Back on the river and down to the mouth of Monument Creek. I explore this canyon too but don’t get far: one mile from the river I come to another box, another overhanging spout with classic dripping spring far above my head. Returning to the river by a different route I jump a bunch of mule deer from their shady place underneath the alders. I hear a loud thump! as they go bounding—not running—toward the shore.

Early in the evening I select my third campsite, a clean open bench of stone on the left bank, eleven miles upstream from the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers.

Beef stew for supper. A near full moon rises through a notch in the walls around me, barely visible through a dense overcast. No stars in sight. The air is cold and still, feeling like rain, or maybe snow. I set up the tent, then go for a walk along an old trail switchbacking up a talus slope. Topping out on a saddle of level stone, I find myself looking down on the Colorado River flowing in opposite directions—westward on one hand, northeast on the other. I am standing on the neck of a big meander called the Loop.

I hear no sound but the coursing of the blood through my ears. A world of stillness without even the whisper of a wind. Nothing in motion but the gleaming river four hundred feet below, the faint advance of moonlight across dark battlements of stone. Stealthily, afraid to attract attention by making noise, I pick my way back down the trail to camp. The moon, encircled by a rust-colored corona, grows dimmer by the minute behind the cloud cover.

Tuesday

Up at six. The dense cloud cover remains but there is not a breath of wind. Tea, bread and jam for breakfast. I load my boat and push onto the river an hour later. Fifteen miles to Spanish Bottom, foot trails to the outer world, and our rendezvous point. The threat of bad weather now seems trivial; I am delighted with this solitary journey and regret only that it seems to be going so fast. Too fast.

Solitary: but not lonely. I’ve been too busy to be lonely. Navigating the river, trying to avoid gravel bars, hiking side canyons, hunting for a campsite, making camp, reading Tolstoy—I’ve hardly had a chance to even feel alone. Floating and contemplating keeps me busy.

Well, enough dawdling, row this boat. Best to set up base camp before the storm actually arrives and the rains come down. Followed by hail. Topped off by snow. Going around the Loop, I row four miles to arrive at a point about a quarter mile from where I started. But that’s the way the canyons go, serpentine. Except for crystals and stratigraphy, there are few straight lines in nature.

Strange birdcries in the distance. A heron honking? Coyote scat and deer sign in every canyon. Beaver slides on the mudbanks. Quiet little anonymous birds flitting about in the brush. And autumn color everywhere: bright orange of alder, gold of cottonwood, red of ivy and scrub oak, copper of willows, tawny brown of grasses and greasewood, pale yellow of mountain mahogany, the dark olive green of junipers and piñon pine on the rim above and along the water’s edge the tamarisk thickets, red as rust.