, and then smiled and said, ‘A is for Outstanding’.  Not the sharpest tool in the shed but he was an outstanding guy with a big heart.

Despite him smoking 2 packs a day at age 12, my only goal was to beat him in the breast-stroke and in our last race we tied for third.  When we both sauntered up to the podium the coach was confused about what to do with the one ribbon.  Willie took it and ripped it in half and gave me the top part with a grin. He lost the Club Swimmer of the Year that summer by one half a point, but he didn’t care because Gina won it instead and we both loved Gina.  She accepted the trophy that winter in a homemade yellow polka-dot dress with Willie, in a sporty white turtleneck, at her side.  ‘I don’t recognize you with your clothes on’,’ we liked to say in the winter.

One day I came home from a two-week wrestling camp and found him in the Clubhouse smooching with Gina.  I asked him what was going on and he said he was making out with my girlfriend.  I said OK but did they want to go swimming when they were done.  We all got up and swam for the rest of the day and summer like nothing had ever happened.  And it didn’t.

Years later the three of us were drinking by candlelight at the Club on the night of the NYC blackout.  We went home to Willie’s house, across from the Amityville Horror house so we could ring their bell and run like old times, and Willie could show us his new motorcycle.   We all hopped on it to make believe we were riding.  Of course, we lost our balance and fell to the floor of the garage, becoming harmlessly pinned under the bike and laughing hysterically.  Willie’s dad came out to ask what we thought we were doing and Willie chortled that we were just going for a ride.  We were locked in the garage for the rest of the night, but we didn’t really mind.  Willie was haunted by fire and smoke and burned out young at 42, from lung cancer.  We all have something.  But we all still swim and sing along:

 

Every party has a pooper,

That’s why we invited you,

party pooper, Willie Hooper.

Follow the Water 1 - Overture

Picture this; swollen streams cascading out of the east face of a recently glaciated range, rolling down into lush wetlands, verdant grasslands as high as the belly of a Buffalo.  Imagine meadows incised with numerous meandering streams lined with Willows and clustered with Cottonwoods.  Envision floods over-flowing banks and beaver dams, spilling into a wide and undefined floodplain, saturating the natural sponge of wetland organics and alluvial deposits, recharging near surface and deep aquifers that slowly bleed their stored volumes to keep streams flowing all year round.  This was the Wasatch back, Park City, Parley’s Park, the Snyderville Meadow, a mere 10,000 year ago, a hydrologic system in balance.

Then came Parley Pratt with his toll booth, Sam Snyder with his lumber mill, H. C. Kimball with his junction, the US Army, the miners and eventually the farmers.  The trees were cut for mines, homes and heat, the mines drained ground and surface water, and the meadows were grazed and farmed.  The streams were diverted to better irrigate the meadows, Water Rights were claimed and shared, divided and decreed.  From Thayne’s Canyon and McLeod Creek, to White Pine, Willow Creek and Spring Creek, the upper reaches of East Canyon were developed.  Water was distributed according to need, for beneficial use, first come first served.  Disputes about flooding and drought were handled after Church, in the bars or at the ditches and head gates with swinging fists and shovels.  Everyone took their share of the surplus and the scarcity.  The meadow still flooded, the streams still flowed.

 

Flash to the present; the boomers have taken over, Trophy homes cluster the meadows and Mc Mansions dot the hillside.  Shallow and deep wells mine ancient waters to slake the unquenchable thirst, like a commodity.  Water disputes are not handled with reason and respect but are dragged vindictively through the courts - wasting time, money, energy and water.  Ski resorts and Sundance, subsistence agriculture and snowmaking, empty golf courses and vacant lawns, growing demand and shrinking supply, change the hydrologic regime from beneficial use to best-bang-for-the-buck.

 

A massive sewer pipe surreptitiously moves waste water away and provides a giant gravel under drain for its entire length.  Pavement and pumps, under drains and pipes protect the subdivisions in the wetlands.  Ski resorts and snowmaking, mountain grazing and global warming change the hydrologic cycle to water, energy, food, people, money.  It rains in January, it snows in July, snowmelt starts in March or ends in August.  Streams are put in pipes, ditches are abandoned and natural channels are made into plazas and parking lots.  Spring floods are a nuisance, to whisk quickly away downstream or just divert nefariously towards neighbors. 

