An adventure of a lifetime

Three siblings raft into the heart of the Grand Canyon, finding trials and triumphs

Brady Findell rows his wife Aparna Ravilochan down the last stretch of canyon in February 2019.

An adventure of a lifetime

Brady Findell rows his wife Aparna Ravilochan down the last stretch of canyon in February 2019.

Three siblings raft into the heart of the Grand Canyon, finding trials and triumphs

Story by Elizabeth Findell
Visuals by Bethany Blitz
Published on August 23, 2019

A hundred miles upstream of Lava Falls, lines of snow striped red citadels of rock. A wave crested into the sky in front of us. Bethany thrust oars forward and shouted, “Get down!” A crush of icy water crashed over my head as I threw myself to the high side of the raft.

It was February in the heart of the Grand Canyon. We were eight days in, staring down 16 more, as the cliff walls grew higher around the ribbon of water ahead. After an intimidating scout, no one had made their intended lines through Hance — a class 8 rapid formed by a 30-foot drop and long debris field. But everyone had great runs nonetheless, blasting through waves under a slate sky.

"That’s boating," my brother Will liked to say — not floating comfortably down a warm, languid river but fighting through big water a few degrees above freezing, no matter the snow or sleet, far away from anything but a canyon and a wave train.

To raft the whole Grand Canyon is a long and isolated venture — 280 miles from Lee’s Ferry, just below Lake Powell, to Pearce Ferry, just above Lake Mead, cut off from the world on the Colorado River. (For Texans: That’s the real Colorado River, whose 25 major tributaries water 40 million people in seven states, not the smaller river of the same name that runs through Austin.)

 

Through the Grand Canyon

The Findells' group spent 24 days traveling the 280 miles from Lees Ferry to Pearce Ferry on the Colorado River, through the heart of the Grand Canyon. Some 25,000 people rafted the canyon in 2018, three-quarters of them on commercial trips.

We were a crew of 13 — 12 at a time, with two who hiked in and out to swap places on day nine — of family and old friends. My brother Brady and his wife, Aparna, organized the trip with the expertise of our brother Will and his girlfriend, Bethany — professional river rats who’d run the Grand twice before with others.

As ski town kids, raised in Steamboat Springs, we grew up outdoors. Middle school meant “winter survival” trips camping in snow caves in the woods, being tested on building fires and using avalanche beacons. High school meant skiing most afternoons, backpacking and remote foreign travel.

Our dad and stepfather had both done stints as raft guides, and Mom bought a raft in the ‘90s for family trips in Colorado and Utah. Brady and Will took up kayaking in high school and Will stuck with it, becoming a career guide in northern Idaho and the kind of kayaker who drops 40-foot waterfalls. Brady got a wilderness EMT certification and a master's degree and took teaching jobs.

I chased a journalism career and wound up in Texas, where people seem to think I’m pretty outdoorsy.

We’d always talked about running the Grand, but permits are hard to get. Most who raft the canyon go with commercial operators who use motorized boats to zip guests down in a fraction of the time and helicopter them out midway through. Permits for nonguided trips are awarded via a high-odds lottery implemented after the waiting list stretched decades long.

In October, on a road trip while job-hunting, Brady’s phone buzzed. He’d won the lottery for a February cancellation.

For the three of us, the timing couldn’t have been better. I’d spent so long in the heat of flat Texas I barely remembered who I was. Brady’s master’s had meant three years trapped in the concrete of Chicago. We needed a month together in Will’s world. (Our youngest brother, Andrew, who was flipped out of too many rafts as a child, opted to stay on dry land.)

We needed to see if we could make it through big water, back in our world.

Brady, Elizabeth and Will Findell visit the rim of the Grand Canyon after rafting down it for 24 days in February. Will had rafted the canyon three times but never seen it from above.

Badger Creek

Like any worthy odyssey, the early days were a trial.

Which is to say, they were awful.

For two days, we faced hellacious upstream wind and howls of anguish as boatmen strained against oars. Upstream wind is common in the Grand and many other western canyons, but this was as intense as any of us had seen. Trying to follow the current between powerful upstream eddies was like walking a tightrope in an 18-foot boat.

Some of our group were old river hands. Others were complete newbies. Four were Idaho raft guides, but three of them were kayaking. That meant that, aside from Bethany, our primary rowers were in for a challenge. Brady, Jennings and Mickey were all experienced on rivers, but they’d never rowed rapids anything like on the Grand. Nerves were high, and none more than Brady’s.

