Re: Crystalling

Earl Perry (earlp@ihs.com)
Fri, 26 Sep 1997 06:50:10 -0600


>In practical terms, what this means is that truly unrunnable rapids
>wil develop, which further implies either 1) human intervention to
>open them up (explosives), or 2) the river will be closed to all
>boats that can't be portaged. Number 1) is at this point unlikely,
>of course, but we are talking fairly long timescales -- it's hard to
>make meaningful predictions about human values 100 years from now.

It would be nice to be less cynical, but hard to deny experience; there
have already been suggestions to the NPS to dynamite an instant rapid
(which cleared itself up in a week or two). Maybe the NPS would have the
values and the political power to withstand such pressures.

>Of course, the dam may not last that long, either -- they almost lost
>it once...

The spillway linings were cavitated out of existence, and the water
attacked the living rock; red boulders were booming across the canyon and
bursting against the opposite wall. At the time, a Burec spokewoman said
to me, "I don't understand it. We're having the same problem all up and
down the system. Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge, Fontanelle...." Now actually
she was wrong, the problems with Fontanelle long predating '83, and being
of another sort entirely. But everywhere the Bureau forgot to design for
cavitation -- an error so elementary any 1st-year engineering student would
get an F for committing it -- they got the same problem. However, to be
pedantic, I think they would not exactly have lost the Dam, they would have
lost the abutment, and there would have been a new, S-curve rapid of noble
proportion, perhaps reminiscent of the old Dark Canyon, which would have
snaked along the side of Glen Canyon National Dolmen.

>
>It does seem unlikely that a flood could create a rapid that could
>not be run and could not be portaged, at least at some water level.

Well, the old-time Lava Cliffs Rapid appears from photos to have been
portageable only at flows so low the potholes in the basement boulders were
visible. Besides, Kent, if you can fill the canyon for 40 miles around
Whitmore with helicopters helping people savor their wilderness adventure,
you can certainly get some of those big Sikorskis with slings to clip into
even a Super-J rig or a G-rig and tote it around. High point of the trip,
voted most Disneylike/Universal Studios moment of the 'run' by lots of our
people. And of course they will point to historical precedent. After
all, choppers hauled dories around Hance during the Goldwater trip, "long
before most of these environmentalists and privates ever even saw the river."
>
>Thus, the net effect of this evolution is to restrict trips to small
>boats.

Could be. Hope so.

"...there are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke."

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