WSP02307

• File Number: 8281.200
• Description: Colorado River Studies and Investigations -- Colorado River Management Plan
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 6/1/1981
• Author: National Park Serv
• Title: Draft Alternatives for the Colorado River Management Plan
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

INTRODUCTION

e,
'"
c.::.
f'.:)
o

\

t

"A river traverses time as well as topography, it
runs not only through country but through man-
kind."
--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 miles the Colorado courses through
some of the most spectacular scenery in North
America.
The Colorado River throngh 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 elusive
desert bighorn truly own the landscape and people
come to participate rather than to dominate.
For 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
shores ide willow.
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, hurried lives.

1