A River Moment

The kayak gained speed as it swept down the chute. Steering carefully, dabbing the paddles between boulders, he shot through the final drop and glided into the pool at the bottom where the river met the chalky limestone bluffs. Letting the kayak float sideways, he grabbed his fishing rod and made a cast back towards the top of the pool. The current was stronger than he anticipated, however, and it was already sending him backwards towards a boulder that split the current in half. Dropping the pole, he grabbed the paddle to make a move around the rock. At the same time, though, his lure snagged in the water and the pole jerked and jumped. Caught momentarily between tasks, he reached for the pole with one hand, while the other tried to hold the paddle with one end in the swift water.

Neither was a good option. The pole leaped into the water and the kayak slammed awkwardly into the rock. Still reaching for the pole, he was off balance and the kayak tipped precariously towards the water. Pay attention! He let the fishing equipment go and concentrated on getting around the rock, gripping the paddle and getting back in good paddling position. Once back in control, he was able to beach the kayak and got out gingerly. The water was still swift next to the bank.

Damn, that all happened quick.

He stood on the bank and scanned the river wondering what to do about the fishing reel. Not much hope of recovering anything in that swift water. Looking upstream, however, he saw no sign of his paddling partner so he had a little time to kill. Carefully he waded into the icy water. It was thigh high and running fast. He had to brace himself against the current. Still holding the paddle in his hand, he used it as a probe but the rush of the water swept it away before he could even rake the bottom. Pointless.

Wading back to shore, he stowed the paddle and looked around for a stick. If the lure was still snagged upstream that meant the line was likely still attached to the reel. If he could drag the bottom and intersect the line, he might be able to pull it up. The bank was littered with driftwood and flood debris. He picked through it looking for something with a “hook” on the end but found nothing that seemed appropriate. Finally he found a slim but sturdy stick and walked back to the river. Looking back upstream and still seeing no sign of his friend, he waded back into the river.

It was not easy dragging the stick through the fast water. The current wanted to sweep it away before he could get it to the bottom. Finally though he was able to position his body in such a manner as to bring his weight to bear on the stick. He was able to drag the point across the bottom. It was still difficult to feel anything through the trembling of the stick but, wait, was that some kind of resistance? He raked the area again. And again he seemed to catch on something. Concentrating, he repeated the process, increased the angle and, yes, it was caught on a line. Reaching into the cold water, he grabbed the line and the tip of the pole appeared out of the water.

Ha! Immensely pleased with himself, he was gathering his equipment out of the water when he looked up and saw a parade of items coming down the chute. A small cooler, a water bottle, a tackle box...

Oh shit.

He waded out of the current and ran back to his kayak. Tossing the fishing pole in, he made a quick running shove off and turned into the current. Just in time, he snagged the cooler sweeping past the large boulder. Paddling upstream he started plucking things out of the water while trying to keep pace against the current. He smiled to himself. In big rivers these “recovery pools” were serious business—a place where the paddlers who successfully negotiated a bad rapids waited for those who didn't. In those instances, not only did you wait for personal items, but boats and bodies as well. In this kind of river, however, all he had to look for was floating lunch and pride.

Soon enough, the friend appeared on his kayak at the top of the chute. He glided through easily enough, sopping wet with a sheepish grin.

“Man, things happen fast. One wrong move and then everything goes wrong.”

Good-bye Tech. We'll always have Pac-Man.

It hurts me to have to say this. It really does. In the beginning, you were so exciting. I couldn't get enough of you and just being around you was intoxicating. We had some great times. After a while, though, something happened. I don't know, maybe it was me. Maybe I just couldn't keep up. Maybe you just became demanding. Whatever. The bottom line is you no longer make me happy. I'm sorry it's come to this, but, Technology, you and I are through.

