Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (20 page)

Grant gazed out the large oval window of the Gulfstream. He could see the
Grand Canyon
stretch for miles ahead. He couldn't help but notice the thin yellow smog layer resting in the canyon, not completely blocking his vision, but partially obscuring it. He had heard about the phenomenon, where easterly winds blew air pollution from
Los Angeles
into the
Grand Canyon
, but had never actually seen it first hand. In spite of the smog, he had a great view of the canyon. The
Colorado River
snaked back and forth as if it didn't know where it was going. The water level looked normal, although it was impossible to tell from the plane's altitude.

Just after taking off in Page, at Grant's request, the plane had followed the river. Normally, the plane would have been required to follow traditional flight paths, but under the circumstances, since Grant was the lead government official in this emergency, the pilot had agreed to follow the river. For the first few miles the river had seemed completely full, almost overflowing. Where the canyon widened the river had widened, filling the space. There had been a few places where the canyon had intersected large side canyons. In these areas the floodwater had filled the side canyons as well. Gradually as the plane traveled at over 250 miles per hour down river, the levels subsided. The flood had not traveled this far into the canyon yet.

According to the computer modeling reports that Julia had faxed, allowing for varying friction coefficients of the canyon walls, the predicted water speed through the Grand Canyon would be between twenty and twenty-five miles per hour. The leading edge of the flood would reach the center of the Grand Canyon,
Granite
Narrows
, between 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. It would exit the canyon at the end of Pierce Basin, which was the beginning of Lake Mead at between midnight and 2:00 a.m. Peak levels of the flood would lag the leading edge by five or six hours, ultimately reaching between four hundred and five hundred feet above normal in some places in the Grand Canyon. Since the numbers in Grant's report were based on a worst-case scenario, and since both
Lake
Powell
and Mead were lower due to drought conditions, the flood levels would not be as bad. But how much difference could he count on really? Even with adjusted numbers, chances of survival for any human, beast, or structure below five hundred feet in the
Grand Canyon
was unlikely. Hopefully the Park Service's plan to send helicopters, warning all hikers and rafters to move to higher ground, would work, although Grant had yet to see any helicopters from the window of the plane.

Up ahead, at the end of the
Grand Canyon
, Grant saw a large body of water. That would be
Lake Mead
. When the Gulfstream flew over the lake, Grant looked straight down. The banks seemed flat, which would allow the water to spread out when it rose higher. That was good, although it was hard to tell how flat they really were from the sky.

Even without the extra floodwater, Lake Mead was the largest man-made lake in the
US
with a capacity of 9.2 trillion gallons. Someone had once calculated that the lake would cover
Pennsylvania
with over a foot of water. Right now Grant only hoped that the lake could handle all the water from
Lake
Powell
.
Lake
Powell
was the second largest, at 8.5 trillion gallons. But with the lower drought levels in both, there was a possibility. Grant looked at his watch. They had about eighteen hours to see if they could dump enough water out of Lake Mead to make room for the water from
Lake
Powell
that was already on its way. While he pondered that thought, the Gulfstream began its descent.

* * *

Greg pulled back on the throttle and the Mastercraft slowed,
it's
bow settling down in the water. The boat drifted in the main channel of
Lake
Powell
just off the west shoreline. They had traveled south for almost a half hour since leaving Hole-in-the-Rock. Julie figured it would take another hour to reach the marina.

She didn't understand why Greg stopped. He looked agitated, scanning his head back and forth. Actually, he hadn't seemed himself since they'd left Hole-in-the-Rock.

"What's wrong now?" she said.

"Something isn't right." He pointed up and down the channel, "Look how many boats are on the lake. I've never seen this many. It's like everybody is heading out."

Julie had noticed the heavy traffic, but then again, she had never been to Hole-in-the-Rock. Some of this traffic could be attributed to Bullfrog Marina to the north. Julie pointed downstream. "Maybe there's something going on. Something at the marina or down by the dam, some kind of party or something."

Greg shook his head. "If that were the case, they'd be taking their water-ski boats, not their houseboats. This has something to do with the water level dropping. I'm sure of it."

"We could flag someone down and ask," Erika said. But there was no enthusiasm in the comment.

Paul spoke up. "We're stopping at Dangling Rope on our way back. We can ask there."

Erika was nodding. "Someone at the marina should know what's going on."

There seemed to be an unspoken consensus. Greg nodded and Erika turned back around in her seat. Greg pushed the throttle forward again and the Mastercraft accelerated back to speed. Julie looked out across the water. It did seem like everyone on the lake was heading out. Many seemed to be in a hurry. For a moment she wondered if something really was wrong. She looked at her watch. It would be lunchtime soon. She wondered what Max and Darlene were doing back at the houseboat.