Brady started the trip sick, then spent hours rowing against the wind. Slowly, we inched our way toward Badger Creek Rapid, the trip's first piece of whitewater. The rapid’s relatively nonthreatening — rated a 5 on the Grand’s 1 to 10 scale — with just one thing to avoid: a nasty pour-over on river right.

But Brady, arms wrecked, just couldn’t get far enough left.

The boat tipped sideways over the pour-over. The raft bucked violently, stuck in its whirl. We thought they would flip. An oar fell. Brady, reaching for it, tumbled into the rapid. Aparna was left alone as the raft continued to jerk and spin. To make matters worse, Jennings followed them.

It wasn’t a great moment. But it became a good chance to practice swift water rescues. Sam, still a novice kayaker, paddled to intercept Brady and towed him to Bethany’s boat, where I pulled him in. Will paddled to Aparna, leaped onto the boat, pulled his kayak after him and took the oars. Jennings, somehow, made it through fine.

River people know superstition. Bethany will never spit in the river. The Idaho boys taught us never to say the word wind — we’d say “the W” or, if we were feeling daring, “the breeze.”

Will, finally taking his people to his favorite place in the world, clearly felt the responsibility for how it went on his shoulders. He blamed himself for not better preparing everyone for the first rapid. He felt he needed to overcome a trip start that immediately crushed group morale.

But it wasn’t until weeks into the trip that we learned the real reason for his guilt. He told us about a chat he’d had with boaters who said friends of theirs had almost flipped in Badger Creek.

“It’s my fault,” Will admitted. “I said, ‘How the f--- do you flip in Badger Creek?’”

Brady said a few times that he could handle a swim so long as he didn’t flip. Katie said midway through the trip that she'd prepared for more carnage. They might have known better than to say it out loud.

By day two, Aparna was freaked and Brady was demoralized, so she swapped boats with me for Bethany’s experience. We were sure things would get better.

They got worse.

The wind was so strong at one point that even straining against the oars knee-to-knee, Brady and I couldn’t move even a few boat lengths. Will and Sam pulled the boats chest-deep in water along a cliff’s edge to a rapid scout and an early camp.

As we fell asleep, already a full day behind schedule, snow dumped on us at camp.

Will Findell coaches his sister, Elizabeth, as she rows through Hermit Rapid during their trip to the Grand Canyon in February.

Deubendorff

Of course, early adversity turned to wonder.

On the third day, Will jumped in with me and Brady for a sibling boat through the Roaring 20s, a string of seven midrange rapids. The sun came out and the W relaxed its fury.

The following days, more and more hoots of joy hit the air. Oars dipped in and out of water with increasing deftness. So much of a river’s magic is in its small moments. The blue heron dipping over a whisper of current. The rhythmic rowing to stay warm under snow-capped bluffs. The sheer cliffs, pockmarked by caves, meeting dappled mud banks. The lone beaver out for an early-morning paddle.

By the numbers

280Miles from Lees Ferry to Pearce Ferry
24Days the Findell trip spent on the river
6.3 millionVisitors to Grand Canyon National Park in 2018
18,400People who rafted through the Grand Canyon on commercial trips in 2018
6,865People who rafted through the Grand Canyon on private trips in 2018
6,725Number of main lottery applicants in 2018 for noncommercial permits
469Number of main lottery noncommercial permits awarded in 2018

Source: National Parks Service, Backcountry and River Use Statistics

Rafting the canyon in the winter has a survival and magic all its own. It means layering long underwear under dry suits and breaking ice in dishwater each morning. There are no commercial trips then and only one private launch per day, so a global landmark becomes a clandestine abode. It’s the only time of the year you can spend nights with firelight dancing on canyon walls.

In 24 days, we saw just five other groups of people.

Confidence built slowly alongside the rapids’ waves. A string of class 6 rapids on day seven. Hance, the first class 8, scared us at the scout but thrilled as we busted through. Sockdolager was even more fun, with rowdy, bouncy waves.

