Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River (28 page)

Becky started to cry, "We're not going to make it."

Keller stood. "WE ARE GOING TO MAKE IT! Come on folks. Give me all you got.
NOW!"

All six rafters dug in with the paddles and pulled as fast as they could. David's arms were burning. If anything, the raft seemed to be a few feet farther from the shore. The beach swept by at an alarming speed. Then the beach was gone, replaced by rocks.

"Damn it!" Keller sat down. "Okay, right side paddle a little and let's get away from these rocks."

The rafters gasped for breath. Becky sobbed in slow convulsions. Sam put his hand on her shoulder.

The beach was the raft's second failed attempt at a campground in the last fifteen minutes. Keller kept commenting that the speed of the water was increasing dramatically as it rose. David didn't think the group needed Keller to keep reminding them. It was obvious. It made timing the landings much more difficult. Three other campgrounds Keller wanted to stop at had been completely underwater when they passed. David was beginning to wonder if they would be able to land the raft at all.

Afram swiveled and looked at Keller. "How far's the next one?"

Keller looked around, rubbing his forehead. "
Forster
Canyon
is the next big one, but it's on the other side of the river." He stood up in the raft and looked across. "But it's only about a half a mile. We'll never make it in time." Keller sat down as the raft slid through a rapid splashing the left side of the boat.

"What about past Forster?" Afram asked.

"
There's
a couple small ones around the bend, but I bet they're under water too."

Becky turned around still sobbing. "Well what're . . . we . . . gonna do?"

"There's a small canyon about a mile down on our right. It's too rocky to make a good campsite, but maybe we can land there and find some shelter in the canyon until the water subsides a little."

"Can we rest for a minute?" David asked.

"Yeah.
Good idea. Everybody rest," Keller said.

* * *

5:15 p.m. -
Hoover
Dam,
Nevada

After an hour of phone calls, conference calls, explanations, arguments, persuasion, and coercion, the gates were finally opening at Davis and Parker Dams. The decisions would not have been made without Rally Jenkins, the governor of
Nevada
. His clout made the difference, especially when the governors of
Arizona
and
California
got involved. With a break in the action, Fred motioned for Grant to follow him.

"How long since you ate anything?"

Grant looked at his watch. "Not since I got here."

"I thought so. I sent one of my guys out to get us some sandwiches. Let's take a little walk and clear our minds a bit."

Fred led him up the stairs and out the glass doors into the hot, dry
Nevada
air. Grant shielded his eyes from the sun until they adjusted. The stifling air immediately sapped the energy from his body.

Fred started walking away from the visitor center, out onto Hoover Dam. Grant followed. Fred walked on the sidewalk, even though the road was closed. As they walked, Grant looked down the downstream side of the dam to the river below. Fred stopped in a five by five foot viewpoint jutting out from the top of the dam. He leaned over the rail, which was actually an eighteen-inch thick concrete wall, and looked straight down the face of the dam.

"I wanted to get you out here before you talked to the governor about your idea of intentionally breaching Davis Dam."

Grant put his head down and kicked at a candy wrapper on the ground. "Yeah, I can only imagine how he'll react to that."

"Are you absolutely sure that it's going to fail?"

"Of course, based on the report from the -"

"How do you know the report is right? Didn't they make lots of assumptions when they put it together?"

Grant looked up. "Fred, the computer modeling is all we've got. The engineers spent months putting the report together. Even if it's not perfectly accurate, it's predictions could be worse just as easy as they could be better. Besides, the report is based on facts, numbers, and calculations. You want us to make decisions on feelings instead?"

They were both silent for a moment. Then Fred continued. "You said that the water is thirty feet lower in
Lake Mead
than the report assumed. Plus, blowing the two spillways should drop it another three feet." Fred turned and looked across the crest of the dam. "So what's your guess as to how much water's going to go over the top?"

Grant looked across the dam too, as if the answer was painted on the cliffs on the other side. "We have a couple other things going for us. The study assumed that both Lake Mead and
Lake
Powell
would be full, as a worst case.
Lake
Powell
is lower than normal due to this drought. With both lakes lower, it'll make a big difference. That's what I've got Shauna doing. She's trying to adjust the numbers based on the lower levels. My guess is that when it's all said and done, ten to fifteen feet of water is going to go over this dam, but twenty is not out of the question."

"Well that's better than the seventy you told the governor."

"Yeah, but even if it were only five feet, it would still take out Davis and Parker Dams. I don't see anyway possible to prevent it."

Fred looked over the face of the dam again, seemingly mesmerized. He looked depressed. When he finally raised his head, his face seemed lifeless. "So what you're saying is that seventy years ago, five thousand men spent five years building this dam seven hundred and twenty six feet high, and it needed to be fifteen feet higher."

The reality of Fred's observation hit Grant in the gut. His heart skipped two beats. He looked across the dam,
then
ran out into the middle of US-93 to get a better look. He looked right down the yellow line across the dam. He mentally calculated the distance between the handrails on both sides.

"That's it Fred!" He looked at his watch. "You're a genius."

"What is it?" Fred joined him in the middle of the street. "What did I say?"

Grant turned and started running back toward the visitor center with Fred right behind. He called over his shoulder. "We'll make the dam twenty feet higher! Let's go talk to the governor."