I'll always remember the first time I saw you. I was just a kid, walking through the Sears store. And there you were. The most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. Pong. It was love at first sight. I stood there, my mouth agape, and stared. I could not even conceive of how such a thing was possible. It was some kind of enchanted alchemy. It took me a while to get my hands on you, but, once we got together, the romance was real. Soon we were playing hand-held football games that consisted of red blips. And before I knew it the Atari 2500 was there. PAC-MAN! Space Invaders! Asteroids! Missile Command!

We started seeing each other everywhere. Every pizza parlor had games like Joust, Galaxian, Centipede, and Donkey Kong. Every television suddenly had cable and MTV! We were having such fun. Then, in college, the relationship turned serious. A friend introduced me to the Apple II personal computer. A computer that sat on a desk! We stayed up late playing Zork and talking about our future. Computers, we knew, were going to revolutionize everything. Our professors theorized that computers were going to save so much time that in twenty years everyone would be working 24 -hour work weeks. Paper shuffling, filing, typing-- all these office jobs would be done instantaneous. Not only that, but with the ushering in of a new Information Age, we would soon have at our fingertips the sum total of mankind's knowledge. Each one of us would, in essence, be a walking genius.

The VCR. Oh my god. I remember buying my first VCR for like $800 and when I brought it home I thought it was the greatest purchase I ever made in my life. Suddenly I could watch any movie anytime I wanted-- just by driving to the nearest video store! It was a wonderful time, but things were changing fast. As soon as we enjoyed something together, you were on to something new and more expensive. The Commodore 64 became the Commodore 128 became the the Compaq Portable 486 PC. I maxed out my first credit card, around two thousand dollars, for that first IBM clone. Of course the Pentium chip was released two months later rendering it obsolete. It was a race to keep up with you after that. Windows 95 became Windows 2000 then XP then Vista, then 7. My gaming consoles went from the Atari to the Genesis to the PlayStation to the PlayStation2 to the PS 3 to the PS4. AARRRGGG!

We started to disagree on music. You didn't like my album collection. First you wanted 8-tracks then cassettes for the car. Then it had to be CD. You told me I needed to replace my entire vinyl collection with CDs. Then you made me start downloading files for our Mp3 players. The music sites changed hands constantly, though, and we kept losing the licensing for a song, so we'd have to buy it again somewhere else. Then you told me my VCR was obsolete. I needed a DVD player. Then quickly thereafter a Blu-Ray player. Then a flat screen TV. Then a smart TV. You even made me get rid of the camera I had used for over thirty years. No, my Canon AE1 was no good for you. I needed a digital one. Which was quickly replaced by a new one with more megapixels. Which has quickly outdated for yet more megapixels, which was replaced by my new--

Phone. Don't even get me started on the phones. Cellphones were a wonderful invention. They were a little more expensive than my $9.99 pink princess corded phone with the $25 long distance plan. But portable communication that fit in your pocket? Great idea—except it didn't last. Soon a flip phone was obsolete. You convinced everybody they needed a QWERTY keyboard phone. Then a Blackberry. Then a smart phone. Soon the little phone that used to fit in your pocket was a ubiquitous computer screen that was permanently attached to everyone's left hand. Suddenly family gatherings consisted of a dozen people seated in the same room but staring at their own individuals screens. Public gatherings, sporting events, bucket list adventures. These were no longer experienced directly but filtered collectively through the lens of a smart phone. If a tree fell in a forest but wasn't shared on social media via a smart phone—did it happen at all?

Then there were the trust issues. Secret passwords were cute at first. Until they were everywhere. Accessing my bank account, my bills, my television, my phone, clocking into work, checking my pay stub, reading the news all suddenly required a password. And not just any password. You required a number and a symbol and a minimum amount of characters and sometimes you made me change it every month or so on a whim. And when I got confused, you got angry and made me jump through a million hoops and made me feel like shit. Secret passwords then became secret symbols became secret images became secret patterns that became secret questions that often I could not answer. Slowly this whole relationship was beginning to feel forced and strained.

