WEBVTT - Kenton Grua: Grand Canyon Legend 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:03.400 Hey, everybody out there in the Pacific Northwest or with 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.000 access to an airport or a car rental place that 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:08.880 can get you to the Pacific Northwest specifically at the 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:13.240 end of January. We'll see you in Seattle, Portland, and 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:14.120 San Francisco. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.079 That's right to Our new live show for twenty twenty 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.760 four is Seattle, Washington January twenty fourth at the Paramount Theater, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.800 then Portland at our Homeway from Home at Revolution Hall 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:25.840 the twenty fifth, and then winding it all up at 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.440 Sketchfest on the twenty six at the Sydney Goldstein Theater. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.879 Very nice. If you want tickets, if you want information, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.400 if you want tickets, you can go to a couple 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.440 of places. You can go to our link tree at 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.240 Linktree slash sysk, and you can go to our home 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.760 on the web, Stuff youshould Know dot com. Click on 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.040 the tour button and it'll take you to all of 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:47.879 the beautiful places you can go to buy your tickets 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.800 and we'll see you guys in January. 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:58.880 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.040 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.200 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:06.640 should know. 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:09.360 That's right. 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.360 Life is a highway. I want to arrive in all 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:14.360 night long, not again down the. 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:20.440 River Canadian legend Tom broke off. That's right. No, it's 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:20.800 not right. 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:26.280 But hey, we want to welcome yet another new writer 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.240 that's helping us out. Welcome Anna, because Anna helped us 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.200 with this and Anna Green and I thought this. She 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.240 did a really good job. And we hope Ana can 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.640 write some more stuff for us in the future. And 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.680 I could have sworn this was a listener suggestion, and 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.880 I looked and I just could not find it. So 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.840 if someone suggested that we do a show on a 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:55.520 gentleman named Kenton Grua who was a Grand Canyon river guide, 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.760 pretty remarkable person, then I'm really sorry because I really 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:00.840 I looked and looked there em but I just couldn't 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.560 find it. So that was nice. Yeah, if you want 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.600 to write in and say, hey, that was me, I'll 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.680 check it against my records and we'll give you a 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:09.359 future shot out. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.600 Also, I got to give Anna the coronation. You ready, 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:16.919 that's right? All right? 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.440 Welcome aboard the old mouth wornon. 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.320 So we're talking Kent and grewa never heard of this 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.440 person before in my life until I started researching this person, 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:32.360 this man, this legend actually really Yeah, he's especially if 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.120 you spend much time hanging out with Grand Canyon riverfolk, 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.000 you will you will hear stories of Kent and Grua, 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.040 although apparently not from him while he was alive. He's 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.359 supposedly very humble as far as his own accomplishments go. 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.639 But if you if you talk to one of his friends, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.160 you would probably get some thrilling stories out of them 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:58.040 because he did some pretty interesting stuff along that Colorado River. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:02:59.200 Yeah. 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.320 Absolutely, And we also want to shout out a book 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:08.359 that both Anna and we and we used. Kevin Fodarco 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:11.400 wrote a book called The Emerald Mile about this river run, 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.799 this record breaking timed river run down the Grand Canyon River, 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.760 Colorado River, and I knew the name, and then I 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.440 remember that I watched this great documentary from nat GEO 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.120 called Into the Canyon and Kevin Fodarco was one of 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.359 the guys. He and a guy named Pete McBride hiked 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.720 almost seven hundred and fifty miles from one end of 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.960 the canyon to the other and made this really gorgeous, 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.360 gorgeous documentary so I highly recommend Into the Canyon as 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.720 well as the book The Emerald Mile and Big thanks 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.080 to everything that Kevin Foderco does in terms of raising 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:48.680 awareness for the Grand Canyon. 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.160 Like, think about that, man, that's so many miles you 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.280 would have to get a new pair of shoes. At 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:54.800 some point in the middle of that. 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.240 I think they did you have to take they I 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.480 think they bailed on an attempt and then came back 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:03.720 and did it or something I can't remember, but just 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:08.680 gorgeous photography and really good stuff. The Grand Canyon is 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.600 just a truly a magical place. If you've never been there, 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.880 just go. It's one of those places that were like, yeah, 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.039 I've seen pictures and stuff, but it's one of the 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.760 place one of the few places that where I truly 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.600 understood the meaning of bread taking. Like I actually literally 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.800 got physically short of breath when I first stood there 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:27.840 on that rim. 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:29.200 Like you had a panic attack. 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.320 No, it was just truly breathtaking. It's really really just 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:34.760 you gotta go, you gotta do it. 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.040 Have you been, Yes, I have. I've been to the 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.640 North Rim. I didn't ride a burrow or anything like that, 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.120 but I did look down and get to see the 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:48.440 whole thing from that wooded, forested north Rim. That is 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:50.080 not like what you think of when you think of 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.760 the Grand Canyon. It's like just a whole other side 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:53.880 of it. It's really neat. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:55.679 Yeah, it's amazing. 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:57.920 I did have a panic attack, That's why I couldn't 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.279 breathe because I was looking over into it. I'm like, 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.320 I'm this is I can't do this. But yeah, it's 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:04.760 pretty pretty neat for sure. