Following my Grand Enchantment Trail hike from Phoenix, through Safford, and toward the New Mexico border, I arrived in the town of Clifton, picked up a postal maildrop containing an Alpacka raft, 4-piece paddle, foam PFD, bicycle helmet, and drybag-style backpack, and determined to float back to Safford.
I'd had my eye on this trip for several years, lured by the prospects of a leisurely cruise along a waterway that roughly parallels the GET route in this area, as opposed to the often effortful nature of hiking these river canyons with their incessant fording - an act with which I'd become all too acquainted over the years. Here I was, at long last, suited up and ready to roll. This would be a solo trip, for want of any local packrafting connections, but the rivers would be mellow and forgiving this season, I surmised.
The first day would be a trial run, I decided. Having put into the San Francisco just 2 miles above Clifton, I'd float back to town and spend a dry night indoors before embarking for real the next morning. The river initially proved wide and shallow, with little current, or was narrow and braided with swift riffles or short class II rapids, the latter of which required some attentive paddling to avoid exposed rocks. This general pattern would persist throughout most the trip.
In the morning, just below my put-in, I found a USGS employee in the river wearing rubber waders, taking streamflow measurements. "94 cubic feet per second," he announced at length. Pretty low flow, we agreed. Indeed, the river was clearly at the bottom end of navigability. A mile beyond it had exposed some large rocks that conspired to force an awkward portage, then flowed beneath an exposed sewer line that nearly clotheslined me until I managed to limbo my way under it.
"How did you manage to get by that sewer line?" a voice called from creekside. I had stopped to dump water from the boat and hadn't noticed that I'd been noticed. The local fellow explained that the line is usually submerged whenever boaters - sensible boaters, at least - take to the river. I asked about any comparable hazards downriver, and he assured me that none existed. "I've floated it on an inner tube when it's been like this, for maybe 4 hours downstream from here." In fact he was right about conditions, although the many shallow riffles soon had me wondering about the ratio of floating to walking he may have endured.
Leaving town behind, I began to relax a bit, gradually growing accustomed to the river's alternating rhythms, in turns wide and shallow, then braided and quick, with just enough current to coax the raft harshly over the rocky-floored steps by which the river descended in steady intervals, often into short but luxuriant pools, as here.
Tailings pond walls of the collosal Morenci Mine, level and unnatural looking, would occasionally jut out from behind the surrounding slopes, reminding me of the big picture. My map showed a 4WD road leading from Morenci village to the river - a potential put-in for boaters - but today, as usual I imagined, the road was in use by the four-wheeling crowd. One of them crossed the river just in time to watch me struggling, hands out of the boat and on the river bed, trying to free myself from the dam of rocks that so many vehicles had wedged up below the ford. We were unusual company for one another, I concluded, as typically the San Francisco is a boater's river only until it belongs to the ATV crowd. The seasons don't comingle for long.
Occasional walls of welded volcanic tuff or conglomerate rock - the Gila Conglomerate, as it's known here - rose at riverside, into whose shadow the current often led, typically below a step in the river, where I'd be forced to follow a tongue of water, then exit the current before it slammed headlong into the wall of rock. An Alpacka, inflatable and bouncy yet tough, is pretty forgiving, I reminded myself, but these moments still managed to throw me from my flatwater reverie - and, for that matter, the sometimes monotony of paddling at 2 mph.
I suspected my photographic output for this trip would be somewhat wanting. Lacking a waterproof camera, needing to forever stow the thing in plastic away from my person after every impulse to shoot, and without a cool helmet attachment for catching all the thrilling, first person action sequences, I'd be relegated to taking mostly flatwater shots and engaging the reader's imagination after the fact. Suffice it to say the river was not a lake - not in its entirety anyway - else the bicycle helmet would have come off early and stayed off.
Prior to the float I'd traded my standard backpack for a ULA Arctic Dry Pack, seen here (and elsewhere). Lashed securely to the bow of the raft using a home-sewn version of Alpacka's clever Pack-Tach attachment method, the drybag style pack bag is indeed waterproof - even if it's difficult to keep inflated as designed. The contents of the pack were, with limited exception, what I had carried along on the GET just prior, including trekking poles for use as tent supports and - just maybe - for an extended portage, come to that.
By mid-afternoon the wind had picked up, with occasional gusts blowing antagonistically from the southwest, the general trend of the meandering river. I stopped along shore to wait it out and for a bite to eat, surprised by my ability to curtail eating and drinking while in the boat, both for the sake of convenience and as a natural consequence of the reduced exertion of paddling as compared with hiking. Here the occasional hum of motorized vehicles, heard but largely unseen throughout the afternoon, finally subsided for good and I revelled in the solitude that, for the subdued effort required, only a river can provide.