Then you started bothering me at work. I'm a manual laborer, a meat cutter, babe. You had no business in my workplace. First it was a fingerprint scan to clock in. Except it always seemed to take three tries to get it right and “punching in” went from an instantaneous snap of the clock to a three-or four minute ordeal. Then came the scan gun. Gradually, everything I did at work required electronic permission and validation. I could no longer walk out to the case, see what had sold and go back and cut it. No. Now you required me to log into a computer program (with multiple passwords and user names) print out a production report which I usually ignored anyway, then scan every thing I cut as I did it. Cleaning grinding, safety—all these these suddenly needed electronic government tracking. I now find myself starting at a computer screen as much as I do my knife. And, let me be honest, your work ethic sucks. Half the time all I get is spinning wheels and flapping flags. If I took as long to boot up as you do, I'd been fired a long time ago.

And speaking of wasting time... Let's talk about our social life. Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Some of your friends, man, I dunno. Racist, intolerant, ignorant and holier-than-thou. How did we end up spending so much time with these people? And why do we care what they think? Why do we spend so much time trying to impress them? Have we really become that shallow insecure and bored? All these outrageous lies, snarky memes and angry rants... What kind of bonding is this? It seems to me that we are just driving everyone further apart and spreading poison and anxiety.

For something I no longer enjoy, I have to say, you've become very expensive. High speed internet, cell phone data plans, Netflix and Amazon Prime, music streaming, e-books, apps, video streaming, game subscriptions. Every time I turn around, you have a hand out. To continue listening, viewing, reading, please upgrade to premium now! Subscriptions to various newspaper and websites. The constant upgrading of hardware. You're suddenly adding to the cost of everything from appliances to homes to automobiles. Do I really need my refrigerator and car to talk to me? Do I really need Alexa to play some Rolling Stones? Because the album, eight-track, cassette, CD and mp3 are just too hard now?

In fact, the more I think of it, the more I realize everything you've given me is an illusion. A mindless diversion from what really matters in life. You promised me time-saving. You gave me time-suck. You said you'd eliminate paper and now I'm drowning in it. You promised a short work week and now I have to work overtime to pay for all my tech. You promised me a medium in which to stay in touch and now I'm worried what the world thinks of me. You promised the Age of Information and all I see is fake news, extremist point of views and an endless stream of drama and trivia.

No, technology, I'm afraid this relationship cannot be salvaged. You've hurt me too much. So I'm claiming my life back. You know, real life. Grilling in the backyard. Hiking in the wilderness. Face-to-face conversations. Board games and paperbacks. No, you had your chance and you blew it. So I'd really appreciate it if you took your gizmos, do-dads and devices and just left quietly.

But, if you don't mind you can leave Netflix and Spotify behind when you go...

Ten things I love.

 

A cold beer after a hard day's work

(or play)

The smell of the woods in the rain.

Making my wife laugh.

An empty path I've never hiked before.

A good day's work

(when everyone works together)

(and everything flows)

A campfire with friends & family.

A desert sunset.

A good cup of coffee.

(and time to enjoy it)

A long highway & a great soundtrack.

(lots of Neil Young & Steve Earle)

Rolling down a river.

The Sins of Multitasking.

Scan any help wanted listing these days and you will find the almost universal plea for a high energy, self-starting multitasker. This, more than any other skill, seems to be the most coveted trait for job candidates. People even like to brag that they are accomplished multitaskers and love nothing more than doing several jobs at once.

Bullshit.

There's no such thing. We only have one brain, one set of eyes that work together, and a pair of hands-- one of which is usually dominant. To do any thing worthwhile, to do anything with care and precision, we need to focus on it exclusively. One thing at a time. I don’t care if you are filing papers, stocking cans and or splitting atoms. You can only focus on one thing at a time.

It's possible, of course, to get a great many things done in a day. But the fastest, easiest way to do that is to take every job one at a time. Devote your entire energy and concentration into that one task, complete it with care and precision and move on to the next.