* * *

Sitting on the roof of the houseboat, Max bent a page as a marker and tossed the paperback he was reading on the empty chair next to him. He glanced over at his wife, who was oblivious to the world, her face buried in her romance novel. The cover of the book showed a muscular man holding a woman by the waist, while the woman leaned back with a look of passion on her face. Max wished some of the passion from Darlene's books would translate into real life.

He stood and stretched, and then walked to the edge of the roof, scanning the water below and the small canyon where they were parked. He was glad he and Darlene had decided to stay alone today, but he had no intentions of wasting the whole day reading. He walked back to his wife and plucked the book from her hands.

She reached for it. "Hey."

"Enough reading for a while.
Let's do something."

"Let me finish my chapter first."

He reached for her arm to help her up. "You can finish your chapter later. I'm bored. Let's eat or something."

She looked at her watch. "We just ate an hour ago."

"Fine, then lets do something else. We need to move around." He pulled her up until she was standing.

"Like what?"

He winked at her. "I don't know. How about we kayak up the canyon a ways?"

Her face showed skepticism. "It's too hot."

He pulled her away from her chair. "We'll be practically in the water. You can jump in whenever you need to." He pointed upstream. "The canyon might get really narrow up there. Maybe it's one of those cool places where you can reach from one side to the other."

"Can I bring my book?" She asked.

Max rolled his eyes.
Unbelievable.
But, he imagined her begging to come back after only a few minutes if she didn't have it. He gave in. "You can bring it, if you pack a few things for lunch to take with us."

She reached for the book, but he shook his head. "Not yet. Go get ready, and I'll put the kayak in the water."

A few minutes later, Max was dragging the kayak down the beach into the water. He noticed the sand was wet for at least ten or twelve feet above the waterline. He stood and looked at it for a moment. He didn't remember the wet band being so big before. Additionally, the ropes tying the houseboat to the rocky shore were tight, and Max thought he remembered them having slack before.

He was pondering whether the water had dropped when his wife walked out of the houseboat. She carried a paper bag with their lunch, and a full six-pack of sodas, and two large beach towels. More noticeable however, was that she had changed her
swimsuit.
Darlene was wearing one that Max had never seen before. The suit's lines were daring, and since Darlene was overweight, she rarely wore daring clothes.

Max gaped at her. She looked wonderful.

"You like it?" she asked, spinning so he could look.

He nodded.

She handed him some suntan lotion. "Here, rub this on me before we go. I don't want to get burned in this suit."

Max squirted some lotion in his hands, and forgot all about water levels and wet sand.

* * *

Sid and Ryan could see the bottom of the
Tanner
Trail
, at least where it disappeared into the overflowing
Colorado River
. It was a hundred yards or so ahead. Until now, their decision to hike off trail above Escalante had been working. Actually, that was an understatement since the old Escalante ran somewhere along the original riverbank, which was now hundreds of feet underwater. So the decision to leave the trail had been genius.

Since the helicopter had warned them, Sid and Ryan couldn't believe how fast the water had risen. In total, Sid guessed the river was up three or four hundred feet. It was hard to tell. But he had never seen anything like it, even in the movies. As it rose, the river widened, and if possible, got dirtier than it already was. Before, there were rapids occasionally along the river. Now, the whole river was a rapid. This angry Colorado River was tearing apart the
Grand Canyon
. Every few moments, incredibly loud noises that sounded almost like explosions, echoed through the canyon as huge boulders and pieces of the rock walls broke off and rolled into the river. Rockslides were plentiful, and Sid was starting to worry that they'd get caught in one.

When they rounded the bend, the bottom of
Tanner
Trail
was just up ahead. Well, it should have been just up ahead, instead it was underwater, swallowed by the swollen
Colorado River
. Something seemed surreal about the way the trail meandered back and forth down the hill then right into the brown frothy water. It was as if the two scenes didn't belong together. Ryan and Sid both stopped and stared. Although the
Tanner
Trail
was less than a football field away, Sid had no idea how they were going to get to it. Their path was blocked. The ridge they were on led right into the river. They had almost made it. Sid looked at where the rocks led into the water. What if they just followed the path right into the water, and waded next to the rocks. They could even swim a little in the deep places.

Ryan must have been reading Sid's mind. He pointed at the scene, farther upstream than where Sid was looking. "Look how strong the current is up there."

Sid saw where the cliff jutted out into the river, and the current ripped past it. It would be impossible to get around that point. He held up his arms in frustration.
"Now what?"

Ryan craned his head up at the small cliffs above them. "We need to get up there somehow."

