August 5,1869—With some feeling of anxiety we enter a new canyon this morning. We have learned to observe closely the texture of the rock. In softer strata we have a quiet river, in harder we find rapids and falls. Below us are the limestones and hard sandstones which we found in Cataract Canyon. This bodes toil and danger.

Toil and danger. Don’t care for the sound of those words. Danger is bad enough; toil is reprehensible. Hope these savage-looking boatmen know what they’re doing. They certainly don’t look like they know what they’re doing. Of course I’ve been down here before. Used to drive the Park Service motorboat as far as Mile 8, Badger Creek Rapid, and twice went all the way down the canyon on a big motor-driven pontoon boat.

The Kaibab limestone formation rises on either side of us, forming walls that cut off most of the sky. We float through a monstrous defile a thousand feet deep; two thousand feet deep? How deep is the river? one of the passengers asks John. How high are the walls? How fast is the current? The traditional questions. He answers patiently. What’s that big blue heronlike bird down there that flies like a pterodactyl? Heron.

John tells us that the Canyon is nearly all rock. How much can you say about rock? It’s red here, gray there, it’s hard, it’s badly eroded, it’s a mess. The geologists can’t even make up their minds how the Canyon was formed. They once thought it was an entrenched meander, the ancient silt-bearing river grinding down into its bed as the plateau gradually rose beneath it. Now some think it’s the result of two rivers, one capturing the other in the vicinity of the present Little Colorado. Old-time geologists spoke of a monster cataclysm. One thing is certain: the Grand Canyon is unique.

Now from up ahead comes the deep toneless vibration of the first major rapid, Badger Creek. The sound resembles that of an approaching freight train on a steel trestle. On the standard scale of 1 to 10 this rapid is rated 4–6. Of intermediate difficulty. Staring, we see the river come to an edge and apparently vanish. Curling waves leap, from time to time, above that edge. Wally Rist, in the leading boat, stands up for a good look, sits down, turns his boat and, facing forward, slides over the glassy rim of water. His boat disappears. He disappears. Two more boats follow. They disappear. Our turn.

“Buckle up,” commands John.

We fasten our life jackets. John stands up in the center of the boat, taking his look. Pooled behind the wall of boulders that forms the rapid, the river slows, moving with sluggish ease toward the drop. The roar grows louder. I think of Pittsburgh, the old Forbes Field, seventh game of the 1961 World Series, bottom of the ninth, Yankees leading 8 to 7, two men out, one man on, and the roar that greeted Lou Mazerowski’s pennant-winning homer.