Employers who insist that their people be multitaskers are simply saying they are going to expect you to do the work of three people—and throw a lot of distractions in your way. It's impossible. Maybe we can get more done than the average person, but no one can do the work of three people for any length of time. Not only is it unfair but it will quickly wear you down physically and mentally. By taking on more than we can possibly do, we're setting ourselves up for stress, failure and self-loathing.

Companies are still on a huge labor-cutting kick. They are still trying a squeeze a few more pennies of profit out of the bottom line for the shareholders. Meanwhile, the work itself is deteriorating. By giving us more than we can do and throwing distractions at us constantly, they are only limiting production and reducing quality. The more times I have to answer the phone or answer the buzzer or answer the intercom while cutting steaks, the longer its going to take me to finish the job. The more paperwork I'm given to document the work I just did, the longer it's going to take me to get to the next task. That isn't multitasking. It's distraction and inefficiency. And it isn't fun. Or rewarding in any sense of the word. Sorry, I am not a multitasker in any sense of the word. And proud of it.

I'm still waiting for the want ad that reads, “Seeking hard-worker capable of focus, concentration and pride in craftsmanship.”

Right. It'll be there with the one the reads “Full time, full benefits and free beer.”

DIY: Rustic backsplash for under $40.

Last weekend I had a Saturday off. It was cold and rainy so my wife and I decided we'd spend the day working on an inside project. We went out to breakfast then hit the Home Depot afterwards looking for inspiration. We were walking past the tile/flooring section when the back splashes caught our eye. For years we've been threatening to replace the greasey wallpaper behind our oven with a real backsplash so we started looking at the tile designed for that purpose. Not only were they incredibly pricey--but we really saw nothing that caught our eye as being unique and worth it.

 We were leaving the area when a couple vinyl tiles stuck on the corner caught our eye. They were really cool. Vinyl tiles designed to look like the old copper/tin plating they used to put on roofs. The saloons in Jerome all have them. We both agreed it would look really great behind our counter. They were 18 X 18 inch little vinyl tiles that were simply cut with scissors and glued to wall. Easy peasy. We started picking out the patterns we liked and then we saw the price-- $23 a tile! For an 18 inch piece of plastic! I did the math in my head and estimated we'd need about 8 tiles + glue + trim and the total bill would come to almost $200.

We were horrified. $200 for plastic? Are you kidding us?  Real metal wouldn't cost that much, Debi observed. So we headed towards the other part of the store--the lumber yard-- and started looking at different types of metal. We looked at galvanized metal sheets but thought that would be too much. As we were leaving the roofing section, however, the rolls of metal roof flashing caught our Debi's eye. As it turned out, the rolls came in one foot width which was exactly the width between our counter and cabinets. An entire roll of 50 feet cost $40. We'd only need half--but could use the rest for another project. This will work, Debi claimed.

At first I was a little dubious and I wouldn't buy it. We returned home did some more measuring and visualizing and the more I thought about it the more I started to see her genius.We went back to Home Depot and purchased a roll of galvanized metal flashing, a tube of liquid nails, and a dremel attachment for cutting metal.

The first thing we did was roll the flashing out flat in the driveway. Then we shoveled gravel on it and drove over it several time with the truck. Left alone, the metal was too smooth and shiny. It looked like--well flashing. It needed some kind of pattern-- even a rough one-- so we went for the distressed  look. We cut the flashing to size using tin snips, cleaned it up and then brought it inside.

The next step was to carefully measure the electrical outlets and cut openings. We did this using the dremel. It was a lot of fun cutting the thin sheet metal with sparks flying everywhere! Once we had the openings the exact right size, we glued the metal to the wall and secured it temporarily with screws until it dried.

The one problem we faced was the ugly seam where two sheets came together behind the stove. We covered this with a board that Debi painted red to hang her iron skillets. We added another board above it to hang more skillets.

The result was a very unique and easy maintained backsplash for less than $40 and fun weekend project.

What do you think?

Merry Meat Christmas!

“So, what are you doing for the holidays?”