 

Summer drought is solved, not with conservation and cooperation but with a checkbook.  Water flows towards money, yet entitled farmers use thousands of dollars’ worth of water to grow hundreds of dollars of crops, just to protect their rights and speculate on this new commodity, this old dichotomy.  Disputes are not handled with reason and respect but are dragged vindictively through the courts - wasting time, money, energy and water. It is said, however, that it is better to live at the headwaters of a system with a shovel than at the bottom end with all the water rights in the world. The water has been subdued, the meadow no longer fills in the spring, and the streams no longer flow in the summer, and the Great Salt Lake at the bottom of the system is dangerously drying up.  Is this evolution towards a better world for all or is it lifestyle entropy trending towards a more random and chaotic state of self-absorption.  Choose to be kind, be cool, evolve.

Live and Let Live

The sun broke brightly over the Wasatch Mountains on a brisk early winter morning. Late to rise that dark time of year, I had the sun beat by a few hours and was on my way down south already for my final dam inspection of the year. A recalcitrant dam owner had refused to inspect his own leaking outlet pipe, and I would be damned if I let this carry this over into the new year. It could be a leaking gate, or worse yet, water seeping into an outlet pipe though the dam, acting like an uncontrolled, unfiltered embankment drain.  We had a dam almost fall, above Salt Lake City, with that problem.

My office was slow around the holidays, and I wanted to get out-and-about one more time before the weather got really bad and we got into full winter lockdown mode.  That would mean just the boring public, politics, personnel, computer hydro-modeling of drainage basins and rivers, portfolio inventory, risk assessments and analysis. There are few days better spent indoors, but this was not one of them. I’m a field engineer, dam it.  So, I headed east towards the cresting sun, from I-15 around mid-state up to the Manti La Sal Forest and then the Wasatch Plateau.  Years before we had found the remains of a woolly-mammoth remnants up in this country while excavating a dam foundation, but today there were just elk and deer moving around skittishly from the first snow of the year.  As I drove through the dark forest of the North facing road, cresting the first summit, I was in the blazing direct sunlight and Albedo reflected off the clean new snow. I pulled up to the gate at the end of the road and the truck thermometer said lucky 7°.

I got out of the warm truck, and it felt colder than it actually was. Truck shock I called it. I put my layers on quickly and stretched mohair climbing skins on the bottom of my Telemark cross-country skis. With too much to carry in my backpack with my inspection skateboard et al, I left my thick Irish wool sweater in the truck, just in case. Too cold to dilly dally, I got moving right away, climbing in the fresh snow capped with potato - chip sized ice crystals, called Surface Hoar, from the cold clear night before.  There was enough to sink into softly without hitting the bottom and enough purchase from the compressed shear strength of the snow, to push forward and up. Coming around a wide curve and out of the forest and up to the lake level, I spied the long reservoir ¼ full by volume and ½ full by height, from the wet summer, and frozen over slightly from the cold calm night before.  I was alone on an important, dangerous, mission impossible that I willingly chose to accept and I had my sunglasses and lucky neck gaiter on. But the sun was out so what could go wrong?  I felt like Tom Cruise.

The last time I was out for an outlet inspection we had a herd of owners and several young guys from my office with a new camera - tank device to take pictures without us going up the 24-inch CMP outlet. There was also a gaggle of affirmative action women from the US Forest Service, keeping an eye on us, to see how it is done. Of course, the camera broke and got stuck way up in the outlet pipe and the big young Millennials refused to go up and get it. I was a Baby Boomer mentor and supervisor and dressed nicely so I showed the women to the dam crest and took my clothes off, down to my tighty-whities, to go up the outlet on hands and knees to retrieve the camera - tank. The pipe was rotten CMP that sliced my knees as I crawled up. I was aggravated to begin with for having to do this chore without my skateboard, and I was hurting from cutting my knees so much on the outlet pipe. I may have whispered an expletive or two as I went along, getting louder the deeper I crawled. When I triumphantly emerged from the pipe with the camera - tank, the owner and regulators were laughing at the downstream toe and even the ladies up top on the crest were howling and it was not just my skivvy’s or bloody knees. Outlets function as a megaphone, apparently, and they heard every New York swear word I uttered.  Live and learn.

