Heavy summer rains have triggered flash floods throughout the Four Corners region in recent months. In his book, “Burntwater,” Scott Thybony recounted an unusual encounter with a slow flash flood. At the time, he was undertaking a 12-day trek through the Grand Canyon with his brother. Thybony recalls the adventure in this month’s Canyon Commentary.
A flash flood caught us the next day. My brother and I heard a high, steady rushing like the sound of wind moving through a stand of trees. It came from somewhere upcanyon. Realizing floodwaters were on their way, we climbed to higher ground and waited. The sound continued undiminished, but nothing appeared. We kept waiting.
Water in a dry country moves like blood through the veins. It comes in pulses, flood one moment and drought the next. Sometimes a flash flood appears as a wall of water tearing down a dry wash. Sometimes it doesn’t. At last, a thick tongue of water snaked down the creekbed, a flood without much flash.
We grabbed our packs and walked next to the leading edge of the flood as it meandered down the gorge. Our pace carried us along faster than the flow of water. We pulled ahead for a time, but at a rest stop it caught up with us. We were on a long trek from Nankoweap Canyon to Tapeats, and rain had been falling for a week. It continued to fall all day. Traveling light, we didn’t carry a tent or stove.
By the time we sought shelter for the night, we had entered the dark Precambrian rock which forms the Inner Gorge. This deep canyon within a canyon had few overhangs. Just at dusk I spotted a horizontal crack wide enough for two. Pushing in on my back, I cleared out the spider webs. The ceiling pressed a couple of inches above my face, so close I couldn’t roll over. No matter, it was dry. Falling asleep, I listened as the rush of water turned into a swallowed roar.
At dawn we found ourselves on the wrong side of a creek in full flood. Mud-thick water churned through the gorge. Boulders rolled unseen below the surface, crashing together with hollow clacks. To continue our trek, we had to cross.
Scouting upstream we found a narrows where the creek funneled through a slot. A log, wedged against rocks, spanned the flood halfway. The water flowed deep and fast. I didn’t like the look of it, but it was the best crossing we could find. Keeping my pack on, I unbuckled the waist strap in case of a slip.
Wet but stable, the log took me to mid-creek without trouble. I glanced ahead and leaped over the deepest channel before taking time to think about it. Bouncing off a boulder, I landed on the far side, dragging a boot in the water but ending upright. John followed and we climbed toward a break in the cliffs leading onto the Tonto plateau.
Crossing the broad bench, we skirted the deep cut of a side canyon, and Point Sublime rose somewhere above, cloud hidden. Normally a desert, the Tonto had turned into a bog. Water flowed in rivulets down each wash. We passed mushrooms growing next to cactus and we slogged ahead with mud clinging to boots and clothes hanging wet and heavy. We talked little, drawn into ourselves by the weather.
Four days later we switchbacked up to the North Rim at the head of Crazy Jug Canyon. We found ourselves in the open light of the plateau where the sky spread wide above the trees. By now our packs had become so much a part of us, we didn’t bother to take them off to rest. Lean and weather-hardened, we left behind the Grand Canyon, having completed the trek in under two weeks. We called this the end of the trip, but it was only a shift in directions. After this, the course of our lives veered apart, taking different paths.
Scott Thybony is a Flagstaff-based writer. His Canyon Commentaries are produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio and air on the last Friday of each month.
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