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<H:j, Co) N ~ ~ t..> INT~ODUCTION "A river traverses time as well as topography it runs not only through country but through mankind." Wallace Stegner The Colorado River, after draining nearly one-twelfth of the continental United States, cuts west at the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau and begins its traverse of the Grand Canyon. For the next 277 mi les the Colorado courses through some of the most spectacular scenery in North America. The Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, the longest stretch of recreational whitewater in the world, offers one of the most sought-after river trips in the United States. People come to the river with many different expectations. Some come with a dream, hoping for an experience capable of temporarily dismantling their lives, rearranging them around a world of wind and sand and water and rock; a world in which the purposeful flight of the snowy egret against black, ageless rock takes precedent; where the clear, descending solo of the canyon wren echoes off sandstone walls; where icy water slaps skin stretched taut by hot sun; where elusi ve desert bighorn truly own the landscape and people come to participate rather than to dominate. F or many, it is a place that offers discomfort and bares hidden fears, marked at times by exhaustion, tension and sand encrusted sleeping bags, where human interaction necessarily means cooperation in everything from setting up the cook table to identifying the small bird seen in the shoreside wiliow. On the river underpinnings are removed and people quickly have to face themselves and those in their small, isolated group. It is a place where one can feel the hypnotic oscillations of waves on the beach at dusk and come slowly to the subtle realization that there is really no need to put on a wristwatch this morning. It is dramatic country in which we can senSe another rhythm, something older and more stable than what controls our normal, hu rri ed lives. 1 .-