Floating along the floor of Grand Canyon National Park is a sublime experience./NPS-Mark Lellouch

Editor's note: Not all river trips through Grand Canyon National Park are commercial. Luck into a private trip and you'll have the experience of your life, as Joe Miczulski realized when he was invited to run the Colorado River through the park.

"Is anybody alive out there?!?"

If you'™ve had the good fortune to attend a Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band concert, you know the feeling when you shout out your answer. Want to experience that for two to three weeks every day on the water? Join in on a Colorado River float trip through the Grand Canyon.

I'™d been rowing my whitewater raft for over 25 years, primarily on Idaho'™s famous Main and Middle Fork of the Salmon rivers, but hearing the stories of how difficult it was to score a Grand Canyon river permit led me to believe I'™d never get the opportunity to test myself on the mighty Colorado'™s rapids.

Don'™t believe everything you think.

On the weekend of my 51st birthday, a message was on the answering machine. With my jaw on my chest, I handed the phone to my wife and replayed the message '“ could we carry a cooler for a guy we shared a Middle Fork trip with seven years ago on a 16-day trip down the Grand Canyon?

Oh, and by the way, we launch in seven weeks.

When an applicant finally draws a permit for a private Grand Canyon river trip (some people have been on the waiting list over 15 years!), the National Park Service tries to give the permit holder a year'™s advance notice because properly planning the logistics and personnel for a 16-day or longer trip is critical to success. Luckily for us, the trip planning was already done. We only had to pay our share of the expenses, gather our personal gear, get our raft ready, and show up.

As excited as we were to have this surprising opportunity, we had more than a few concerns as we drove south from Idaho. We only knew a few of the people in this group. Would we all get along for 16 days? Would everyone pull their weight? Would anyone be a liability on the water? Did we bring enough of the right kind of personal gear? Would I navigate these rapids successfully or embarrass myself? Would our adult beverages last us through the whole trip? At Lee'™s Ferry, the launching point for Grand Canyon float trips 16 miles below Glen Canyon Dam, we met the group. Most were from Colorado, others from Alaska and Utah. All the boatmen had rafted before, but several like me had no Colorado River experience.

As we rigged the seven boats in our flotilla it quickly became apparent that this was a well-organized group. The 16 of us were split into smaller teams to take care of camp chores: cooking, dish washing, and fire pan, water, and groover (river runner'™s slang for the portable toilet required to carry out all solid human waste). Teams would rotate chores every evening and have every fourth day off. A three-ring binder with laminated pages listed which raft was carrying what non-perishable food items and essential group gear like water purifiers, kitchen tarps, and extra toilet paper. Menus and recipes were provided for each meal. Coolers had several inches of water frozen an inch at a time over multiple days (to keep them from splitting) in a commercial freezer and were packed with the first things to be used on top.

The canyon grows deeper and deeper as you float/Joe Miczulski

After rigging the boats, the return of our vehicle shuttle drivers, and floating our rafts down 100 yards to what'™s known as the private boater'™s camp, we loaded into a van provided by one of the restaurants at the top of the canyon and headed up for a group dinner. With the frenzy of boat rigging done, we learned more about our fellow river rats'”one boatman was a retired neurosurgeon and his wife was a retired nurse. Several other boatmen and passengers were aces, having been down the Colorado five or more times. Another boatman was a fireman and swift-water rescue instructor. More reason to relax.

Launch day dawned clear but cool. Excitement and anticipation buzzed through camp. It was obvious most everyone had a fitful night'™s sleep. As we entered the clear, cold, but soon-to- be-muddy main current. The Grand Canyon National Park ranger arrived early and matched our photo IDs to the names on the permit, checked for mandatory gear, and gave us the health, safety, and resource protection orientation talk. A quick breakfast and then we were off'”conch shells blowing, whistles tweeting, toasting the River Gods for good luck as we entered the clear, cold, but soon-to-be-muddy main current.

As we floated under the Navajo Bridges four miles downstream from Lee'™s Ferry, California Condors soared in the thermal air currents rising from the canyon. We prayed that this was a good omen.

As we began to encounter the Colorado'™s rapids, I found the whitewater skills honed on Idaho'™s rockier, more 'œtechnical' whitewater worked just fine. The biggest adjustment was getting used to how quickly the river speeds up from slow flat-water to fast whitewater. Proper set-up at the top of rapids to stay out of the deepest holes and tallest detonating waves is the key to running these rapids, and scouting the big rapids to find where to enter them is critical. The importance of hitting waves straight on rather than sideways also can'™t be overstated.

Shore time allows for a little perspective of where you are/Joe Miczulski

Only about 10 percent of the Colorado'™s 226 miles from Lee'™s Ferry to the take-out at Diamond Creek is whitewater. That makes the other 90 percent a beer drinker'™s paradise, right? Maybe for passengers, but for those on the oars, unfortunately, no. A skill almost as critical as the ability to read whitewater is to find and follow the 'œbubble line' that separates the huge hydraulic eddies swirling virtually the full length of the river. They just love to suck a boat in until it circles back upstream to where it first got caught.

What we learned to appreciate between the rapids is the majesty of the canyon. Layer upon layer of multihued sandstone, limestone, shale, and schist with cracks and fissures filled with once-molten granite or lava that reach up to the sky. Most layers are horizontal, but some are almost vertical. What tremendous force caused that to happen, and how could this water we'™re on have carved through that?

Ashore, there were explosions of wildflowers and cactus in bloom. There are slot canyons'”some so narrow we brace our feet on one wall and hands on the other to inch our way up'”that suddenly open into huge spaces that we imagine as patios for giants. Waterfalls and springs with hanging gardens that seemingly pop out of vertical walls. Evidence of ancient peoples that left us imagining the toughness they must have had to survive here. This is true grandeur of the Grand Canyon.

No Colorado River trip goes completely without incident, and despite the many strengths of our group, ours was no exception. In the set of rapids known as the 'œRoaring Twenties' we had boatmen and passengers washed out of two separate rafts. As we collected all the people and flotsam of our group'™s first washout, a raft from another party flipped and we rescued those boaters and righted their raft, too.

Strong up-canyon winds had to be frequently rowed against to make any progress downstream, until they blew so strong we simply had to pull over and hunker down until they passed. The only thunderstorm of the trip unleashed a microburst of 70+ mile-an-hour winds as we set up camp, throwing loose items up to 200 yards away and forcing us to lay flat on our bellies with hands on our heads, as if we were in combat protecting ourselves from shrapnel.

The large pour-over on the right side of Serpentine Rapid caught one of our rookie captains not paying attention and flipped his raft. All hands on deck as we rescued the captain and his passenger, flipped their boat back upright, and retrieved poorly tied-down bags floating downstream.

The landscape wrapping the Colorado River is just as, if not more, interesting than the river/Joe Miczulski

At Lava Falls, the biggest and fastest rapid on the Colorado, the carnage continued with another captain'™s raft flipping in the famous V-wave and the captain receiving lacerations to his fingers from grabbing a cargo net as they flipped. Our neurosurgeon, fireman, and another trained boatman performed first-aid on the unlucky captain'™s lacerated fingers, successfully cleaning and bandaging them for the remainder of the trip.

We had a few more days of floating after Lava Falls and some rapids to still be concerned about, but nothing quite like what we had already done. It was time to really relax and enjoy the canyon and the great friendships we developed along the way.

And then, it was over.

Remorse set in as we toasted the River Gods for the last time and floated down to the take-out at Diamond Creek. Tears of gratitude flowed for our families and friends back home who allowed us this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and for the bonds we formed with these new friends that we would be leaving shortly.

Would we ever have a magical experience like this again?