Day nine brought three class 8 rapids: Horn, Granite and Hermit. I took the oars through Hermit — by far the biggest rapid I’ve ever rowed — adrenaline thundering in my ears, staring down waves that towered above the boat. Hit the line straight. Keep momentum up. Thrust the oars at the right time at the top of the wave. Try to keep the furious water from ripping them out of your hands. Will talked me through it calmly from the front of the boat, where he tried to keep his beer dry.

We hooted as Walker, a blossoming kayaker, made his first combat roll in the middle of a major rapid and fished Sam out a few times when he flipped and swam. Will rowed twice through the infamous Crystal, a class 8, when Brady and Jennings bowed out. At Bedrock, we’d seen enough YouTube carnage videos to know not to run a left line.

By day 13, as we stopped to scout Deubendorff Rapid (a long rapid Will thought was underrated as a class 7), something had happened. Bethany knew how she wanted to run it — left, dodging between a hole and a pour-over, then straight through the biggest waves to the bottom. Brady wanted to try a sneak to the right, through calmer waves but where he'd be more in danger of wrapping on a rock if he missed his line.

Debates ensued over the pros and cons of either approach. Bethany had run the rapid twice before and messed it up twice. This time, as she and I went first, it was flawless — hitting the left line and punching through the biggest hits with ease. A shot of intense jubilation. Mickey followed us, nailing the line as well.

Across the river, Brady was taking his chosen path, with Jennings behind him. It was the first rapid where we'd intentionally run different lines. We watched as they came through, threading through rocks and bouncing over waves. Breathless cheers marked the bottom, and chatter with Bethany about how far the group had come.

We'd rocked the rapid in our own ways.

Will Findell, facing the camera, helps the group navigate through Silver Grotto, a side canyon 29 miles into the group's trip through the Grand Canyon.
The group keeps warm by the fire on day 19 of the trip in February.
Ashley Elmblad jumps from Elves Chasm, one of the more famous stops in the Grand Canyon.

Uncovering magic

As we rowed, a rare world unfolded. We’d all spent extended time in the deserts of the West, but you can’t know the Grand Canyon until you row it. Probably not even then.

It was the breathtaking canyon curve from above Nankoweap camp and the sobering timelessness of the Anasazi granaries alongside it.

It was a long day hike up Tapeats Creek to see Thunder River shooting from nowhere out of a canyon wall. I struggled as blasts of snow rolled in and my asthma flared, but my brothers stuck with me. We walked for hours talking about careers and cousins and where we want to go next.

Want to go?

Sixteen commercial operators offer guided trips of the Grand Canyon, ranging from three days to 18 days in large motorized rafts, oared rafts, paddle rafts and dories.

Commercial guides operate on the river from mid-April until mid-September. Costs range from $1,300 to $5,700 a person. For more information, go to www.nps.gov/grca.

Experienced river rafters with qualified boatmen who have rowed the Grand Canyon or any of 10 other high-difficulty whitewater rivers may enter a lottery for a noncommercial permit. Noncommercial permits are awarded year-round for trips with a maximum length ranging from 19 to 30 days.

The annual main lottery for noncommercial trips is held in February for launch dates the following year. Subsequent lotteries are held as needed to fill cancellations. For more information on requirements, you can see the noncommercial river trip regulations at www.nps.gov/grca.

Noncommercial trips must split costs evenly between participants and may not hire guides. No one, on any type of trip, may raft the canyon more than once in a calendar year.

It was rounding the corner to Havasu Creek — a sluice of water the color of a blue Jolly Rancher pouring out from red rock cliffs into the muddy Colorado. It was 40 degrees, but we splashed and backflipped and slid down waterfalls, caught up in the giddiness of marvel.

There were challenges to combat. Repairs to dry suits. A leaking stove threatening our month’s propane supply. Sam and Walker developed painful skin boils that spread up their hands and defied medications, prompting discussions of how aggressively they would have to spread before we evacuated.

Life as a group jelled during the late-night talks about life in the “rim world.” The card games on rainy days. The competition between daily cooking crews for best meals. Teaching each other the right number of coals on a Dutch oven lid to bake a perfect cake and how to parachute a tarp over fire-heated rocks for a starry-night river sauna.

It was blowing a plastic vuvuzela every time there was something to celebrate or mark. Hiking up narrow slot canyons dressed as superheroes or kangaroos. Watching our stepbrother Alex and Aparna's brother Teju make up song lyrics and dance moves on slow water.

