"Some people really embrace the solitude, and some people don't
expect it," smiled Christian Seamans on the drizzly fall morning of
our own departure.
Christian dipped his oars into the cocoa-brown
Colorado and smiled
again.
"Welcome, everyone," he said, as we moved out into the main
current. "It's always nice to push away."
Enjoying nature is about pushing away, and all of us - 19 paying
customers who had signed on for a 14-day oar trip with Wilderness
River Adventures - had ensured ourselves additional solitude by
coming to the river in October.
It is something of a secret, and I will likely be tossed into the
Colorado tied to an anvil for saying so in print, but fall and
spring are the river's unsung seasons; quieter, cooler, heavier
with repose. In July, the average high in the canyon is 106
degrees. In October, it is 85, and the low, on average, is a
still-quite-pleasant 59. In summer, 150 people a day put on to the
river at Lees Ferry, 15 miles below Glen Canyon Dam, and plenty
more would join them if the Park Service didn't enforce this cap.
On the morning we left, only three other groups were starting off.
Over the next 13 days we saw them now and again, but mostly it was
just us. October offers a final plus. No motorized craft are
allowed on the river after mid-September, making it easier to hear
a raven's wing beat or the sound of your own heart in the last wink
of silence before a rapid's roar.
Our party numbered 26: 7 guides, 19 clients, 6 rubber boats, and
enough
food and drink to embarrass Club Med.
Our Wilderness guides proved supremely competent, but they didn't
take their competency too seriously, preferring instead to dye
their hair green, announce dinner with a Gregorian chant, and even,
on the proper occasion, wear women's underwear. There was
Christian, Heather, Brett, Jeffe, Nate, Nute, and our trip leader,
Okie. It quickly became obvious they all loved the river and the
canyon. They knew its history, its wildlife, and its geology, but
mostly they knew how to rightly enjoy it.