The row of cliffs was only about twenty-five or thirty-feet tall in some places, and if they could find a way on top, the higher ridge would lead them the rest of the way over to Tanner.

The thought of scaling a rock wall made Sid's knee hurt even more. "I don't know if I can do it."

Ryan glared at him, angry. "What are you nuts? You want to die?"

Sid didn't answer. He was surprised at Ryan's anger. For a moment he felt more afraid of Ryan than the river itself. Something told him that Ryan wasn't going to let him quit.

Ryan continued to scan the cliffs above them for a way up. Sid joined in the search. However nothing looked plausible, especially with the knee. The rock ledges were almost vertical. A couple of places looked promising in spots, but then an overhang or some other obstacle made it too risky. Sid moved back along the ridge where they had come, to see if they had already passed something. However, if anything, the cliffs were even higher and steeper.

"Over here." Ryan yelled.

Sid turned and saw that Ryan was way down by the water, pointing up at a large cliff. Sid moved back down the trail toward him. He looked up at the rock wall where Ryan pointed. It was one of the taller parts of the ridge line, and the top was inverted and completely impassable, not to mention the bottom was in the water.

"You're kidding, right?" Sid pointed at the top. "How you gonna get over that?"

Ryan shook his head and pointed off to the left. "No. We cut across on that ledge about two thirds of the way up.

Sid hadn't seen the small ridge. It was too small. In fact it looked too small to traverse. "Are you sure?"

Ryan was already wading into the water. He was up to his armpits before he reached the base of the cliff. "Come on. The water's still rising."

Sid followed obediently. By the time he reached the base, Ryan was already twenty feet above him, climbing up the crease. The water was cold and Sid was already shivering even though only a moment ago he was burning up. The cold moved him and made him climb faster. The knee throbbed with every step, but the pain from the cold water was worse. When he had climbed high enough to be completely out of the water, he rested, and looked up. Ryan was grasping for a handhold.

"Are you stuck?" Sid asked.

"Nah.
I'm okay. Come on."

Sid climbed on. What seemed like an eternity later, he reached the spot where Ryan had struggled to find a
handhold.
Like he'd seen Ryan do, Sid felt around with his left hand, trying to feel for something that offered a grip. He searched for what must have been a couple minutes, but he could not find anything.

"All right, how'd you get past this spot?" He asked, without looking up.

"I couldn't get a hold of anything." The sound came from the above, but also from the left.

Sid looked up, mostly with his eyes, not daring to move his head very far. Ryan was traversing across a split in the rock. He had almost made it.

"So how'd you get past this spot then?" Sid asked.

Ryan hesitated before answering. "It's kind of tricky. Put both your hands where you're holding on with your right. Then wedge your left foot against that rock over by your knee. Then you should be able to get high enough to grab on that ledge above you."

Sid glanced over and found the rock by his knee. Carefully, he slid his foot up until it found the foothold. He rested. The bad right knee started shaking, complaining about having to support the bulk of his weight.

"Now push with your left foot and pull yourself up to the ledge."

Sid looked up and saw that Ryan had made it. He was standing on a small ledge and looking down at Sid pointing. "It's right above you. See it?"

Sid saw the ledge, but he didn't think he could get to it. He considered it a risky maneuver, one that could end up in a fall. While he contemplated, an explosion accosted his ears. He let go instinctively with his left hand and covered his ear. He saw motion off to his left, something big. He looked over and watched a wall of rock fall into the river below, an avalanche of smaller rocks following behind. The rock, which could not have been more than fifty feet away, made him do something bad, something he had told himself he would not do, no matter what. He looked down. Sid looked down and saw the huge boulder swallowed by the river. One big splash and it was gone. The look down terrified him. First of all, he was much higher than he would have imagined. And the river, if possible, had risen even higher than when they started. It was as if it was chasing him up the cliff. Sid knew in an instant that if he fell, he'd be dead. The water was moving too fast, and churning too much. There was no way he could survive. He pulled his eyes back up, away from the danger below. But the momentary glance had done its damage. He instinctively pulled his body closer to the rock, hugging it. He had been climbing long enough to know that you can't climb if you are too close to the rock. It screws up your leverage. But he couldn't help himself.

"Sid. What are you doing?"

Sid heard Ryan, but he didn't look up. His face was touching the rock, and he felt sure if he moved, he would fall. "I don't think I can make it."

Ryan sounded angry. "What d'ya mean? You were doing fine a minute ago."

Sid didn't feel like telling Ryan the
truth, that
looking down had scared him. Ryan didn't seem in the mood for that. Besides, Ryan was already at the top. He'd made it. Ryan was angry because he wanted to leave, and Sid was holding him up. Would Ryan be happier if Sid fell? At least then he'd be free to go.

