Dolores- Where I first met death
Map of the run from Slick Rock to Bed Rock
Today, I’ll be riding through Bedrock, CO. It’s the first place I remember learning about death. It’s funny—I partly chose this route to ride past there.
My wife and I recently completed a year-and-a-half-long program at Stanford. One of the best classes I took was a memoir writing course. The program was filled with other "older" people, and it was amazing to hear their stories. The class was taught by John Evans, a great guy who not only led the course but also helped shape the culture and camaraderie of our entire cohort. He basically became the RA for a group of elderly Stanford students.
One of the women in that first memoir class shared beautiful stories about her childhood in Los Angeles. She also happened to be one of the scientists who helped discover AIDS—but she never once wrote about that. (Suzi, you are still my favorite scientist.) She’s the same person playing Chopsticks on the piano in one of my earlier posts.
https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/zolla-paznerlab/
I made some of my closest friends from the program in that class. Being there with them was one of the most fun, meaningful experiences I’ve had as an adult.
Later, I even took a sports writing class just because I liked John so much—even though I never read about sports and don’t really like watching it on TV. I had to write about something vaguely athletic, so… I wrote about this.
Dolores
In the early 1970s, one of the most thrilling rivers to run in Colorado was the Dolores. It was known for its intense spring runoff and its imposing canyon walls. Unlike many of Colorado's rivers, no road or rail line followed its edges. Once you put in at Slick Rock, you have one road crossing midway through the run to get off the river. There was a rumor that a dam was in the works. A pilgrimage of whitewater enthusiasts made the pilgrimage to the Dolores before she tamed.
Description of the Dolores River before the construction of the McFee Dam:
Before construction of the McPhee Reservoir dam, the Dolores could be ferociously wild during big water years, he recalled, and the paddle boats were low-tech that took on a lot of water and ripped easily. Schell estimated the Stateline flow to be 10,000 to 11,000 cubic feet per second during the trip.
https://www.the-journal.com/articles/film-shares-stories-of-dolores-river-rafting-in-1970s/
My Father and his friends loved to go white water rafting. The lure of Dolores was too strong to resist. They owned commercial-grade rafts and an old Greyhound bus to carry them around. They even created a fake company to house some of these assets so they could write off all their expenses. I was eleven, and this would be my first trip with Dinosaur Adventures (I think that is what the fake company was called). The trip was going to last for three days. We would put in at Slick Rock and pull out at Bed Rock. The river is at its seasonal high. 1973 was a great snow year, so the river ran high and fast.
Weather report from the local paper for the days of the trip:
Unseasonably high temperatures have caused heavy runoff and flooding along the Dolores River and some side streams. In Rico, several sections of cribbing near the Jim Ferando home washed out, and emergency repairs were made with old car bodies and heavy ballast. The west abutment of the bridge to West Rico was cut away by swirling high water, and old car bodies and ballast from Silver Bell Mines were used to save the structure. During the weekend, Clyde Coppinger kept the highway crew on patrol. Sunday, Coppinger, Jim Starks and Grady Leavell went fishing - with grappling hooks, to clear the big tube under SH 184 at Horse Gulch, which ad become clogged with boulders and debris.
https://www.the-journal.com/articles/film-shares-stories-of-dolores-river-rafting-in-1970s/
The first leg of the river was in a deep canyon. The river sprinted through this jagged slot cut through the dry western Colorado foothills. There was no bank in many places, just water running against sheer canyon walls. The current was so fast that even a strong swimmer would have trouble breaking through the eddy fence to make it to the bank. (An eddy fence is where water runs upstream when it moves past an object. If the water is fast enough, it can be challenging to break through this barrier. She was running ice cold, given the snowpack being her source.
We were on the trip with five other families and two independent kayakers. We would carry the kayaker's camping gear and food, and they would fish us out if we had a big problem. My Dad had invited me along with his friend Harry. There were two other children on the trip, Jay Larkin, who was eight, and his 10-year-old sister. We were the second-to-last boat to put in with Larkins playing cleanup.
It was a sweltering day, so I immediately complained to my father that I wanted to remove my life jacket. I looked at Larkin’s boat, and Jay, their eight-year-old son, did not have his jacket on. "But Dad, I'm on the swim team! I'm a great swimmer. " I argued. He ignored me.
Late in the afternoon, the river entered the depths of the canyon. It made a hard right, causing all the force of the current to hit a towering canyon wall. To the left of this wall was a small eddy, carved into the wall, filled with foam and swirling water. My Dad spun the boat to the right and rowed with all his might. Unfortunately, the current slammed us broadside into the canyon wall. We looked upstream and saw Larkin's boat was on the same trajectory. They struck us with the bow of their raft, forcing our raft up on one side. My Father and Harry were thrown overboard. The raft was pinned on its side with my father and Harry in the water, pinned by the current to the lower pontoon with only their faces sticking out. I had somehow hopped up on the pontoon that was now six feet in the air, with my back against the canyon wall. The Larkins' boat was upside down in the eddy. I was in the air, looking down at complete chaos.
We had a large gunny sack filled with drinks at the bottom of the raft, which was attached by a piece of rope. Suddenly it tumbled, causing our raft to fall over and be sucked into the current that pressed us into the canyon wall. The current was so strong that it caused our ash rowing frame to shatter as the raft was sucked under the canyon wall. I was sucked under into the swirling red water. My life Jacket was no match for the power of the water, and I found myself below the surface of the water pinned to the same wall. I scratched and clawed and finally gave up. At this point, I popped up to the surface. I could not see the raft, Harry or my dad. I tried to swim to the bank as I bounced downstream, but the current was too fast, and the eddy fences were impenetrable. The water was so cold that my teeth chattered as I bounced along.
