9464

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9464
• Author: Burton, D. K. and K. M. Irving, eds.
• Title: The Rivers We Know
• USFW Year: 2002.
• USFW - Doc Type: An Anthology of River Experiences,
• Copyright Material: YES

ter to Peach Springs, Arizona, to spend our nights at a motel.
After a few nights, it got quite expensive, so the director asked if
we wouldn't mind camping on shore like we did on our trips and
said he'd buy us anything we wanted. He could tell this com-
mercial was going to take a long time to shoot since we had to
wait for the right sun conditions and the right cloud conditions
and everything else. We all had big steak dinners every night and
everything we wanted to drink. They'd bring beer and wine and
pop and steaks, and we'd camp on shore.
It was so much fun to wait for those guys. They wouldn't get
out of bed until 10 o'clock, then they'd wait for the sun to be just
right, before we could get ready to go. The rest of us sat around
and played poker. One morning we were parked on a sandbar
playing nickel-ante poker when one of the fellows turned around
and saw part of the helicopter in the water! The river had come
up and was washing across the floor of the copter, about to take
it away. The pilot ran out through the water, got in, started it
and took off with this big stream of water running out of it. He
parked it on a higher place, then came back and said, "Don't tell
anybody." We were all surprised at that. The man wasn't very
good at poker. He was an awfully good pilot, but he lost some
nickels to us.
On another rapid we had everything ready and in position so
we could cut the line and turn the raft loose, but the line tangled.
It was all messed up. We couldn't cut it from the boat that was
pulling the raft because it would show in the shot. So, we had to
swing the pulling boat around to the log raft to untie the rope. PJ
decided he'd jump across and untie it, then we'd pick him up. As
I circled in to the raft, PJ jumped onto it, untied the line and we
let it go. Then I looked up and realized we were into the rapid, a
great big one, and I called, "PJ, I can't get to you!"
Earl Leseberg, pilot and owner of Lake Mead Air Service, was
there and he yelled at PJ, "Jump in the car and lay on the seat!"
SO, PJ did. He went into that great big rapid, without any con-
trol, inside the car, lying on the front seat. We hurried down
after him with rescue boats that had on them so we could

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