Circumnavigating around the large frozen lake, I soon noticed a big new Beaver Dam on the shore and an isolated lodge in the shallow part of the lake, but no sign of Mr. Beaver. I erroneously thought that he must be hunkered down for the winter, or the water was too cold. The water was 25° warmer than the air outside and their lodges must be warm and safe and dry. These innocuous animals had historically helped form the geomorphology of the western United States, stabilizing streams, creating cleansing lakes and wetlands, thereby recharging the near field groundwater and dependent flora and fauna of the floodplain. This created stable, sustainable streams, along with the predators that chased the large dominant ungulate, uber species away from the riparian zones, ensuring the stream health by preventing detrimental, erosive overgrazing. Things were best in moderation and balance.

Then came the 1820s when beaver skin hats were all the rage in New York, Washington, Boston, London and Paris. The mountain man came out and trapped and killed almost all of the Beaver within 30 years, destabilizing the regions riparian ecosystem and geomorphologic balance. Rivers started eroding and cutting down, perching the floodplain dangerously high above the water table, drying and desiccating the natural plant species that were eventually replaced by sage and herbaceous grasses and invasive species. Like the bison yet to come, we wiped out an entire species in the western United States in 30 years. So goes moderation and balance versus human nature, fear and greed.

But that was water over the dam, so to speak, and today is another day of challenges with our natural resources, water and climate. Water has turned into a commodity bought and sold by the highest bidder, and Beaver and Bison are just a metaphor for our own use of natural resources. They are just minimized or forgotten Externalities in our benefit cost calculations and risk assessments. The Environment and Climate will be ignored until it becomes untenable or catastrophic. The players have changed, but the gene pool stays the same. Only more so.

Another inspection of a new outlet pipe ranked much the same in my history of bad judgement. I was with a potential girlfriend for an inspection of a smooth 24 - inch concrete outlet pipe that was flowing water, smooth and clear. I stripped down to my boxer shorts and easily pushed my skateboard all the way up the pipe on my stomach and took pictures. On the way down, I rolled over on my back and let it rip. As I accelerated, the clicking sounds of the pipe joints compressed with speed as the Doppler effect of an incoming train. When I got to the bottom, I shot out of the perched pipe and skimmed across the plunge pool smoothly and sank at the far end. The good Mormon owners were momentarily amused, but they then walked the damn toe in search of rattlesnakes to chop up with their shovels.

My new gal pal, who had a delightful penchant for skinny dipping, said she wanted to give it a try and stripped down to her underwear and crawled on the sled. She quietly slid all the way up the pipe as the owners returned. At the top she rolled over and let it rip. The rhythm of the joints increased exponentially, indicating she was going really fast. Boom - pop, boom – pop, boom - pop. She started wailing rhythmically with delight. The Quorum of LDS owners sat wide eyed in expectation, and when she shot half naked across the plunge pool screaming, their heads almost exploded. These are the times when legends are born.

But the devil - may - care about dam safety history this day since I was isolated in my little bubble, skiing in fresh snow, in new country, and getting paid for it, my best job ever. As I rounded the corner I heard the ice crackle and out only 20 or 30 meters I spotted a Beaver nose breaching through the ice like a great humpback whale in the ocean, to take a look, a breath, or just for the fun of it. ‘Right on, little fellow’, I thought.  I continued, eventually reaching the dam outlet, a 24-inch welded steel pipe with a classic USACOE plunge pool, energy dissipator, flowing about one CFS or 500 GPM. I took off my skis and pulled my skateboard from my backpack and climbed down gingerly to stay dry getting into the outlet. Forget about all those Mountain Man movies, I know that staying dry on these kinds of days was critical, a matter of life and death.