People who've never worked in retail at any level simply do not realize the horror and depression this innocent question invokes in members of my trade. I have worked as a supermarket meat-cutter for 32 years—that's 32 Christmases, and I can tell you honestly I have not had a peaceful, relaxing, fun holiday since 1984. Christmas is go, go, go time. It's massive over time. It's get your head straight and focus time. It's going to work in the dark. And coming home in the dark. Its dealing with a non-stop barrage of questions, requests, orders complaints, and phone calls. Oh my god, the phone calls. All the while trying to increase your production 100 percent or more.

Everybody thinks I exaggerate. I promise you that I, personally, don't. Now, some out-going, gregarious people-persons can handle all of this a little easier than me: though, I can assure you, even the most out-going, friendly people in the world are starting to twitch by the time January 2^nd rolls around. But myself, being naturally quiet, reserved and introverted, the constant customer interaction takes an even heavier toll. Add to the equation a seasonal attitude depression (I hate the dark and cold) and the extreme physical punishment and it's an introvert's worst nightmare scenario.

Of course some years are worse than others. One of the first holidays I worked we had a 25 cent a pound turkey sale that caused a community feeding frenzy. We ended up running out (the guy who went to flag to pick up another truckload lost his brakes on the grade back down and crashed) and I was the low man on the totem pole. I was sent out front to explain to livid customers that we had no turkeys... Cannon fodder, they called me. That was a fun holiday. Then there was the year I was an inexperienced cutter and they sent me to the busiest store in Phoenix the week before Christmas to help out. And I had the flu. And there was a snowstorm coming home on Christmas Eve. And did I mention I had a new baby having his first Christmas? Good times!

Yes, I've had some rough holidays. Nothing, however, can quite compare to this year. It all started in September when meat manager (who has a background in refrigeration) finally received the transfer to HVAC he'd been fighting for. Brain was an old friend, the only reason I transferred back to the Sedona store, and I think he felt bad about leaving me. A little bad, but he still had a skip in his step when he walked out the door. With all my years of experience I was expected to take over, but if I've learned one thing, I know myself. I am not a type A, take command Alpha male. I hate being in charge. I hate disciplining people. I hate problem-solving other people's personal shit. I knew the job would make me miserable so I turned it down repeatedly and emphatically.

Naturally the job of retail meat manager is so attractive and appealing that no one applied for the job. The job had been posted for months and the only two people that had applied for the position were our two clean-up/meat helpers. By default one of them got the job. The store director made one last appeal to me. “Don't come complain to me when the place starts falling apart.” The comment kind of made me angry. First, I never, ever complain (maybe I grumble a little) but I take whatever they throw at me and deal with it. As lead meat cutter I have to run the shop when the manger's off, sick, on vacation, in a meeting, or otherwise indisposed and I don't get paid one cent extra. And I hate being in charge, But I shut my mouth and do it. And second, isn't it the store director's job to find someone qualified to run his store? Why is it on me?

Anyway, having a complete rookie as my boss was just the beginning. The long time wrapper got an opportunity for a promotion to cutter by transferring to another store. So he left. Our long time counter person (excuse me—service case manager) transferred to another store to be closer to her boyfriend. Suddenly I was the only person in the shop who could cut or wrap. Now, to be fair, the new manager was trying to play catch-up. He was learning to cut and learning to wrap but in the old days he would barely be considered an apprentice in either craft. And as hard as it was on me on the days he was off, I can only imagine how hard it was him to do everything when I was off. He was trying. I was trying----working my ass off-- but the shop was quite understandably beginning to go downhill.

But don't worry. We have a team of top flight supervisors who were incredibly helpful and understanding. They worked tirelessly to get us the experienced and competent help we desperately needed. And if you believe that, I got some beachfront property to sell you in Arizona. No, they came in on their increasing visits and ripped us a new one continually. “The meat department is a train wreck,” they said the day after senior discount day. “The department lacks readiness by 9 am.” No mention was ever made of the under-staffing other than we should get some more people in there and “train them up.”