Lining the boat became unavoidable in places, particularly where the waters were as wide as this. I learned to anticipate the most obvious shallows, typically away from the main current, but even a watchful eye toward the river bottom sometimes failed to perceive the best line, and I'd find myself marooned on a sandy shoal or cobbly bar.
Downriver, a rusting relic, perhaps from the early days of copper mining, lay stranded at the high water mark of some erstwhile flood. So often benign and pleasant tempered is a desert river, when a river at all. And then, suddenly unable to contain itself at the prospect of rain, of thunderstorm, or distant melting snow, is transformed into a turgid, foaming malcontent, however briefly and seldom seen, save for its detritus in the aftermath, improbably high and ponderous, its shed skin.
Evening light on the volcanic spires. I paddled on, the day's destination now near at hand, I surely hoped, some accommodating place along the shoreline, preferably with the Gila River in view.
Are you my confluence? The canyon walls ahead grew more imposing and I assumed the larger Gila River was nigh, having cut for itself a sharper defile. Several times I was wrong, though, and I found it odd how easily I was fooled, how my vantage from river level deceived me, despite how straightforward and elemental my bearings.
By now the diurnal winds had relented and my main focus, beyond an escape from my inflatable confines of 15 river miles, was the heartening prospect of bigger water. I expected the Gila to be an easier float, and a quicker one, particularly below its confluence with the San Francisco where at last check its USGS-measured rate of flow had been roughly 150 cfs. Meantime I continued to endure the views.
Gila River found, and just before nightfall. Time to make camp among the bordering tamarisk, cottonwoods, and willows. My inflatable sleeping mat, having served double-duty, upside-down in the bottom of the raft for added stiffness, was entirely dry by the time I'd pitched shelter, a decided fringe benefit of arid land boating.
A morning summoning of fortitude atop the inverted raft before setting off from the confluence.
San Francisco River at left, Gila River at right. Just upstream, the San Francisco enters the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area, where motorized vehicles are prohibited. Unfortunately a barbed wire fence across the canyon had been washed out by a prior flood. An unlocked gate, still standing along the riverside 2-track, seemed to imply that the BLM promotes something of an honor system, regardless. But as recent vehicle tracks along the sandbar at the confluence attested, that system wasn't working very well. Fortunately the Gila's enlarged flow below the confluence would soon present a natural barrier to all but boat traffic.
Initially the Gila River was wide and smooth, and considerably more navigable than the San Fran had been, but with surprisingly little current. I soon discovered that the two rivers share a step-like gradient pattern, losing elevation only at intervals, with something of a damming effect just upstream of the steps - the proverbial calm before the storm.
Here the Gila descends one of its rocky steps. Looking back upstream, these steps appear fairly benign, which I suppose they were, but for the need to steer attentively around the rocks. The tricky part is determining, from the comparatively blind vantage of the boat, upriver, butt below the water line, precisely where the rocks, often concealed by waves, may lurk.
Cattle grazing is also prohibited under RNCA provisions. This wayward lass had likely sneaked under the radar via Eagle Creek. This was another important confluence, one that I somehow missed entirely, probably because the Gila had braided in its vicinity and I'd chosen the "wrong" braid. Not wishing to drink from the long-journeying Gila, floating obliviously by more potable Eagle Creek came as a disappointment.
Unlike the San Francisco, the short sections of whitewater along the higher-volume Gila River were almost always passable without bottoming-out. That said, an alpacka raft, flat-bottomed and lacking a keel, seems forever prone to getting launched by the current onto slightly submerged rocks, then stranded there. Here this became the primary thing to avoid, for the challenge of extricating the raft without swamping it or being obliged to exit the boat into the surrounding torrent.
Overall I was impressed by how pristine the Gila River corridor appeared. Litter, at least from my limited perspective, was virtually nonexistent, and frequent stretches of untracked sandy beach lent a primeval air to the landscape. It seemed difficult to imagine that jeeps and motorbikes once plied the Gila Box at will, and quite legally, prior to RNCA designation not so many years ago. (The Gila Box is currently one of only two such Riparian National Conservation Areas in the country, the other protecting the nearby San Pedro River.)
Afternoon now, 7 miles or so into the day's efforts, and the winds had returned, gusting fitfully up the canyon's natural corridor. Paddling headlong into the gale, seemingly regardless of the river's precise aspect, and across stretches of near deadwater at times, became a sometimes slow and tedious affair. Here the wind throws up a scrim of white sand, seen at left, now and then pelting me even at mid-river.