I went around a bend and saw one of our kayakers. He paddled to me and had me grab his kayak's rear grab loop. He towed me to the bank, where one of the boats from our party that was ahead of us had stopped. I stood shivering with people I did not know, wondering what had happened to my Dad. We put in and continued downstream. After a couple of bends down the river we came to where the rest of our party had stopped to wait for us. My Dad's boat and Larkin’s boat were absent.
We waited, and my dad and Harry came limping to the bank. Later, we saw my dad and Harry holding an oar as a paddle, trying to beach our raft with the rest of the group. With much struggle and help from the kayakers, they got the raft to the bank. The ash rowing frame I helped my dad build was broken into pieces. The Larkins' boat then arrived, but only three people were on the raft. Mrs. Larkin was wailing, and Mr. Larkin had a look I have never seen on anyone’s face. My Dad grabbed me, dragged me down the bank, and told me to sit in the sand next to a lump of tamarisk. I asked my dad where Jay was, and he said, "He probably drowned. Sit here, and I will be back." I watched from a distance. The Larkins were moved down in the other direction on
the beach. The women went to comfort Mrs. Larkin. The men immediately tried to repair the equipment so we could continue. Once the Larkins were gone, my dad came and got me, and I sat as I watched them use the kayak's fiberglass repair kit, try to fix our rowing frame. My Dad gave me something warm to drink, took me back down the beach, and told me to get in a sleeping bag and stay there. I remained there all night, never falling asleep, listening to Mrs. Larkin's wailing and the noise of the river. The men worked all night and were able to repair the rowing frame. I asked my dad where Jay was. "He said, "Dead. He did not have his life jacket on. He was swept away. "
We got underway at sunrise. One of the men from our party rowed the Larkin's boat as they sat ashen in their raft with their remaining child. Unlike the day before, the sky was gray. We continued through rapids, looking for someplace to pull off where a road or railroad bridge would cross the river so we could get help. I looked along the banks for Jay’s body. Later in the afternoon, we came to a road, and we all pulled in. We sat by the side of the road waiting for a truck to come by. I think Mr. Larkin left us and tried to hike for help. Later, the police would arrive, and then hours later, one of the men was ferried back to the bus. My dad had been silent all day. He looked over to me and said, "I cannot imagine if I had to call your mother and tell her that you were dead." That is one of the last things he ever told me about the trip. When we got home, he gave away all our rafting equipment. My Dad, the most adventurous person I knew, was suddenly cautious.
I went back to school the next day we got back. We went to the memorial service at Larkin’s house a couple of weeks later. The minister threw a pebble in the pond where the service was held. He said Jay was young, but his short presence on earth would impact many. We never talked about that trip again.
" Nucla: Jay Larkin, 8 years old , of Littleton, has been missing since Friday, May 18, when the raft he was riding down the Dolores River overturned. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Larkin, had to walk out from the scene of the accident, about 24 miles south of Bedrock, and could not report the accident for 24 hours.”
https://www.the-journal.com/articles/40-years-ago-37/
The next year I went to camp in Gypsum, Colorado, on the banks of the Colorado River. Rafting was the main activity. We did several overnight trips where we would have to camp next to the river. On those nights, I could not sleep. I lay awake, afraid of the sound of the river and the potential of hearing Mrs. Larkin again. I took up white water kayaking in high school. My best friend Kurt and I ended up kayaking down some scary rivers. My Father hated it. I think he thought I was doing it to torture him.
In 1996, I was on I-90 driving from Seattle to Yakima, WA to facilitate a client executive meeting. I had left in the dark, and the sun was rising as I went over Snoqualmie Pass. I was traveling east on a divided highway with a large grassy median running down the center. There was a marshy canal of water in the middle. As I looked ahead, I saw something like a plane crashing into the median ahead of me. It turned out to be a van rolling on its side, tossing unseat-belted children out its windows each time it tumbled and hit the ground. It came to rest on its wheels with a line of crushed children strewn about a hundred feet behind it. I was the first person at the scene, so I ran to one of the kids lying in the water, with his face barely on the surface. His legs were splayed in an unnatural position, from being crushed by the van. He was unconscious. I did not move him because I was worried he might have spinal injuries, so I just stood in the water, holding a limp, crushed kid, trying to keep his face out of the water. Later, the volunteer fire department would show up, and then helicopters would take the most injured children. They had been on a family trip, and their mother had fallen asleep while driving all night. I would find out that all the children had survived, but the one I held was partially paralyzed.
I arrived late for my client meeting. Luckily, one of my senior managers was facilitating. I tried to engage but sat silently in the back, shocked by the event I had just left. I was supposed to be there all week, but just wanted to go home. In the late afternoon, I hopped in my car to return to Seattle. All I could think about was my infant son Kurt, who was at home with my wife, Cindy. When I got home, he was asleep, and Cindy was already in bed. I walked into my son’s room, scooped him out of his crib, carried him into our bed, and placed him between Cindy and me. I held Kurt and Cindy tightly all night and thought about how little I understood my father and what had happened on the Dolores.
I have a daughter who is now a pediatric resident. She deals with sick and dying kids while working 80 hours a week. It makes me realize how easy this challenge is, standing on a Chinese toaster, chatting up folks, while eating too much Mexican food.