A Trip to Big Bend

                            A Trip to Big Bend

Spring 1972, Portland, Texas

It’s 3 A M and I’m wondering why I agree to this crazy one day float trip to Big Bend. Steve and Jennifer will be picking me up in a few minutes, and we’ll be flying low across South Texas on Farm to Market Roads to float the Boquillas Canyon stretch of rapids on the Rio Grande River. Steve talked with some new folks in town from West Texas, and they told him about floating the Rio Grande. One thing led to another, and we’re about to drive 500 miles, do a 40 mile float down a river, and drive back; all in one day, and to top it off neither of us have ever laid eyes on the river. Recent rains have put a lot of water in the river, and we won’t have to paddle much....”but the rapids will be churning,” said Steve’s friend, Vertis thinks “churning” is one step from death.

“Richard, we have two small children, and you’re losing it, if you think I’m going on some wild float trip with roaring rapids!”

“He didn’t say roaring...”

“What’s the difference...churning? Roaring?”

Vertis won’t go, and two babies ending up in a south Texas orphanage was mentioned.

“Hey...headlights!” Steve and Jennifer are here.

“Ready for some wild rapids?” Steve yells.

I giving him a slightly nervous smile as I hop into his Ford Falcon with a luggage rack on top where a raft is tied down.

“I think we can make it by nine,” Steve says....”if we speed a bit.”

I know that no one drives those roads under 80 and at 3 A.  M, we’ll be doing a 100.   

Steve holds the speed down as we cross the Harbor Bridge into Corpus Christi, but as we pass the sign that says, “Next gas station 89 miles” he’s airing out the little Ford, and hours pass as we roar across a barren, Southwest Texas landscape.

Our topo map has the put-in spot and take out-spot marked. As we enter the park a Ranger tells us the river is up and rafting in not recommended, but of course, we aren’t going to drive 500 miles and not raft, so we head to the put-in spot. We’re met by several young men who will drive your car around to the place where we’ll end the trip. I’ve just paid $12 and Steve seems a little concerned as a man spins out in his Falcon heading for where we’ll finish the float trip. We have reached the point of no return. If we ever want to see our car or get back home, we’ve got to raft the river.

I’m a little concerned when one of the men comments, “River’s way up, lots of rocks...be careful.”

We’re about ready to push off when I look up the river, and see another group about to start a float.

“Hey, y’all look!” and then we’re watching one of the strangest sights we have ever seen   The raft has a wooden plank bottom surrounded by eight inner tubes, with a refrigerator on the planks and three swimming Mexican on each side of the raft. They are floating the refrigerator into Mexico.

Yeah, we’re smiling as we push off with Steve and me sitting forward with the paddles, and Jennifer sitting in the back to balance out the raft. It’s really hot for mid-May, but everyone has on just shorts, t-shirts, and baseball caps so we’re ready for the heat. I’m expecting we’ll just float along, but there’s not much current, so its paddle, paddle, and now it’s been an hour and we’re still paddling. We’re sweating and frying in the sun, and I figure it will take all day to get to our car, but the current is picking up and the scenery is changing from a desert---mesquite to some rolling hills, which forces the river into a narrower channel, and now we’re picking up speed.

“Hey, we’re really making some time,” Steve yells.

 We round a bend and the current takes us close to the American side of the river, and I glance at a brush pile.

“My gosh! Is that a head?”

Everyone is looking, but we’re moving by so quickly the whole head or no head thing is almost a blink.

“It’s a head…but what? Is it an animal? Or…human?”

We can’t go back, the current is too strong, but I’m leaning toward human. I guess we’ll never know. Our talking about the head is forgotten because we hear something in the distance. ..a roaring sound.

“What’s that?” I question.

Steve pipes up, “I lived in Denver and rafted the Snake River. That’s rapids.”

Now, I see them. The water is churning as it passes over rocks, and we are heading straight for the rocky water while trying to stay in the center of the river.

“Ahaaaa!”

The raft is lodged on a boulder just below the surface, and Steve and I are trying to push it off.

“Oh, no!”

One of our backpacks has flipped out and there goes lunch, but we’re through the rapids now and heading toward some towering cliffs. Before we can do anything the rafts zips along and we’re flying through the canyon with the USA just 20 feet on one side and Mexico 20 feet on the other side. We’ve quit paddling and are just trying to keep the raft in the middle of the river, and that’s when we hear a thundering roar. There’s a sandbar before the bend ahead, and we’re pulling the raft up on it. I’m wading around the corner to check out the roaring, and what I see makes me stop breathing. The river narrows and two big boulders have fallen into the river to where a raft and all the river water must go between them. It’s the worst looking thing I have ever seen.

We’re talking it over and it boils down to walking 20 miles or braving the rapids. We vote for the river. I’m on the front of the raft to push us off the rocks, and we’re off.

“Hang on!”

The current moves us into the channel and as we bounce off one rock and careen into a torrent of churning water the raft flips up dumping out everything but us, and it’s all we can do to hang on. We’re a hundred yards down river now, and still in the raft with our paddles, but all our equipment and water is gone.

The river is slack water now, and it’s paddle time again and two hours later and three new blisters, I see Steve’s Falcon on the parking area. I’ve never wanted to kiss a car, but wow was I glad to see that one.

We find food and water just outside the Park boundaries, and with a bottle of water and a bag of pork skins, I’m driving us  toward home.

Blisters on both hands, sunburned, hungry, and dead tired, I’m pulling into my driveway at nearly 1 A M.. Vertis is waiting up, and she walks out to the car.

How was it?” she asks.

“It was wonderful…do you have anything left from supper?”