Rafting the Canyon - Part II

Only connect!  That was the message of EM Forster's novel, Howard's End, published 100 years ago.  How things have changed.  We now connect on a daily basis; to the internet to check our e-mail, to our friends on Facebook (even if connecting with them in person happens less and less) and via telephone, text and Twitter.  For me at least, it is bliss for a little to disconnect.

Being completely off the grid is part of my pleasure  when I am in the Canyon (or indeed anywhere where cell towers don't exist, or better yet, don't work).  It's an opportunity to get back to basics, restore equilibrium and have a true vacation from the stress and strain that we all shoulder on a day to day basis, whether we realize it or not.  But there are dozens of reasons to go, and I hope that my 2-part musings have at least somewhat whetted your appetite if this was at all on your agenda.

The river community in the Canyon is small,  interconnected and passionate about the place.  One of our guides was on his 130th trip and counting.  Another was married to Kristin Huisinga, one of the authors of the definitive plant guide to the area.  We were lucky enough to meet her late in our trip, when her motorboat trip (filled with Hopi Indians respecting sites in the Canyon sacred to their people) caught us up on our penultimate day.  There are dedicated geologists, wildlife and fish specialists and,  to my great pleasure, even poets.

This year, the book that everyone was talking about was by Amil Quayle .  He does a far better job than I can of conveying the immensity of the place and the intensity of the passions it evokes.  So let's finish up with his words instead of mine:

"I speak now of that Grand Canyon
which lies within each of us.  There
are pre-Cambrian rocks at the center,
the core, and talus from yesterday's fall;
marble and granite grown hard from the pressure and heat of heartbreak and
passion; crumbling sandstone, layer on layer of sediment, sentiment piled on over a lifetime's experience."