Despite my false overconfidence, I began to worry a little and a cloud came over my happy little scene. This was before OSHA rules and regulations, when you could do what you want, but maybe going alone in the dead of winter was a mistake. Once inside the pipe I realized that I was in a slimy, frictionless tube with water about four to six inches deep flowing rapidly below me. I had trouble gaining purchase with my plastic ski boots and leather gloves. Making progress up the pipe was slow and arduous with two steps up and one step back. The deeper I got, the mustier it smelt of cold water, fish and mystery outlet gas. ‘In and out’, I thought, ‘In and out.’ I interminably inched my way up hundreds of feet until I came to an anomaly, the crux as climbers would say. The pipe began to slope down slightly towards the outlet gate, making it easier to approach, but causing water to pool slightly. When I arrived at the outlet there was a dead fish, and a stick caught in the gate causing water to spray in every direction. I pulled them both and separately caused them to shear off in half in my hands.  The vent manifold was clogged with a red goop algae that forms in cold springs and drains. I took off my glove and carefully poked each 1/2-inch manifold hole to remove the goop. Satisfied with my work, I took a few pictures and started to plan my lunch and escape from the gloomy manifold mausoleum.

That's when I realized that it was much harder going backwards over the hump in the pipe that tilted towards the outlet gate. I could get no purchase standing on my fingers and toes with my feet on the ceiling or on the floor, on the flow line or spring line of the pipe. ‘Don't panic’, I thought as my claustrophobia started to kick in. Lying on my stomach, I looked over my shoulders and I could still see a slight crescent of daylight way down the crooked pipe. I tried to rotate my back and crunch my knees on the pipe to get some traction, but to no avail. I tried to turn around to face downstream, but I was no circus contortionists and wound up falling off my skateboard and jamming it sideways in the pipe and plunging me into the little pool in the bottom of the pipe. I was amazed that my little blockade of the flow would cause the water to back up quickly and quickly flood the pipe even deeper. I dropped my flashlight and the pipe went dark.  I hate it when that happens.

I thought ‘now I'm going to drown, not freeze to death of hypothermia in this cylindrical sarcophagus’. ‘At best, I'm going to spend several cold hours or days here because nobody knows where I am or where to look for me’. ‘I might spend the rest of the winter, or my life in here, I thought despondently.’ After a few frightful minutes of panic where I lamented missing Christmas and New Years, friends and family, my dog and the ski season and the next episode of NYPD Blue, I settled down, out of necessity, into the pragmatic problem-solving I was trained to be. They don’t teach that in engineering school, but they taught me this; “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”. I concentrated all my effort, weight and power to spread out my pressure load on the walls of the pipe for more friction area and less unit shear force and I moved myself imperceptibly in the right direction. Resting slightly, I slipped back into the pool. One step up, two steps back.

But I learned a method and could make progress. I had hope. Slowly but surely, I made my way up the vertical curve of the pipe, feeling it flatten almost gradually as I went, heightening my spirits and my effort as I went. Just when I felt I had gotten good at this, I rolled over the top and started rolling towards the outlet opening. Exhausted and relieved, I rode rolled freely, picking up speed that I half-heartedly tried to scrub. With my hands and feet, knees and elbows. When I finally burst into the open and dropped into the plunge pool, throwing caution to the wind.  In the name of expedience, since it was cloudy but still wicked cold out, I had to keep moving and get out of there. I strapped my skis on and beat-feet towards a warm car. As I circled the lake, my friend Mr. Beaver was still breaching the ice surface of the lake, like nothing had happened, and his personal happiness and species resilience had never impressed me more. I stopped to salute him.  Good on you man.  Live and let live. 

