As
Roderick Nash tells us, a trip on the Colorado canyons used
to be thought of as risky hardship, but today it is family fun.
" An intellectual revolution transformed wilderness,
in general, and the canyon lands, in particular, from an environmental
liability to an environmental asset. Anequipment revolution
facilitated the transformation of desire into experience. Post-World-War
II technology made possible lightweight backpacking and, with
special importance to the Grand Canyon river trip, inflatable
rafts. A transportation revolution also occurred. As
late as the 1950s the edges of the canyon lands were several
days of travel from transportation centers such as Denver and
Salt Lake City, and virtually unreachable from eastern locations
in a two week vacation. Now, by way of contrast, jet aircraft
and a network of paved roads made the Colorado Basin a realistic
objective even for a long weekend. An information revolution
brought the southwestern wilderness into national focus and
even to the point of its being loved to death."
Roderick
Nash, New Courses for the Colorado River, University
of New Mexico Press, 1996. Used by permission.
Julie Munger leads a group of passengers down the
Little Colorado.From Writing Down the River:
Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon,ÝNorthland Press, 1988.
Courtesy of the photographer, Kathleen Jo Ryan.
Painting
by Dean Fausett, Campsite at Dawn. Oil on panel, 48"
x 96". Courtesy of US Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation
Art Collection.
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Memorial Day
boaters crowd Copper Canyon on Lake Havasu on the Arizona-California
border creating a floating party. Courtesy of the photographer,
Jim Richardson.
Georgie
Clark popularized rubber rafting in the 1950s by providing ìshare
the expense trips.î Courtesy of Five Quail Books.
Norm Nevills started running tributaries of the
Colorado in the 1930s and became the first commercial river boatman
on the Colorado, running wooden boats until his death in 1948. Courtesy
of Sandy Nevills Reiff.
Photographs
of the Unger family vacation on Lake Powell. Houseboating on Lake
Powell is a major way people experience the Colorado River today.
Courtesy of the photographer, Renate Unger.
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