In typical canyon country fashion, what appear to be peaks surrounding the river, forming its canyon, are in fact the eroded edges of a relatively level plateau through which the river has managed to carve a path, in this case through predominantly volcanic terrain. At an elevation of less than 4000 feet, the landscape beyond the riparian corridor is notably arid, moreso than is typical even for this latitude in Arizona.
Where the winter rains or a recent high water line permit, spring does yet flourish here, as an ephemeral clump of Mexican gold poppies among the riverine sediment reveal. Wildlife was also commonly spotted, notably ducks, white as well as blue herons, raptors - blackhawks and zone-tailed hawks especially - and turtles, which upon my rounding a bend in the river would dive from a basking rock with an audible splash, back to the safety of the water.
Lunch-time away from the boat, but not before tethering it to the base of some willows, lest it set to sailing in the breeze, all 5 pounds of polyurethane and nylon. To the end of a "painter" line I'd sewn together a simple loop of half-inch webbing with side-release buckle adjustment, the easier to anchor the raft, or to form a wrist leash for lining.
Following some extended flatwater straightaways, headwinds blowing whitecaps upriver, I was at last rewarded with some of the finest scenery of the trip.
An extended wall of layered ash flow deposits, looking much like Aravaipa Canyon it occurred to me, flanked the river to its north, encouraging a nice series of drops interspersed with leisurely pools. But still the winds perturbed.
Making a point of not missing the Gila's confluence with Bonita Creek, I watched carefully for the latter's riparian corridor, which at last appeared on my right. I took out here for the night, first spending a few minutes in search of the actual confluence, which finally appeared, a 5 cfs trickle flowing into the Gila's comparative bounty. The smaller the better for drinking purposes, in this case. Camp was pleasant, beneath some shady walnut trees and out of the wind's full fury, although a visiting hooded skunk in the night proved obstinate and very curious about the boat.
The winds failed to relent, and by morning had picked up further, boding of a rough day on the river. Instead I opted to stay put, taking a layover day alongside Bonita Creek, a Saturday in this case, though without many visitors. Late in the afternoon I discovered a trail encircling a nearby campground and followed it to a far-ranging vantage above the river. No one out on the water today, in fact, though a pair of sightseers, bound for their car, are visible in this photo just left of center. (The confluence with Bonita Creek is located just above them, on the photo-left side of the river before the bend.)
A panoramic view, showing Bonita Creek's confluence with the Gila River. Bonita Creek extends left (north - note the line of greenery among the canyon folds, bending away).
East Bonita Rim Road - four-wheeling paradise - ascends beyond the canyon of Bonita Creek, with Turtle Mountain on the horizon. In the foreground, overlooking the creek, the BLM Safford Field Office has installed a ramada as part of a Watchable Wildlife area, a nicely done facility and further proof, in my mind, of this office's refreshingly recreation-oriented focus.
The BLM here also displays an anthropological bent, having recently restored several colonial-era homesteads in the area. These include the Old Lady Gay Cabin along the Safford-Morenci Trail (GET), farther north along Bonita Creek, and Serna Cabin, seen here by the Gila River confluence. My layover day proved not without its share of interesting diversions.
Day 4, Sunday. Winds finally abating, gone the way of the dry weather front that had produced them, or so it turned out. More placid flats, more quickwater runs, short but rocky and momentarily thrilling. Same reliable sun, same bordering greenery, same stolid, craggy desert beyond. More solitude. Perfection.
A brochure to the Gila Box RNCA depicts this same scene on its cover, I realized while taking this shot, photogenic for the sheer walls of Gila Conglomerate at shoreline here, somehow appearing manmade and prehistoric.
A glistening among the rocks at shoreline revealed an artesian seep. I paddled over to investigate, determining it to be, not a hot spring, but rather an excellent and easily accessible source of drinking water, and pouring directly from the base of the conglomerate cliffs, likely submerged when the Gila is running high.
A pipeline suspended across the canyon may well have been the Safford city water supply, originating several miles up Bonita Creek and engineered more or less on the level, here demonstrating the river's drop in the intervening miles. Not far beyond I reached the western end of the Gila Box and the standard take-out for boaters. (Most of them float the Gila River exclusively, putting in just above the Box, a 23 mile trip.) Besides myself, the only humans enjoying the water this day were a pair of hopeful gold panners, father and son it appeared, busying themselves at shoreline, not interested in the river per se - in fact rather bewildered with the likes of me. "Sounds kind of dangerous," one chuckled as I floated on by.