 I was beginning to get goofy from the cold and hypothermia, which I knew would be followed by surrendering, giving up or not giving a crap if I made it home. So, I redoubled my efforts, plowing through deeper, untracked snow for the effort and body heat.  My extremities began to shut down with frozen fingers and toes, but my core was still warm, protecting the vital organs. When I finally reached the truck, I started it hopefully and blasted the heater, putting on my warm and dry, just in case Irish Sweater, safe-and-sound and much more-the-wiser. Things that don't kill you make you smarter and stronger. Except for stupidity and frozen outlet pipes in the winter. They will kill you. As I devoured my late lunch and warmed up slowly on the drive home, retching from the adrenaline, fear and relief, I promised myself; never alone, never in winter, never again. Live and learn.  

Matthew Lindon, PE

Hydrologist

THE ACCIDENTAL ECO-TOURIST

My stomach rose into my throat as the Bell helicopter dropped over the lower rim of the inner canyon, into the most intimate depths of the Grand Canyon.  As the river, our tiny boat and crew came into view, I heard the words of its first explorer, John Wesley Powell, who described the Grand Canyon as “the great unknown” when he entered it on August 12, 1869 from the relative gentle beauty, soft rock and smooth water of Glen and Marble Canyons.  The cool ribbon of green flowed quietly, agelessly through the inferno of the hard, ancient lava rock that would be my home for the next three days. 

I had always thought that when I finally floated the Grand it would be an epic three week private trip in a slow dory with a bunch of granola munching enviro-dudes and hippie-chicks.  It would take that long, I figured, to really get the feel of the canyon, to get the sand under your skin, to get naked and dance like crazed Anasazi around driftwood fires.  I changed my mind when my Long Island friends Wild Bill, Jai Johnny, Les is More, Phil the Thrill and Jumpin Julie Westerman invited me on a spur-of the moment, three day, totally indulgent, family reunion glamping trip down the lower canyon, complete with planes, helicopters, jet boats and J-rigs.  How bad could it be?  

I had been on dozens of private river trips around the world and it would be good to consider and contrast the alternatives.  My wife and I took a trip down the Grand for our Honeymoon and it was 120 degrees.  It didn't get below 100 at night.  It was the 'don't touch me honeymoon'. At night we would soak our towels in he river and drape them over us aw we slept on our bags.  We did this every few hours.  It was too hot for bugs.  This time they said I could come for free if I told stories about water, the river. the politics and personalities of the Grand Canyon.  I was still wrapped tightly in a sling from a recent shoulder repair but I figured if John Wesley could hang on with one arm, so could I.  Besides, I’ll try anything three times.  Bad idea, I had to have the surgery again then years later but it was worth it,  

            We had spent several decadent days in plush accommodations in Vegas, hanging pool side, sipping umbrella drinks, playing craps and betting on men who bite.  Las Vegas, where you can be anyone you want, is the sad metaphor for America.  Conspicuous consumption, more testosterone than taste and more dollars than sense.  Where else could you find the Statue of Liberty next to a great pyramid, across the street from a medieval castle, complete with fountains, rivers, golf courses, lawns and laser lights - all sprouting comfortably from Americas most inhospitable desserts.  When we flew from town to the outer canyon edge, early in the morning brilliant heat, the city was humming, the fountains were flowing and the lights were still on.

After a shady lunch and a brief introduction to our guides, fellow passengers and general rafting edicate, we hit the river.  Fifteen people and 1100 tons of provisions packed on to a 40 foot J boat left little room for or reclining or napping.  Everyone nervously jostled for their comfort zone as we approached the first rapid.  Wild Bill, front and center on the pontoon, Auntie Mo with Pistol Pete in the “chicken coop” towards the back, and me somewhere in-between.  With the 40 horse power motor cavitating, we center punched the 5 foot standing waves of a No Name Rapid without hesitation, without scouting, without a care in the world.  We came out totally drenched, cooled by the frigid water, and washed clean of any concerns we had when we entered the canyon.  The small group of family and friends discovered the instant bond of shared experiences, adventures and of facing your fears together.  The quite, uncomfortable group instantly became boisterous, bumptious and eventually bacchanalian.  Animated conversations and detailed, play-by-play rapid survival stories unraveled and a spirited exuberance set the tone for the rest of the day.

