By Rraine Jones, Grand County Search and Rescue
Three hours after I got home from a rescue call, we got another page, around 4:00 pm. It was for an accident on the Colorado River. The day before, I had just pulled all my river gear together in case of a river rescue and here it was. In the past, I was a whitewater kayak instructor and was certified in swift water rescue. I was nervous and excited to use my skills on a search and rescue incident. Yay! I get to be useful! Spoiler alert – I used none of my skills on this call.
By the time I had arrived at the river put-in, someone had found a private raft and rafter to take us down the river. Our team does very few river rescues, so we don’t have a team raft. It was unclear to me where the girl was, but it sounded like she was on a rock in the middle of the river. Two sheriff deputies and a BLM ranger were able to hike down to her from above. We were instructed to raft down until we saw the ranger.
Our incident commander knew I had river experience and assigned me as lead of the team. This made me even more nervous. Once in the raft, I tried to do a radio check, but we were immediately out of radio contact due to the steep rock walls on either side of the river. We would have to do the entire rescue with little to no radio contact. I was also concerned about how to keep the radio dry and out of the river. We didn’t cover that in training. I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if one of us fell out of the raft. Sure, we had PFD’s on, but we had a lot of other gear on too. It would be a tough swim, for sure.
After twenty minutes or more, we saw the ranger on the shore waving to us. We got onshore and found out the girl was not on a rock in the middle of the river, but a half mile up the drainage from where we beached the boat. I wasn’t ready for this. I had worn river gear, as I thought this was a river rescue. My gear made the hike even hotter than it would have been in hiking clothes. We scrambled up the scree-filled drainage to a cliff. I did manage to get up the drainage with no problem. Only my ego was hurt. It would heal fast enough.
The girl was in her early twenties. She had fallen down the cliff while trying to hike to the river. Her stuff was strewn all around, including her flip flops and floaty toys. Trying to scale down a cliff without ropes is not a great idea and flip flops did not make it easier. If the cliff hadn’t gotten her, the floaty toys would have. I judge, but I was twenty once, and I might have thought I could scale a cliff in flip flops too. And I totally would have taken floaty toys. I could tell from her energy she was freaking out on the inside. Another team of search and rescue teammates and EMS personnel came up the trail behind us and took over the medical care of the girl and her energy changed for the better. I went back to help Josh rig a rope system that would help us lower her down the scree field on the way out.
We put her in a litter and used the rope system as a safety factor while carrying her. At the river, we tied the litter to one of the rafts and started the paddle downstream. Oh my god, the idea of tying anyone to a raft made me want to throw up. It went against everything I had ever learned about whitewater. But, it also makes sense, since she had to be in the litter due to a possible head, neck or spinal injury. Note to self – do not ever get hurt near a river.
Within ten minutes of taking off, it was dark. This was another oh-my-god moment. I’m not sure moonlight rafting was a great idea. But, this is where we were and what we had to do. I relaxed, as I couldn’t change it and had no better ideas. As is always the case when you relax, let go, come into the present and stop trying to control the situation, the magic happened.
Pure beauty – it was here all along, but I was too busy being nervous, annoyed and judgmental to see the magic. I could hear the water all around us. I knew what different types of rapids sound like from my many years of kayaking. I could now hear the sound of shallow rocks with water less than a foot deep to our left. It was a higher pitched sound, and you could hear the sound repeated hundreds of times, since each wave on a rock made roughly the same sound. Off to the right was a deeper single sound – a bigger submerged rock with water falling over it. The rafter also could hear the differences and expertly steered the raft between the two distinct sounds. No one spoke. We floated quietly down the river, with only the sounds of the water to be heard. Everyone was lost in the peacefulness of it.
Later, the moon came out from behind the clouds, and it was big and beautiful. It lit up a small path of water right in front of the raft. The water glittered and shined in the moonlight. You could clearly see where we were going. I used to tell my kayak students that after they had gained some experience, the river would slow down. It didn’t actually slow down, but your fear and lack of experience would go away and what used to look like nothing but crazy fast rapids would suddenly appear as waves, rocks, and other water features. It felt as if the river slowed down and you now had all the time you needed to decide where to put your kayak. Even though I wasn’t steering the raft, I watched the river slow down. The rafter had all the time in the world to put the raft where he wanted. I watched the moonlight dance on the waves, and I listened to the river flow to the place where the cliffs dropped away and our teammates waited to help us to shore.
Moonlight rafting turned out to be a great idea and I’m glad I had the opportunity to experience it.