finally

    Finally the time has come to lift off. There will be four trips, the chopper can only fit four passengers at a time, I am designated to the last one. The round trip takes almost an hour so we wait some more. Just before we jump in up walk four boat type rangers. They have been sent to retrieve our wayward rafts. Apparently only one has been captured and the others are headed towards the biggest rapid of the whole stretch, the notorious 'LAVA'. "Come with us and row your boats down" they say tauntingly. Oh man I wish we could. I really want to see those last river miles and canyon hikes, but alas it is not so be.

     The view from inside the helicopter is like no other I will ever see again. We fly up the flooded canyon and see Mooney Falls brown and gushy and the green valley where the Havasupai people "the people of the blue green water" have lived for hundreds of years.  Can you imagine parking your car on the rim, taking the groceries out and then hiking eight and half miles to the house? That would take a different mind set. Everything looks so different than it did yesterday. How wild mother nature is.... especially helped towards disaster by mankind. This pristine paradise will be changed forever.

     We arrive at the emergency staging area where the Red cross  is handing out army MREs and blankets.  Blackhawk helicopters are evacuating tourists out of the Havasu wilderness.  National emergency vehicles are everywhere...no repeat of New Orleans here.  Then it is a bus ride to the reservation town of Peach Springs.

     On the way we encounter a roadblock set up by the natural disaster team to begin the job of accounting for every person in the area. I remember the sleeping bags and pads down by Beaver Falls, ten hikers are still unaccounted for. A TV crew boards the bus and asks if anyone is ready to give a firsthand account of the events, we're not... too tired and dirty.  Little did we know there would be nine national TV station camera crews waiting at the high school gymnasium that is doubling as the Red cross center tonight, home sweet home.

     And it was sweet, I have not appreciated a shower quite as much since. Turns out we and four other hikers were the only ones to utilize the cot and blanket accommodations.  The villagers all seemed to have a relative to stay with.  But oh the stories I heard..... well they will take a whole new page to retell.

     Now here is the real mystery of this crazy adventure. When our 'outfitters superior' picks us up and reunites us with the rafts, EVERYTHING is here!!!  The four renegade rafts have navigated Lava Falls rapid on their own and they all did it without FLIPping! Even my map which was hastily slipped under my seat strap is still here and DRY. To me this is the craziest part of the story.  We all laugh when Matt says 'well now we know ..... all you have to do to make it through Lava is stop paddling a few miles above!'