The originally subdued guides, emotionally and physically spent from the first 6 days of their tour from Lees Ferry with another group, started to open up to the guests, recharged with the fresh perspectives of the new trip.  Travis was the fun loving but tortured wanderer, Jed - the stress free, low key yet loquacious nature-boy interpreter, and Julie - the volunteer swamper offering the mature, calming, mother nature, feminine influence.  They worked extremely hard and ran a tight ship for Western River Adventures yet the trip appeared seamless, effortless and timeless for the clients.  The tremendous amount of experience, preparation, logistics, physical and mental stamina was barely apparent during entire voyage.  The endless shuttle miles, the marathon shopping, sun-baked packing and unpacking, the years of experience to ensure that you had the right tool, the right Band-Aid, or enough ice, was all but invisible to us on our casual, first class river float.  First one up, last one down, a boatman’s chores are never done.

 

We stopped at a side canyon and hiked up to some petroglyphs, complete with stories of The Ancient Ones, peyote and aliens. Then we decided to make camp.  After a quick fire line to unpack the boat we were left on our own to pick our spots and do our own personal nesting.  People wandered aimlessly in the last rays of direct sun, nervously debating between privacy and the security of the group.  I took a nap by the river.  The resulting tight cluster of cots revealed the close group continuity and the small comfort zone that comes with the first night out.  We tried out the open air lavatory, took baths, made cocktails, sang songs, had dinner and reluctantly went to bed, some for the first time under the endless desert stars.  Looking up at the massive, multi level canyon walls,  offset by the firmament, I remembered that Powell had called the canyon, “a stairway from gloom to heaven”

In the morning I awoke early and hiked to a ledge overlooking the river and the camp.  From my perch the hydraulics of the river and the canyon became evident.  The side canyon had spewed a tremendous amount of rock and debris during countless flash flood events, creating a large alluvial fan that extended halfway into the river channel and made our perfect beach campsite.  The alluvial fan also created a small rapid by filling the channel with debris, creating a calming backwater effect upstream and a constricted, steepened channel downstream.  The river poured over the elevated rock control section like calm, deep water pours over a water fall.  At the constriction of the river the water depth got thinner and the velocity faster as the profile approached “critical” - as hydrologists call it.  The water flowed through the rapid waves very thin and very fast in a “super-critical” state and at the end of the rough steepened constricted section, the river flattened and returned to a slower and deeper, more energy efficient flow regime called subcritical flow.  This trans-critical sequence is called a “hydraulic jump” where the water surface exits the rapid actually higher than the middle of the rapid, allowing it to flow back upstream along the side of the rapid creating a shear flow zone and the  backwater eddy.  The water then returned to the rapid again as the lateral flow that is so tricky for kayakers and canoeists. The fast moving, hungry water of the rapid can carry more sediment as it backcuts into the deposition from the side canyon, but drops it quickly after it slows down in the eddy creating beaches and point bars.  This particular eddy swirled behind the shelter of the alluvial fan that served as our camp and created a beautiful bay of deep, relatively calm water.  Other famous big rapids on the river were formed this way: Lava Rapid by a lava flow into the river, Crystal Rapid and Separation Rapid by two large side washes entering the river at the same spot.  I returned to camp, after this personal revelation, but could find no one who shared my hydraulic fascination.  We all appreciate the river for something different.  Therein lies the problem.

When the others awoke we had a magnificent leisurely breakfast of bacon, eggs, coffee and cake.  A quick pack, a long joke-du-jour by Jed and we were back on the river.  It was a spectacularly hot day, with a strong dry upstream wind and a clear blue sky that made the canyon colors jump out at you like from a cheap post card.  Everyone was very animated even before we crashed the first rapid.  Having survived the cycle of one full day had made us seasoned river rats and happy campers.  People scampered around the raft, assuming different positions for the ice cold rapid runs and hot interim drying cycles. We stopped numerous times to explore side canyons, pictographs, streams, waterfalls, cliffs, springs and to take shade, lunch and pee breaks. We were continually challenged to push our personal envelopes by taking higher cliff dives, rougher rapid swims, more technical waterfall climbs and hikes further and further away from the mother river.  The experience was liberating, the scenery indescribable.  Powell said that it was, “one thousand Niagaras, one thousand Yosemites”. 