"Get your butt away from the rock." Ryan's voice wasn't angry anymore. It sounded sympathetic. "You can't climb like that."

Sid didn't move.

Ryan continued talking. His voice was patient and comforting. "Sid. You need to relax. That rock surprised me too. I almost jumped off the ledge."

That helped. The image of Ryan jumping in the river at the sound of the rock, made him laugh. "I'm a little freaked out here," he admitted.

"Take a couple slow deep breaths. Relax."

Sid did as he was told, and it helped. He had been too scared to breathe. "Now, let your butt go out a little, get some leverage."

Slowly, Sid stopped hugging the rock.

"That's it! Okay, now try to imagine you're practicing on a rock that's only a foot in the air."

It was an old climbing trick, a trick that had helped Sid before. Sometimes when a climber is stuck high on a rock, pretending the rock was only a practice rock, and not very high, made it easier to relax and climb when you were nervous. Sid however, used a variation of the trick. He instead imagined that the ground had risen behind him as he climbed, and that if he wanted, he could always just step off the rock, and rest. The trick had worked for him in the past. He had never tried it before while a flood was tearing boulders right out of the rock wall, but he did his best to put those thoughts out of his mind.

"Okay, now pull yourself up and down a couple times. Get a feeling for the handholds you got," Ryan ordered.

Sid did just that, and was surprised to feel that his arms still had a little strength left in them. Not as much as he wished, but more than he expected. He pulled up again, and took inventory on the knee. It had stiffened even more. He wondered how much more it could take.

"All right, you ready?"

Sid looked up this time. Ryan peered down at him from the rocks above, smiling. The sight made Sid relax even more. "Yeah, I guess so. Let's do it."

Ryan pointed at a ledge just out of Sid's reach. "Okay, that's your next handhold. You're going to need to push up with your left foot to get that high."

Sid put the rogue
Colorado River
out of his mind. He did the same for the memory of the cliff next to him breaking off and falling. He concentrated only on the ledge above. He stuck his butt out farther then pushed up, pulling at the same time with his hands. It worked. He slid his left hand up to the ridge and grabbed. The handhold was solid.

"Yeah!
Good job." Ryan was clapping above him.

Once Sid climbed past the tricky part, the rest of the climb was uneventful. A few minutes later Sid was standing on the ledge next to Ryan. A part of him wanted to reach out and hug his friend, like a brother. After all, he would not have made it without the encouragement. But hugging his friend was unthinkable.

Sid looked out over the
Colorado River
. In his whole life, he'd never seen anything like it. He estimated it to be almost a half a mile across. And the level had probably risen four or five hundred feet. It was moving faster than a man could run, more like a bicyclist, maybe even faster than that. The water wasn't just flowing straight either, it churned and swirled like Sid had never seen before. The thought of falling in made him shiver. Even if he had a life jacket, which he did not, the river could easily pull him under and drag him along the bottom, propelling him up or down at its leisure. The thought reminded Sid of a guy, a SCUBA diver named Nelson, who he met in college. Nelson claimed that he and some other guys used to drift dive, wearing full SCUBA gear, down some river around
Jackson Hole
,
Wyoming
. And this river wasn't just a scenic tour either; it had rapids and white water. Anyway, Nelson used to say that only divers who could equalize their ears real fast could do it, because in one spot, the river pulled the divers down from the surface to eighty feet in a couple seconds, which would rupture ear drums if they weren't equalized. After that, he said it was like the center of a tornado, perfectly calm. However, seconds later, the river yanked the divers back up to the surface and back down the river. Sid wasn't sure if that story was true or not. But when he saw the swirling whirlpools and eddies, he remembered it. He thought it gave him a better perspective, as if from the
victims
point-of-view of what it would be like to be pulled under.

"Let's go." Sid said, but when he turned Ryan was already headed along the ridge.

A few minutes later they reached Tanner. An incredible feeling of relief washed over Sid. Back when he was hanging on the cliff, he would not have bet a dollar on making it. But here he was, and if the knee let go now, no big deal. Worst case they could send a mule down for him. Standing on the trail, they rested, looking down at where it disappeared in the swollen river. For a moment Sid thought he heard voices, but the
Colorado River
had become noisy as it grew. There were the constant sounds of water moving past the cliffs, and sporadic sounds of rocks rolling underwater, rock slides on the banks, and boulders breaking loose. The new noises came as the river carved into hillside it hadn't been able to reach for millions of years.

For the last hour, back when his life was in jeopardy, Sid saw the new river as something to be afraid of, but looking down on it from Tanner, it was different. It was spectacular, unbelievable, and breathtaking. Watching it on TV would not do it justice. Standing on the banks, he could feel it.