RIVER SWIMMING

FROM THE FEATHER RIVER CALIFORNIA TO COPPER CANYON MEXICO

Bev and I had made many trips into the mountains over the years. We now wanted to do something less cold, more comfortable. But we still wanted beauty, solitude, and a little bit of adventure. Rivers seemed a good choice. Carrying food and equipment would be less onerous. We were interested in the canyons, and elected to make our packs into flotation devices by packing all our gear in waterproof bags. Thus we could swim pulling our packs in calm stretches, ride our packs through rapids, or walk along the banks, or climb cliffs if necessary. We elected to call this river swimming.

SOME HISTORY

Links to web pages on our trips are shown at left. Links to articles on various trips are shown on the right.

The 1952 Griffith articles describe the first descent. Dick Griffith was one of the Alaskan "hardmen". He has many other amazing adventures to his credit, including a trip down the Grand Canyon (US) on a Sherpa Raft. I corresponded with him about 1995. He was pulling a sledge, by himself, from Nome to Resolute, across the entire Canadian arctic, about 800 miles each spring. He had one more stretch to complete.

The 1975 Maddox articles describes the second descent of the river. There were some partial descents in the 80's and 90's. These trips used rafts, and frequently ended in disaster.

The 1994 article describes our descent of the lower gorge with Allen Steck. The 1998 article describes our descent of the upper gorge with Steve Allen. Bev and I left the trip near Divisadero, but Steve and friends went on to Urique, one of the few full descents of the river.