The Natives say that you never see the same river twice but the river we were seeing was a far different river than the one John Wesley Powell saw for the first time more than 100 years ago.  With the installation of Glen Canyon dam and the ignominiously named Lake Powell, the river has been tamed, harnessed and controlled.  Without the dam, the river would be flowing at almost 120,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) because of the healthy winter snow pack still melting in the Colorado Rockies, the Wind River range of Wyoming and the Uinta mountains of Utah.  Even with some extra flood control releases at the dam, the current river was flowing at a nominal 27,000 cfs.   The river would, historically, be blood red with sediment and close to 60 degrees, but now, 200 miles below the dam, it was still flowing emerald green, hungry for sediment and barely 49 degrees.  Why drown a canyon to tame a river we asked; for fountains and light shows in the mid day Mojave heat of Vegas, to grow rice in the Imperial valley or irrigate cow pastures at 7500 feet in northern Utah?  The token Bureau of Reclamation flushing flows of 45,000 cfs released for one week last year have helped scour the channel and rebuild some beaches but it is apparent that to mimic the natural system they will have to release more sediment filled, warm water for a longer period of time to match the natural range of variability.  It’s at least a philosophical step in the right direction towards considering the rivers ecology as well as its economics. 

The day unfolded into and endless series of rapids and rocks, sun, sky and spray.  One of the guides asked me where I lived and what I did for a living and for a fleeting moment I forgot.  We assumed the timeless rhythm of the river, deep-sixing our wrist watches and looking for a place to camp only when the sun slid behind the edge of the canyon.  We eddied out to a slim beach and ran to find the best reclusive camp site.  After some minimal nesting we returned to the boat to get out of the blowing sand and to get closer to the beer.  We had several cases on ice and we were not planning on packing any of it out of the canyon. The guides bathed and dressed in their best black tie outfits and prepared another feast of steak and trout, while we watched helplessly. At this point in his journey Powell and his men had lost most of their food, clothes, blankets and hats but still maintained a lyrical quality in their journals and their appreciation of this awesome spectacle. Nothing mattered more than the rolling of the river and the changing colors of the canyon walls.

After countless beers we shuffled to our cots to tie our traditional, last night, togas and prepare for dinner.   The canyon wasn’t the only thing glowing this night and we floated above the shifting sand, smiling to ourselves.  We came back styling, to a table full of champagne and a paparazzi of cameras for every conceivable group shot combination .  Dinner was superb, both the cooking and the company.  Dusk languished into night and the Milky Way rolled into the northern sky amidst shooting stars and satellites.  Travis broke out his guitar and someone added an imperceptible bottom rhythm with a harmonica.  Generations were united during a eclectic sing along that ranged from Axle Rose to Kum-by-ya.  Powell said that the Grand Canyon is “a land of song” but I’m not sure this is what he meant.  Eventually, one by one, the crowd retired to their cots, to contemplate the night on their own terms.

They tell me that the rock formations of the Grand Canyon, some as old as 3 billion years, were pushed up 50 million years ago and the canyon was cut in a paltry 6 million years.  In geological times there could have been hundreds of grand canyons.  They say there are distinctive rock layers missing in places and parts of the river used to flow the other way.  You can not travel this canyon without thinking of the greatness of God, and the insignificance of man, but you also can not forget about the huge power dam above you and the bigger, controlling one below.  There have been several plans for dams in the canyons, the last as recently as Ronald Regan.  Congress has passed a law that forbids dams in the Grand Canyon, until they pass another law.  Only God can make such a place for the ages but only man can muck it up in a matter of years.