Sam, the baby of the group, turned 21 on a cold, rainy Valentine's Day after successfully kayaking Crystal. The next day we helped a group of Irish boaters who’d snapped two oars in Crystal.

We wondered, on occasion, whether we were missing anything important above the rim. Whether the government was open. Whether the Mueller report had been released. But it was hard to care too much.

Lava Falls

For most of the trip, the biggest rapid loomed over us. Lava Falls.

The only rapid rated a 9-10, the run is a complicated 37-foot drop of savage whitewater. Looking at it from above was, to use a quaint understatement, daunting. Brady later compared it to God’s whirlwind in the Book of Job — a demonstration of fury and power designed to terrify to the core. Aparna likened it to Kant’s discussion of the sublime, the awe and terror you sense in nature when you realize its indifference to whether any person lives or dies.

As we scouted Lava from a rocky trail above its cresting waves, however, there was no debate over literary references. There was just Aparna stress-eating trail mix and Bethany hooking her thumbs over her life vest as her mouth twisted tighter and slack-jawed Jennings moaning “Oh, God” over and over again.

“I’m going home,” Brady said. “It’s boiling and churning and —”

“Don’t worry,” Will said. “It’s what we said. There’s lots of big rapids, and then there’s one that’s bigger and tougher than the rest.”

The boatmen hashed out a plan between outstretched fingers that traced the lines of the holes. Will agreed to forgo his kayak and ride with Brady to give advice, while Sam did the same for Jennings, but they remained confident Brady and Jennings could row it.

This, after all, was what we’d come to do.

We pulled out from the bank and moved across the river to the tongue of the rapid in slow motion. Brady, then Mickey, then Jennings, then Bethany. Brady’s white boat moved deliberately, and nearly flawlessly, through the rapid. It threaded to the right of the fearsome Ledge Hole, to the left of another big hole and the massive V-wave. It rode the churning surf and teed up straight to the Big Kahuna wave slamming off of Cheese Grater Rock.

Then, with the raft knocked slightly askew, its momentum slowed, another huge wave behind Big Kahuna broke right on top of it. I watched the white raft come up sideways, hang for a moment perpendicular to the water, then topple over, its black floor to sky.

I cussed to Bethany. “They flipped!”

“I know,” she replied calmly.

Below us, Jennings’ boat teetered dangerously sideways, thrashing in the waves, and my blood ran cold. I thought: We are going to have multiple flipped rafts. There was no time to say or see anything else. We were dropping into the maw of Lava, and it was time to high-side and hang on.

Walker Royston and Jennings Anderson pull Brady Findell and Aparna Ravilochan to shore on their upside-down raft after flipping in Lava Falls.

Carnage

As the last wave crashed over my head, I leaped up and grabbed our rescue throw bag from the bow. Miraculously, Jennings’ boat was still upright. The white raft was heading into a second rapid upside down. Bethany’s voice was tense as she scanned the current.

“I see two people, I don’t see Aparna,” she said. “Look for Aparna!”

A moment later, we exhaled relief. Three figures. Will, the consummate pro, had hooked two fingers into a hole in the raft’s underside to pull himself onto it, then pulled Aparna and Brady up with him. But they were still in a rapid on the smooth underside of an inverted raft, with no way to row and nothing to cling to. No one had caught up to them yet. And we still had one person left to run Lava — Walker in his kayak.

Bethany and I waited in the eddy, letting the others pursue the white boat. We saw the kayak come through the V-wave and then turn upside down. “Come on, Walker!” we chanted as watched him try to roll upright. One, two, three tries. Then Walker’s head was bobbing alongside his green boat through the crashing chaos of Lava.

The next half-hour was a chaotic scramble of rescue. Grabbing for Walker and his kayak. Ashley, in Mickey’s boat, throwing a rope to Will. Mickey rowing with all his might to pull them into an eddy. All three boats trying to row 2,000 pounds of upside-down gear to shore. Circling the eddy as people’s arms wore out. Icy water knocking the wind out of me as I tried to get a rope to land and went in over my head.

Eventually, someone got a rope to shore. Loaded with a month's worth of gear, the raft was too heavy to flip with human strength alone, so we rigged a mechanical advantage pulley system known as a Z-drag. Then we lined up and heaved.

The ropes cracked loudly as they tightened. The raft slowly lifted upwards. Then, with 12 sets of hands pulling, it came over on the first try — dry bags, ammo cans, coolers and Will’s kayak intact.

