Rafting the river of time: Riding the Colorado

 

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz

Although every daylight hour of the five-night rafting trip I took recently down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park offered a steady flow of jaw-dropping vistas, my most poignant moment came around 2 one morning.

Unzipping the tent flap, I stumbled into the night and down the 20 sandy yards to the river’s edge to answer nature’s call. Before long, I realized the only sound I could hear was the low, gravely grumble of the river that has flowed there for millions of years.

I looked around at the setting. The full moon had already set beneath the towering cliffs behind me, which cast their dark shadows over our campsite. But the sheer redwall limestone face on the opposite bank, an unbroken expanse maybe a mile long and 1,000 feet high, shimmered with a filigreed, opalescent glow against the ebony slash of a ...more