Forever Grand

A mile upstream from Lava Falls, there is a black tower of rock -- the eroded core of an ancient volcano -- in the Colorado River. "Vulcan's Anvil," says our guide, Howie Usher. He maneuvers our raft beneath it and hands each of us a penny, telling us to toss them on top of the rock. "If one of them stays up there,'' he says, "we'll have safe passage." Most of the pennies drop into the rushing green water, but one stays -- Usher's.

We drift into a flat stretch of river. Then we hear it: the drumbeat of Lava Falls, the most notorious rapid in North America, which drops almost 40 feet and is rated a 10 on the Grand Canyon scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most challenging. The falls can chew a boat whole and spit out its contents -- us -- like cherry pits into the gutter. Usher pulls our raft to shore beside the others in our party, and we climb to an overlook.

Below us roars an angry brew of frothing water, shore to shore and several hundred feet long. The guides huddle, plotting their course.

When we return to the rafts, Usher dons a white shirt and tie -- "to show respect," he says.

We pull away from the bank and slide down into the awful maw.

Then: pounding, jolting, great cold waves, screaming, bam bam bam, mouthfuls of water, gulp gulp, bam bam bam.

Quiet water again. All of our rafts have gotten through. "Nobody swam," Usher says and grins.

We stop at some shady ledges where a spring gushes through a ferny garden and spend the next hour munching on tuna sandwiches and fresh oranges, bathing in the sweet water, feeling bloody marvelous.

That night, I lie on my sleeping mat, sweating in the fierce heat, with an occasional breeze brushing me like a stolen kiss. Overhead, the falling stars run like tears down the desert sky.

Moments of sublime beauty, terror, hilarity, discomfort, pleasure, exhaustion, awe -- all these come to you on a raft trip through the Grand Canyon. To my mind, it is the premier outdoor adventure on this continent

It is hardly a unique experience. Each year, more than 20,000 people do it, most of them with commercial outfitters. Over the past four decades, I've been there four times -- the first three trips on motorized rafts.

Most recently, I joined an oar-and-paddle trip outfitted by Arizona Raft Adventures of Flagstaff. I wanted to experience a slow, silent pas- sage through the canyon. We would run the classic 225 miles from Lees Ferry, 15 miles below Glen Canyon Dam, to Diamond Creek on the Hualapai Reservation. We had four oar boats, each carrying four passen- gers and one guide, who would do all the rowing, and one paddle boat carrying one captain and six passengers to help with the paddling.

Throughout the trip, I switched around, sometimes paddling, sometimes lazing on the oar boats. In stretches of calm water, the guides -- with intellects to match their muscle -- would read aloud the canyon's literature, often the writings of John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first exploration by boat of the Green and Colorado rivers. Or they would give us a geology lesson, naming the rock layers laid down by ancient volcanoes and seas and blowing sands over almost 2 billion years, then shaped by river, rain, wind, ice, and earth -- from the pale Kaibab limestone at the rim, down to the dark old Vishnu schist in the Inner Gorge.

Our days were spent hiking, swimming in tributary pools, poking through Anasazi ruins, drifting, howling down the rapids. Sometimes we had expansive views to the rims thousands of feet above us; sometimes we were locked tight between the walls of the Inner Gorge. Ospreys and redtailed hawks soared overhead, desert bighorn sheep grazed along the river's edge. The descending notes of the canyon wren rang in the chasms. Once we saw a peregrine falcon pick a merganser out of the air and flap away to its lair. We never saw ringtails, which are strictly nocturnal, but one midnight we heard the raccoonlike animals in a hissy fit, scrapping over our empty tin cans.

In the evenings, we would find a campsite on rocky ledges or among the tamarisk trees on sandy beaches. We'd pull cold beer from the burlap bags dragged in the river, set up our tents, and dine on grilled salmon or steak or pasta or burritos.

It was early July; daytime temperatures often reached a choking 115 degrees. The only way to cool off was a dunk, fully clothed, in the river, which runs icy cold out of Glen Canyon Dam. Even at night, when the massive walls radiated stored heat, it seldom dropped below 100 degrees.

Each morning, Usher would describe the fears and joys of the coming day, the worst rapids, the loveliest side canyons. When we came to the Little Colorado, which flows clear and turquoise over travertine terraces, he read a passage from Winnie-the-Pooh about having fun. We spent the day there, squealing down water slides, splashing in pools.

Occasionally, entering a tributary canyon meant struggling up a knotted rope or rappelling down into a dark slot, and our scrapes and bruises were soothed in godsent pools and waterfalls.

At Blacktail Canyon, most of the group set off on a three-hour "silent hike." I hadn't gone far when I noticed that our paddle captain, Jeff Pomeroy, carrying his guitar, had lingered near the entrance. I went around one more bend and settled down alone in a shady alcove to listen, doze, and daydream. Once, Pomeroy strummed a theme so full of longing that I began to cry. Later, climbing back into the rafts, I felt as if we were leaving a religious service.

And always, there were the rapids, sometimes several scary ones in a day, the river slick and ominous above the maelstrom, sucking you down into its terrible pulsing heart, and the way you never got used to those rapids -- but how sweet it was when you had come through safely.

On the last day, we stood on the shore at Diamond Creek, watching the guides deflate the rafts. We were gritty and sore and cactus-scratched and sunburned and overwhelmed by the grandeur we'd seen.

Then we piled into a bus and headed back to the 21st century and the plastic comforts of a Flagstaff motel.

The cost of this trip will be $2,860 per person this year, including bus transportation from Flagstaff to the river and back. Prices for Azra's other trips range from $1,510 to $3,040, depending on the length and whether it's an oar trip or motor trip. Contact Arizona Raft Adventures at 800-786-7238; www.azraft.com.

For other commercial outfitters, visit www.nps.gov/grca or call the National Park Service River Trip Information Center at 800-959-9164. Also helpful: the Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association website, www.gcroa.org.

It takes a week to run the entire Grand Canyon with motors, two weeks with oars and paddles. Most outfitters allow guests to run only the upper or lower section; either way requires a grueling 4,000-foot, 8-mile hike in desert heat.

Lynn Ferrin is a San Francisco writer who has rafted the rivers of the American West, Alaska, Costa Rica, Portugal, and Australia.