But they did manage to hire another counter person (67 years old going on 77) and, even better, an experienced meat-cutter. Having another cutter in the shop helped. Suddenly I could get some other stuff done, little details that needed doing. Of course that lasted exactly four weeks. The week before Thanksgiving, one of the supervisors came up for a couple days to “work with us.” I don't remember him doing a lot of work, but he sure had a lot of criticisms. The new meat-cutter put up with it for half a day then took off his name badge and walked out.

Back to square one. We hired another counter person. A 70-year old. And somehow we managed to make it through Thanksgiving which is actually one the easier holidays. Just a lot of heavy lifting, throwing turkeys around, keeping it all stacked and sorted, and keeping the fresh turkey orders straight. The new manager did an excellent job of ordering and we came through the holiday with a very good gross and a clean inventory.

Then came Christmas. The Christmas ad broke: $4.77 for standing rib, trimmed, boned and tied—more than a dollar cheaper than our nearest competitor who was selling them whole, untrimmed in the bag. And the warehouse plussed us out three pallets of ribs that were frozen solid. What a nightmare. Every case of ribs had to be unpacked, racked and placed in the warmer cutting room to thaw, then rotated back into the cooler while the next batch of frozen ribs was brought out. Meanwhile they are leaking everywhere. Everything is covered in wet bloody water. And we have one person in the whole shop that was proficient at cutting and tying whole ribs. Yours truly. It was horrible. The new manager had his hands full just trying to keep the case semi-full, the phone answered and the supervisors off our back.

It was a community feeding frenzy all over again. I cut like a mad man. I have no idea how many ribs I cut and tied in the ten days before Christmas but it ran into the hundreds. Besides all the other cutting. Meanwhile the shop is full of inexperienced people and strangers. People I've only worked with for a couple weeks. With a brand new manager, we had very little training going on and no system in place. Everybody was running around like chickens doing their own thing the best they could. Orders were coming in and were all over the shop written on wax paper, soaker pads, scraps of paper, Styrofoam trays. The walls were covered with orders, they were taped to the pillars, they covered the managers desk. The phone rang continually with yet more orders, more special requests, and more questions. So, so many questions. “So tell me about your standing rib roasts,” a typical call would begin,” Is that at all like prime rib?”

I like hard work. I do. I discovered early on, there is a purity-- a zen-- to hard physical work. It gets you out of your head. It keeps you focused. But there comes a point when it's too much. And I am not as young as I used to be. I could feel my body quickly wearing down. And physical exhaustion is one thing (its okay to go home at the end of a long day tired) but the mental stress was taking an even larger toll. Just being constantly behind, being pulled in multiple directions at all time, being criticized, being asked to answer questions above and beyond your areas of expertise. Working in a constant atmosphere of chaos and panic was nothing less than miserable..

I think the manager realized I was beginning to lose it. He scheduled me off two days in a row to begin Christmas week. It was really nice of him—except I walked into the shop after my two days off (his day off) and the place was completely destroyed. He'd hired a new cutter, it was his second day on the job, my first time meeting him, and we had an entire department to put back together. And it was busy. I cut as fast as I could cut while trying to break in the new guy but we couldn't keep up. The new guy was keeping up the wrapping, but we still couldn't get the case full. It was the kind of day when you're just forced to work too hard and too fast. The kind of day that accidents happen. Hands get sliced. Fingers get taken off and people slip and fall. In my case it was my @#$%ing back. Wrestling with one of those cases of frozen ribs off the bottom of the stack, I felt that terrible jolt of electricity go up my spine. I knew immediately I'd @#$%ed up. It was a thoracic back sprain (I knew cause I've injured the same muscle at least a half dozen times before) and suddenly I could no longer or lift anything. The slightest deviation from a perfectly upright posture send jolts of pain down my entire back.

