It was time to head back to dinner. As I stood up, brushed off my pants, and began probing my trekking poles for the jumble of descending rocks, I knew tomorrow began the Inner Gorge, and the radios were becoming a lesson in frustration. A wave of nerves passed through my body, but then I focused on my breathing and the soft rush of the river, letting it fill my consciousness. With each exhalation, I felt some of that weight lifting. Maybe, I thought, I’ll try it LonDart style.

26

Waking on the seventh day, we had a series of four challenging rapids to navigate in succession, all rated about 8s: Hance, then Sockdolager, Grapevine, and Zoroaster. On the way across the beach to breakfast, I could hear Lonnie on the ground doing his morning ritual of fifty sit-ups, crunches, and push-ups, a military habit he’d stuck with. Feeling nauseous, I nervously choked down some breakfast, as our filmmaker, Michael Brown, asked me, “What are you thinking this morning?”

“I’m actually trying not to think,” I answered. After consulting Harlan, Harlan said he felt comfortable guiding me without radios. He’d try to stay right behind me and yell extra loudly. “If we get separated for any reason,” he said, “don’t panic. Relax. Breathe. Be at peace with the river. You’re here, in this moment. Nothing else matters.”

A mile out of camp, we came to Hance, a long, left bend in the river with the right side dubbed “the Land of the Giants,” a series of big boulders to avoid.

“We’ll work from the tongue of smooth water starting out on the right,” Harlan said, “then skirt left, avoiding the big, potentially problematic holes created by those rocks.”

Somehow I was able to follow Harlan’s advice and to execute his directions, angling my boat against the crashing laterals coming off the boulders. I was actually surprised when Harlan yelled, “We’re good! We’re through it! Now we’re just riding the squirrelly water at the bottom!”

Sockdolager was up next, named by Major Powell. It was the phrase used at the time to describe a knockout blow in a boxing match. He was referring to the two massive sequential waves, about twenty feet from trough to crest.

Harlan steered me in and lined me up straight against those waves. “Charge! Charge!” he yelled, and I rode up the first that felt almost vertical, and then down, digging with everything I had, exploding through the next that crashed over my head. I disappeared for a moment in the wall of water and then emerged on the other side into the bright sun. I think I was actually smiling.