So there we were, in the direct aftermath of 9/11, spiraling through the rapids of Ladore Canyon with our covert-ops team leader, the Blind Reverend Dirty Mertz, directing our exuberant flotilla deeper and deeper into the abyss. Hopefully, we’d be able to locate sand deep enough within which to stick our heads.
Prior to dropping through the imposing Gates of Ladore into that most precipitous of the Uinta Mountain river canyons, there were, what with the previous day’s events and all, even more mixed emotions than the exhilaration, wonder, and apprehension usually associated with that drop-dead gorgeous geological landscape.
What a turn of events! I had been anticipating the arrival of September 11, 2001, for over a month, ever since word began spreading on a Bob Dylan online message board that his next album of newly-crafted material, “Love And Theft,” would be released on that date.
Knowing we’d be slipping out of Dodge as early as possible that day and trying to remain ahead of the curve, I had enlisted Brian Richards and his now-sorely-missed Orion record shop in a scheme whereby I could come into possession of the disc soon after UPS dropped it off the night before. Recognizing obsessive-compulsive musical behavior when he sees it, Brian, ever the therapist, acquiesced.
I played it on the way home, continually throughout the evening and, later that night, drifted off to it, nestling deeper and deeper into that strange and hallowed sound with its haunting take on the human condition.
Having set the player to alarm-clock-mode, I awoke with a smirk and, without missing a beat, “cranked it” as I went about tossing some last-minute items into my dry bags for the impending river trip. I didn’t need no stinkin’ TV news.
Everything on the Ladore checklist, including my column for September 12 — a somewhat whimsical pre-Olympic inspection tour of Snowbasin, the Shooting Star saloon in Huntsville, and Powder Mountain — had been crossed off. As I went out to start the truck, the new Dylan disc in hand, I was smugger than thou!
Upon turning the key, however, NPR news informed me that the world as I knew it was going up in smoke somewhere around the 96th floor of the north tower at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Before I got to work the south tower had been hit. By then, all residual smugness had left the building.
Following the collapse of the towers, many would leave their respective jobsites early that day, heading home to comfort or to find comfort. Word from the outfitter, the aforementioned Admiral Mertz of Dinosaur River Expeditions, was that the end-of-season private float trip down the Green River from the Gates of Ladore to Split Mountain was still on.
Three of us, a queen and two drones who had cavorted with this same bunch the year before, didn’t see any upside to not participating, so we assembled our gear and headed out to Vernal to gather with the rest of the carnival troupe. Why not return to the scene of what were, after all, quite splendid crimes.
Besides, Ladore was sacred space! There was spiritual solace to be had. Not to mention the lure of spending the better part of a week frolicking with friends upon moving water and swapping lies around nighttime campfires. And, of course, with Scooter and Rabbit and Mertz on board, there would be help in dealing with that aforementioned thirst.
Not to say it wasn’t a bit eerie in the canyon, what with no airplanes flying overhead for days on end and inexplicable bursts of light along the horizon. But, from the beginning, it was always about allowing the rapids and natural grandeur getting us through whatever emotional trauma might have stowed away on the boats.
And, indeed, through Disaster Falls, Triplet Falls, and Hell’s Half Mile, and Echo Park, Whirlpool Canyon, Island Park, and Split Mountain, absolution and atonement were available for the asking. And if those didn’t turn everyone’s crank, the “Boatman’s Ball” overnighter at Jones Hole, always the jewel of any Ladore or Yampa trip, would certainly have set you free.
Knowing the outside world loomed with uncertainty, however, was a given not easily dispensed with. Whatever unexpected residuals of the carnage at Ground Zero were awaiting our take out from the river, we would just have to deal with them. Even though our biggest fear of that final day was the knowledge that we would be reinserting ourselves into a world of, heaven forbid, long pants and shoes.
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and an observer, participant, and chronicler of the Park City and Wasatch County social scenes for the past 40 years.