Sleep comes easy in the canyon on the comfortable cots, under a light sheet at first and into the sleeping bag by morning.  I missed the first light of the third and last day but heard the blowing of the conch shell to signal that cowboy coffee was ready.  Another great breakfast, a quick pack, a long joke contest and we are on the river before the sun.  We are into the backwater of lake Mead already, flat but flowing in this incredible canyon.  We float over the submerged Separation Rapid where several members of Powell’s first crew abandoned the main group, and walked away to their death, only 100 yards from the end of the last bad rapid.  The morning, for our group,  is an easy scenic motor until we meet our jet boat that will wisk us across 50 miles of slackwater and the upper, ugly portions of the lake.  When Powell went by here he passed a family of naked Indians, the man wearing only a hat, the woman only a necklace.  When he reached the eventual pullout at the confluence with the Virgin river there were surprised Mormons fishing for their bodies with Seine nets.

We say heartfelt thanks and goodbye to our mentors who will spend the next day motoring, unpacking, packing, cleaning, driving, unpacking and packing for the next trip.  Our short time on the river has been a revelation and we are momentarily jealous that they get to stay on the river all summer.  We promise to write and keep in touch but we know its a lie.  We go back to our jobs, our wives and our lives but we won’t forget the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon and who we were, for a few short days, when we were there.  The commercial river experience was not that different from the private ones I had been on.   It was a lot less work and worry but the group bonding experience was strong and real.  The ‘sense of place’ feeling came on quick and strong since we were not so distracted with logistics and tasks, packing and un packing, rapid performance anxiety and fear of the unknown.  Our appreciation of the Canyon was amazingly rapid, almost like a microwave version of a slow baked river trip, but it was real and valuable.  Don’t get me wrong, a three week trip is worth every minute of time, toil and tribulation but for those who don’t have the time, temper or wherewithal for the long run, the short survey trip is a valuable experience.  The more varied people who can capture even a small part of this wilderness experience, the more people will ‘get it’ that we have to preserve these magnificent places and experiences for generations to come. 

A boat, a bus and another plane ride, over the flat blue lake, looking like a beard on a beauty queen in it’s Mojave wasteland.  We fly over the dam that sits like a plug in a puddle.  Hoover Dam tamed the lower river in the 1930s and created the relatively sterile looking Lake Mead without much opposition or loss of unique beauty.  It was, and still is, an Art Deco engineering marvel that set the stage for development of the West.  Power generation revenue from this cash register dam was enough to fund most of the Bureaus subsidized water development projects in the forties, fifties and sixties and is still going strong. The lower canyon is stark and dark with lava flows and ancient silt and sand stones in a Mojave vegetation complex full of Barrel cactus and Fire Sticks. 

Glen Canyon Dam was built in the 60s as a trade off with environmentalists for not building a dam in Dinosaur Monument.  The sole purpose of Glen Canyon Dam is to give the upper states water use flexibility and guarantee a ten year water supply to the lower basin states.  The 500 million dollar per year power generation revenue is just icing on the cake.  David Brower, then president of the Sierra Club, made the deal with the Bureau of Reclamation before he and the environmental movement knew that Glen Canyon was an irreplaceable national treasure. The upper canyon was shady, lush and airy with vertical faces of polished red sandstones and side canyons as thin as a man or as cavernous as a cathedral.   As a regretful older man, Brower, along with the Sierra Club and ex Bureau chief Dan Beard were proposing the removal of the dam because of the waste of water from infiltration and evaporation - enough annually for the city of Chicago, and the lack of a real need for the storage.  He fought the power companies, the water users and more than 3 million recreationists that enjoy Lake Powell annually.  To Brower, flooding Glen Canyon for recreation was like flooding the Sistine Chapel to get a closer look at the ceiling.  Perhaps the proposal was the last desperate act of a regretful eco-warrior, or perhaps it is an extreme bargaining position for better environmental operation of the dams or perhaps it is an idea so outrageous that it might be worth reconsidering.   We flew back to Vegas, over what is left of the lower Colorado river, then over the Pyramid and the Statue of Liberty, a Circus, a Castles and the Space Needle.  The lights, air conditioners, fountains and sprinklers were still on, but the old river wasn’t.