I should've went to urgent care and called it, right? No, I borrowed a pain killer from one of the crew and soldiered on. As bad as it was, I couldn't bring myself to leave the shop. Not during Christmas week. Not in the heat of battle. Not that anyone was encouraging me to do so. The store director suggested I take some ibuprofen and if I needed to lift anything heavy to call him on the intercom.

Happier holidays when we had more than one cutter on the block.

I'll spare the gory details and the whining (which you're probably already sick of) but the rest of of the week was some kind of nightmare. My back hurt worse every day. Business increased exponentially everyday. The Friday before Christmas we did $14,000 (our average day was 4,000). The crew was beginning to fray, eyes were turning glassy. We were starting to snap at each other. On Christmas Eve the rookie manager scheduled one counter person (the 70 year old woman) him, me and a one legged clean-up. It began to snow. Everybody knows a Christmas Eve snow is magical, right? Well I can tell you, it magically drove people to jump in their SUVs and go shopping...

It was a blood bath. Several times the jolts of pain to my back drove me to my knees. And just when we thought the snow was going to slow things down, another wave of customers would rush in. By the time I got home, I wanted to crawl into a corner and weep. But I couldn't curl anything. My back was so trashed I couldn't take off my shoes. Christmas Eve I slept on the floor of the bedroom. I spent X-mas lying on the floor next to the tree, alternately staring at the ceiling and dozing. In other words, it wasn't a whole lot different than any another Christmas.

Oh, and before I left work Christmas Eve, I looked at next week's schedule. We have a super hot three day ad scheduled for New Year's Eve weekend. And the new manger is taking it off...

Happy New Years to me.

Blood, Sweat and Bad Water.

There is something wonderful and awful about the last swallow of water in the canteen. Chances are you have been saving it, hoarding it away until you just can't stand it any longer. By the time you finally commit to drink, you're not only good and thirsty but maybe a little fearful for the future.

Never-the less, you savor the water all the way down from the tip of your tongue, to the back of your throat and all the way down the esophagus. Wonderful. And then it's gone and the hand is dealt.

This happened to us the very first day of backpacking in Grand Gulch. A veteran of many canyon hikes, I had gone into the excursion with a cavalier attitude and was carrying only my standard liter and half day hike ration. It had never been a problem. The bottom of a steep deep narrow wilderness canyon is filled with springs and potholes and rocks and rivulets. There's always water to be found. Except today. Besides a few pot holes in the side canyon we entered first thing in the morning, this canyon was sandy, brushy and very, very dry. Earlier we had passed a pair of well-heeled hikers who were struggling mightily (despite their top-of-the-line equipment) under a load of 40 liters of water! We had laughed at them heartily, but now were wondering if they knew something we didn't.

 Nothing we could do about it now. Ari and I were well past the point of no return. At the last side canyon we'd spent an entire hour bushwhacking around looking for a spring that the BLM rangers had assured us was there. Along with another guy we met on the trail, we looked high and low. Found one vaguely swampy area underneath some more ruins, but no standing water of any kind. We were all concerned that the canyon bottom was very dry—drier than we expected—and seemingly getting drier as we headed down canyon. Our new friend made his choice early. If he didn't find water in this side canyon he was aborting his trip—and retracing his steps back to the trailhead.

Neither Ari nor I are known for our patience and after fruitlessly searching for an hour, we returned to the confluence of the side canyon and weighed our options. It was early afternoon, we were very low on water, and it was only getting warmer. Consulting the map, we decided to press on—putting our hopes on a vaguely defined feature on the map called “The Pour-off.” If we couldn't find water anywhere else, I assured Ari, there should be some kind of water at the bottom of a dry falls. Falls, after all, denote rock. Rock holds water.

As we trudged down the canyon, however, the sand only got deeper. Our last swallows of water had come and gone. As the day wore on, the packs got heavier and the legs more sluggish. In many ways the first day of a multi-day backpack is the worst. The pack is at its heaviest, the legs and body are at their softest and the body is just not trail hardened. The day was growing to be a long one and we were putting in miles we hadn't counted on. I was beginning to regret not training harder for this hike—a universal feeling of backpackers everywhere.

