I had put off rafting the Colorado through the Grand Canyon for more than 20 years. I needed enough money to do it the right way, I thought, the way of the purist: 18 days in a 17-foot dory down the entire run, Lee’s Ferry to Lake Mead. But getting to a certain age, I decided I had best do it before I couldn’t. Kathryn and I settled on a j-rig — scorned as the cruise ship of the river — with 16 fellow passengers on one hulk of a boat made up of five rubber pontoons attached side by side.
The 5-night j-rig trip has its advantages: affordability and protection from the wrath of the worst rapids were the two I liked. For time-pressed visitors or newbies wary of spending much longer on the river, its outboard engine offers a faster run. For the gregarious, there’s a bigger sampling of people to befriend. And with four different areas to sit in, guests can choose the intensity of shock they want to face as the boat bangs through some of the larger rapids’ monumental waves: straddling the pontoons up front offers total impact and full drenching, the raised cargo boxes get you above much of the direct assault, while the decks behind provide human shelter from heavy spray. It also has a lot of storage room for food and passengers’ bags and booze, as well as the roomy tents and comfortable cots the company supplies.
Engine noise? Yes, it is there, but less intrusive than I had feared. When we did float, as when our guides, Ronnie and Jeff, had to tinker with the engine after hitting a small log, the silence was precious. I doubt you get the full measure of this towering red rock cathedral without that silence. And floating at the speed of the river in a non-motorized raft, locked in to the natural flow, at one with the river, is what an ideal river trip is all about.