My intent was to float all the way into Safford, still 15 miles away and beyond the bounds of the Gila Box RNCA. Few continue below the designated take-out, convenient for vehicles as it is, but also, I now fancied, due to hearsay over dams. Luckily I heard this one before I saw it, a raft-piercing picketpost of upright girders and tangled brush, and managed an easy portage.
Here is where old tumbleweeds go to die. The Gila proceeded enjoyable below the Box, though the sheer canyon walls slowly gave way to broad desert flats, hidden beyond the bordering greenery but evidenced by the presence of these waterbound bales of hay. Partially submerged, the massive-looking yet featherweight tumbleweeds at last bog down, tumbling no more. And the algae then claims them as its own.
Five miles below the Box I arrived at another dam, this one looking more serious than the last. A hulking cement structure that impounded the river, this actually proved to be a diversion dam, with a manmade channel at river's left through which the bulk of its water now flowed, inaccessible to boats. Making my way around the opposite end of the dam, I was initially encouraged to find at least some water remaining in the natural channel, despite no water flowing over the spillway, which seemed odd.
Alas, the remnant Gila River soon proved unnavigable, at least by boat. Any remaining flow soon slipped underground, reclaimed by the desert sands, and of course the Gila Valley cotton growers, for whom the dam and irrigation works had been built. After consulting with a few local ATV'ers, much in their element here, and my own hazy knowledge of the area, I deduced that the river might well re-emerge somewhere ahead, and determined to pack up the boat and hoof it a ways. That's what packrafting's all about, I reminded myself. You raft the pack, aye, and sometimes you pack the raft. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. It's cool.
En route down the wash, a desert oddity. Nearly a dozen large, muscular fish flailed helplessly in a dwindling, stagnant pool of the former river, obviously abandoned here by earlier runoff. A group of fishermen I'd encountered along the San Francisco River had been angling for channel catfish, and I wondered whether catfish I'd found. A deft flick of my paddle could have landed any number of them onto the shore and into my cookpot, and I felt a morsel of disquiet at the thought of their unpleasant fate regardless, but opted to leave them be.
I heard the river again before I saw it. A short bushwhack through the tamarisk to a parallel river braid and there it was: wet, floatable I hoped, but clearly emasculated by the farmers' mischief upstream. Apparently the irrigation works had taken what was deemed necessary - I could picture the surrounding valley, the sum total of a thousand tidy cement channels watering a million thirsty furrows of cotton seed - and I, the fish downstream, the herons, the hawks, had been ever so graciously allotted the rest.
Speaking of the herons, I found this one at midstream, fishing the shallows that constituted most of the river channel now. Only where the river flowed tightly between its banks was it truly floatable, though even here the low-hanging tunnels of bordering tamarisk proved an obstacle to forward progress. The rest of my river time was spent clearing sand bars by an inch or two, butt out of the boat for every floatational advantage, or grinding comically down shallow drops, pinging from rock to rock as the meager flow allowed.
Beavers, it's said, are but second to man when it comes to altering the landscape to suit their selfish purposes. And this was no beaver lodge I'd happened upon. Given the appalling condition of so many of our nation's waterways, and in light of the big picture, I didn't take the passing blight personally. Doubtless the cotton farmer whose field bordered the river here was no apologist, anyway. Its resource value was purely industrial to him.
Just up ahead, the first paved road crossing since Clifton appeared, an overpass from which I'd scouted the Gila River only a week prior, finding it amply deep. Now the river level, dropping steadily by the mile it seemed, was reduced to an ankle-deep slosh. Either the river had recently been running high enough to top that last diversion dam, or the cotton farmers were now withholding more of the diverted flow, planting season as it was. Whatever the case, the river's all-out metamorphosis was remarkable.
I'd hoped to float onward another 6 miles, to the busy outskirts of Safford, then to stroll into town, trailing a tangle of algae behind me, perhaps, still soggy in the shorts, entirely under my own power from start to finish, one town to the other, journey's start to journey's end. But it didn't quite work that way. Instead I dragged the boat ashore, pulled out a cell phone, and called for a taxi. "Give me just a few minutes to pack up the boat, if you could," I requested. A half hour later Dave the cabbie arrived, whisked me away at highway speeds, past cotton fields and droughty Gila Valley desert, and onward to town. And the fragile little ribbon of liquid and green that had served as my mobile home for three and change adventuresome days was - just like that - no more.
Gila River, Sunday April 5, 2009, at the take-out.