We came to a muddy patch of wet ground and I seriously considered digging for water—something I've never had to do anywhere and was frankly skeptical it could be successfully done. Ari offered, however, to take off his pack and scout ahead. He came back a half hour later saying he hadn't found water but there was another muddy spot on the ground ahead and a better campsite so we shrugged into our packs once again and headed down the canyon. It was a beautiful site on high ground just off the main channel and as we were trudging up to it, I glanced down canyon and saw where the riverbed just ended. We dropped our packs and grabbed out water jugs.

“Cross your fingers.”

The Pour Off was there, a hundred yards from camp. And, as I'd assumed, the canyon bottom slowly turned to rock. When we arrived, not only did we discover a large brackish water hole at the base of the falls but, even better, a series of rock pot holes on top—the largest of which still contained water. We were saved. But our work was not over. The water was still so silty that it was impossible to pump more than a liter of water at a time before the filter clogged up. So it was pump a liter, disassemble the water filter, scrape it down, wash it, reassemble and then pump another liter. Repeat. It took us an hour and twenty minutes to filter enough water for the night. And this was the scenario that would play out over several days. This canyon, it turned out, was a very dry place.

It was easy for us then to imagine why this canyon, once home to one of the largest Anasazi populations in the Southwest, was abandoned. Some of the best preserved ruins in the world dot the Grand Gulch—a 58 mile long snaking tributary of the San Juan river. Many look as if the occupants walked away a few months ago. Metates and scraping tools lay next to boulder work areas. Corn cobs still fill many of the granaries. In places the pottery shards are like litter on the ground. Large panels of pictographs cover the canyon walls like graffiti. Some in very rare colors of green and blue and orange. Some of the ruins still have their floors and roofs intact. There is an actual kiva you can still enter.

The mysterious "Green Mask."

A sexy tomb raider. Somebody should make a video game!

Beyond the prehistoric ruins, the canyon itself was lovely. There were many cool rock formations, alcoves splashed with fall colors and a sky that was so blue it hurt the eyes. We did great slick rock climbs to granaries that seemed impossible to reach from the canyon floor. We watched the moon rise over the canyon walls and the star-blown skies after it set. On the second day we found a fantastic camp above a cool clear stream with pictographs visible across the canyon from our sleeping bags.

The place was the Garden of Eden except for:

Water. A couple days after finding a clear stream in a side canyon, we spend another wasted day (and all our remaining good water) fruitlessly searching for another spring. As we ventured deeper into the canyon and off the beaten track, the bushwhacking was brutal. Continuing down the main dry channel meant fighting overhanging branches, climbing over dead fall and trudging through sticky muck. Trying to fight a path over the banks meant face slapping, leg ripping brush and steep ascents and descents in and out of the main channel. We even tried to climb up the canyon sides and stay near the slick rock walls, but the prickly pear were so thick there was no where to step. And the trail always went cold at a steep side gully that was dead drop.

That's backpacking. For every beautiful sunset, there's the moment you wake up and realize a rat is crawling across the top of your tent. For every clear stream, there's a vile, brackish puddle of ooze that might keep you alive for another day. For every unexpected Indian discovery there's a pair of shorts ripped from waist to cuff from a razor thorn. For every pretty picture, a cactus needle imbedded into your calf. And for every shot of tequila carefully hoarded, there the point in the hike when you realize that you absolutely cannot eat another gram of trail mix.

To the hundreds of people who lived here in America's recent stone age, I'm sure it was the Garden of Eden. They had everything they wanted: food, water, beauty, room to roam and time to create beautiful art and pottery. But even a garden has limits, boundaries and needs balance. When something tips the scales—overpopulation, a prolonged drought, warfare—then even paradise will fail. It's a lesson for all of us. Appreciate what we have, do all we can to protect it and strive for balance.

Watch the sunset, ignore the rats.

Bottom's up, y'all!

And drink plenty of water.