CHAPTER 19

5:30 p.m. -
Lake Powell
,
Utah

Julie couldn't help but marvel at the height of the watermarks on the rock walls. She guessed the water levels had dropped over seventy feet. The crowd of boats heading south had grown too. There were literally hundreds of boats, and they could be divided into two groups, the sane, and the insane. The sane meandered down the center of the channel at a steady pace; this group included many houseboats. The second group, the insane, swerved back and forth recklessly in between and around the others; this group included the faster crafts including smaller water-ski boats and all types of personal water craft. When Greg merged the Mastercraft in with the other boats, part of Julie was glad that he chose the steady pace of the sane, but a small part of her understood the other group, and wanted him to gas it.

At one point, the canyon had narrowed at a bend in the river, forcing everyone to slow, including the insane. Boats funneled together, bumper-to-bumper, through the tight turn caused by the much lower river. Paul had moved to the bow, and with his feet, kept the boat from banging into the boats in front of them. After the delay, and the river widened again, the boats were able to accelerate back to speed.

They had continued that way for a while, when Greg slowed the Mastercraft again. Julie stood and looked at what must be five hundred boats crammed together, all of them snaking around a huge red rock butte directly in front of them. The butte, which appeared as if someone had placed it right in the middle of the channel to block traffic, was vaguely familiar, yet something looked out of place.

"Where are we?" Julie asked.

Greg pointed at the rock. "That's Gregory Butte. And over on the right is
Last
Chance
Bay
."

Julie looked around. "Wait. I thought Gregory . . ."

Greg pointed to the left of the huge rock structure. "Normally, we pass through over there. All that . . ." He motioned across a rock plateau from Gregory to the left shore. ". . .
is
usually underwater."

Julie saw that the exposed rock left of Gregory Butte was dark and wet, something she should have noticed before. She tried to imagine what the area would look like if it were still underwater. She decided that if the water level had been higher, she might have recognized the butte, if not by name, at least by sight.

As the Mastercraft fell in line with the other boats, they again drifted almost to a complete stop. Paul flipped the boat's bumpers over the side and climbed back on the bow. A boat nudged the Mastercraft gently from behind.

Exhaust from so many boats in close proximity made it hard to breathe. Since the line wasn't moving at all, Greg shut off the engine. Many of the other boats followed. Within minutes of stopping, other boats filled in behind them until Julie could barely see water. Although they drifted slowly downstream, Julie was sure walking would have been faster.

They heard a radio squawk in an old red boat that had pulled up next to them. Julie and Greg's boat did not have a radio. There had been one in the houseboat, but they never used it because it did not work when they were in the canyons.

Greg motioned to a bearded man in the red boat. "What's happening on the radio?"

The bearded man with tattoos on both arms took a swig from a can of Coors. By the glazed look in his eyes, it wasn't his first. A woman stood up next to him, and although she didn't have a beer in her hand, she had the same lazy look in her eyes as the bearded man.

The man motioned downstream. "The
Castle
Rock
Pass
is officially closed. The water's already too low to get through to Wahweap".

Julie didn't like the sound of what she heard. Wahweap was the largest of the three primary marinas, and the only one on the south end of the lake for fifty miles. It was where the Crawford's car and boat trailer was parked.

"What does that mean?" Julie asked her husband.

"Well, it's bad, but we knew that would happen. It means if we want to go back to Wahweap, we have to go all the way around
Antelope
Island
, right past the dam," He grimaced. "
what's
left of it."

Julie shivered at the thought. Wahweap Marina was not built on the edge of the river, but on a large bay named
Wahweap
Bay
that branched off of the river. To travel up lake from Wahweap, boaters avoided the main channel, instead taking a shortcut through a shallow gap next to Castle Rock Butte into
Warm
Creek
Bay
. Whenever the water in
Lake
Powell
dropped low enough, Castle Rock became impassable, and everyone was forced to go the long way, an additional twenty miles down the windy main river channel, around
Antelope
Island
, and then back into
Wahweap
Bay
. The entrance to
Wahweap
Bay
was only a mile from the Glen Canyon Dam.

Greg had told her that in the early days, while the lake was still filling, the only possible route was the long way around Antelope. But after the lake filled and flooded between the two bays, a shortcut was born, and
Antelope
Peninsula
became
Antelope
Island
, and all traffic immediately diverted, leaving the main river channel and the backside of Antelope largely unused. Exceptions occurred in the late summers of dry years, when the water dropped low enough to force everyone around again. In these years, the park service sometimes dredged Castle Rock Channel to delay the inevitable detour as long as possible.

Although Julie was concerned about the time that would be lost on the detour, the danger of passing so close to the dam was her main concern.

She questioned her husband. "Won't that be dangerous? Aren't you afraid we'll get sucked over the dam if we get that close?"

Greg nodded.
"Yeah, sure."
He turned back to the bearded guy. "How fast is the water moving down there, aren't they afraid some of these boats are going to go over the dam?"

The man motioned with his beer can.
"Well, first of all, the rangers ain't sayin nothin on the radio.
I'm getting my info from other boaters. But yeah, for a while they were making all the houseboats divert into
Warm
Springs
Bay
. Course nobody wanted to just wait in the bay till they got grounded, so it sounds like they stormed the ranger boats or something, cause now the rangers aren't tryin to stop em no more."