There’s something about camaraderie.

We got drunk on the rafts in the sunshine after that, next to an unnamed shore where we would camp that night. Telling and retelling versions of the flip. Aparna gushing over Will and recalling her dark moments stuck under the raft. Jennings realizing he’d used up all his luck. Passing around bottles of tequila. Laughing and trying to remember if I’d ever been more happy.

Jennings Anderson tries to do a backflip as Ashley Elmblad rows. The last two days of the trip were so warm, many people jumped in the river without dry suits.

Upstream of Lava

Will, at 4 years old, was the littlest kid in town to go off the 20-meter ski jump with lighted flares at that year’s Winter Carnival, and by 9 was pretty used to hiking home alone after getting a snowmobile stuck in a faraway field.

Brady, who was never without a book in his pocket and took notes in movie theaters, would sleep until 2 p.m. for days on end and then strike out at dawn to summit a mountain or go ice climbing.

I spent most of my childhood exploring the nearby woods on horseback and writing novels for my friends to read.

We’re still those people. We’re just older now, and we’ve chased and distilled our passions. But we still know there’s not much in life more important than a canyon and some whitewater.

Before and after the trip, various urban Texans have asked me the same question: “But why?”

Why? It’s such a bewildering question to a mountain girl that I usually assume I’ve misheard them and they’re really asking about the wine supply.

When given the opportunity, isn’t this what people do? We seek out awe and majesty in the places that make us feel small and take our breath away. We crave adrenaline and adventure and new skills we can build to test, terrify and empower ourselves. We look for back roads, off-the-beaten-path hiking trails and vistas with no signs of human touch. We look for time with the people we love, away from smartphones and Netflix, when we can tell stories, play games, help each other up rocky inclines and pull each other out of rushing water. We take what breaks we can to escape from deadlines and commutes and Twitter angst and Starbucks lines and the border wall … to just drink in the immensity of a starry night and remember who we are.

We don’t all do it in the same places or the same ways. But if you ever get the opportunity to live a piece of your life on the river, I really hope you take it.

After the trip, we went our separate ways. I came back to Texas and struck out for a new job and a new challenge. Brady went home to the mountains to teach at our former high school, leading teenagers into the wilderness. Will went back north to take guests on rivers and train other guides.

But we'll be back on the Grand again someday.

Twenty-four days on the Grand passed in a blink. The canyon’s wonders are too expansive to see in a month, in six months, in a lifetime. Around every bend is another canyon, hiding crystal streams, arches, caverns, ruins, waterfalls. At every level the rapids are different, challenging skills and lines. With every sight, the list of places to explore expands. Once you go, you’ll keep going back.

That’s why, the rafters say, you’re always upstream of Lava.


Cast of characters:

All 13 members of the group unite at the Phantom Ranch exchange on Day 9, where Katie hiked in to join the trip and Alex hiked out to return to his real life. Top row from left to right:

Ashley Elmblad, 34: Teju’s college friend, a western Colorado native now living in southern California.

Teju Ravilochan, 31: Aparna’s brother, a social justice entrepreneur and public speaker.

Brady Findell, 28: Elizabeth’s brother, a film and English teacher in northwestern Colorado.

Jennings Anderson, 29: An honorary family member and PhD candidate at the University of Colorado.

Alex Horner, 30: The Findells’ stepbrother and longtime friend, a consultant and long-distance marathoner.

Mickey O’Hara, 31: A high school friend and engineer working on Colorado River conservation efforts.

Katie Birch, 29: Mickey’s girlfriend and another Steamboat native, working in Colorado public land conservation.

Bottom row from left to right:

Aparna Ravilochan, 29: Brady’s wife, a Denver native and PhD candidate at the University of Chicago.

Sam McLandress, 21: Will and Bethany’s friend, a Canada native and raft guide in northern Idaho.

Walker Royston, 26: Will and Bethany’s friend, a California native and raft guide in northern Idaho.

Elizabeth Findell, 30: The author, an Austin American-Statesman reporter at the time of the trip originally from northwestern Colorado.

Will Findell, 25: Elizabeth’s brother, a kayaker and raft guide in Idaho and Montana.

Bethany Blitz, 25: Will’s girlfriend, a photographer and raft guide in Idaho and Montana.