Swimming the Colorado

Many years ago my family spent some time with extended family near Parker dam on the Colorado River in Arizona/California. We had a lot of fun on that trip, but there were a couple of events which could have caused a tragic end to that trip. I will share one now and the other later:

The campsite we stayed in was on the inside of a tight bend in the river. Across the river was some heavy brush with a small wooden dock on the water. I was 16 years old and my younger brother was about 13 so therefore had a combined mental age of a three year old (my wife thinks we still have the mental age of a three year old when we are together...46 minus 43 is still 3 years).

He and I decided to swim across the river to one of the docks on the other side. We were on the upstream side of the curve and did not know what was around the bend. Swimming toward the dock we began to realize how much the current was moving us toward the bend. This caused us to swim a little harder than we had initially planned. Getting safely to the dock, we sat there and tried to regain our strength.

We finally decided that we needed to head back to the other side. We left the safety of the dock and began swimming back toward our camp. The current continued to draw us closer and closer to the bend, increasing the distance we needed to swim and increasing our worried of what might confront us around the bend (waterfall, rapids, bears?). I began to understand the reality of our situation about half way across the river. I was getting very tired and my brother stopped swimming and said something like "I don't think I can make it".

Our father had arrived on the bank sometime during this great trek of ours (I can't recall exactly when he arrived, but there he was). He smartly instructed us to swim straight toward the shore and not worry about how far the current took us. Straight to the bank was the best thing to do but we still had the fear of what was around the bend. Looking back on the experience, our father must have been confident in our ability to make it OR he had his good shoes on because he didn't come out to help us. Upon our arrival we (mostly me) received a strong lecture from dad and then we walked with him around the bend to see that the river shallowed into a gentle, rocky section that would have almost allowed us to walk across the river.

You will find in some of my future stories that I am very lucky to have survived my youth. I have not made that mistake again but not to worry, there are plenty of other mistakes yet to be made!