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.240 Yeah, I've never been down to the river. My friend 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.320 Brett and I hiked down there's I don't know, I'm 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.080 not sure how far down it is, but we hiked 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.640 down to there's this one sort of area where you 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.440 can hike down to and hang out for a bit 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:19.120 if you don't want to go down all the way, 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:23.080 and then hike back out and young in shape Chuck. 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.960 That hike out was one of the toughest things I've 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:26.800 ever done. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.640 Because you're basically just going up right. 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.360 Up, up, up up up up in the heat. Heat. Heat. 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:35.240 Oh wow. So back to Kent and Grua. He was 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.080 somebody who could hike up the sides of the canyon 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.279 up out of it because he did that a lot, 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.600 mostly because he spent a lot, essentially his entire adult 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.000 life in the Grand Canyon along the Colorado River, and 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.520 if you wanted to go see his family or friends 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:54.800 see a movie, that's what he had to do. He 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:56.920 had to hike out of the Grand Canyon to go 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.640 do those things. So he was, from every thing I saw, 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:07.520 extraordinarily fit but also kind of at one with the canyon. 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.720 If anybody could be, he was definitely one of those people. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.159 Yeah, for sure. He was born in Salt Lake City 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.480 in nineteen fifty and was really big into snow skiing 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.760 until he was twelve years old when his family, because 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:28.560 of business his father started a trucking company, moved to Vernal, Utah. 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.480 At the time, there was no skiing in Vernal and 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.640 so his dad said, hey, kiddo, you're twelve, you'd love 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.880 to be outdoors in adventure, so let's go on a 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.640 rafting trip. And they went to the Yampa River for 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.760 his birthday and kitt and Grua was like, this is 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.080 where it's at. I love river rafting. So pops bought 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:54.600 him a army surplus raft and he, as a young kid, 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.600 started taking these little solo rafting trips. And that's kind 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.560 of where he learned how to navigate rivers. Initially he 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.440 got the river bug. He totally got the river bug. 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.440 A few years later, he was going to study mechanical 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:11.400 engineering at the University of Utah, and during winter break 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.440 of freshman year, he was offered a job working for 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:20.320 Hatch River Expeditions, river boating outfit along the Colorado River 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.760 in the Grand Canyon. And he said, so long college, 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.960 I'm going to go do this. And the job was 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.720 even just patching boats, like it wasn't even as a 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.360 river guide. But that's how much he'd loved spending time 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.520 not just on the river but specifically the Colorado River 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.200 in the Grand Canyon itself. Yeah, but because of his 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.160 natural talent and his just complete passion for the job, 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:45.800 he became river guide within just a few months of 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:46.960 his first job there. 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:48.320 Yeah. 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:53.040 Absolutely, so he's now taking an adventuresome tourist through the 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:57.239 Grand Canyon down the river. He got another job after 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.560 that at Grand Canyon Expeditions for a little while and 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.880 met a really important person in his life. There, a 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:08.000 mentor in some way as far as conservationism god named 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.920 Martin Litton l I T t O N who was 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.320 starting his own company, his own expedition company, and Litton 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:21.200 was about he was all about just preserving the not 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.840 just the Grand Canyon, but just all of nature, and 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.320 was just sort of ashamed of what humankind had done 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.720 to nature. And in fact, the boat that grewa would 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:38.920 eventually pilot down the Colorado River for that record breaking run. 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.240 It was called the Emerald Mile. These boats Linton had, 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.319 he would name them after natural wonders that had been 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.440 destroyed by humans as a reminder. And this apparently the 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.640 Emerald Mile was a stretch of old growth redwoods in 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.440 California that were clear cut in the sixties. So he 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.400 named this wooden dory, this boat that you paddle with 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.640 oars after that stretch of redwoods. 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.240 Yeah, and no Dori in particular. For the most part, 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.240 people at the time, and I think still today, were 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.280 going down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon on 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.720 these expedition tours in rubber boats like zodiacs, like motorized 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.920 boats that you could bump up against rocks all day 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:20.880 and they were probably going to be fine. 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:23.199 That's Some of them were regular boats. 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.360 What do you mean regular like a pontoon. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.080 No, Like in the early days, they were just like, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.120 I saw something that looked like old wooden Chris crafts. 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:33.840 Oh wow, okay, wow, that's kind of cool talk about 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:35.280 doing it. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:36.280 Yeah, okay. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.320 So the dory itself, though, it was originally like a 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:44.600 fishing boat that Europeans, I think the Portuguese were the 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.040 ones who really kind of perfected it would take out 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.079 on the ocean, so they were like sea worthy row 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.959 boats basically, and they eventually made their way to New 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.400 England where whalers would take them out, and then Martin 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.240 Linton got his hands on them for the Grand Canyon 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.440 because he was just like you you experience the Colorado 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.839 River in a dory in ways that you can't possibly 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.520 in a raft, let alone a motorized draft. So there 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.080 it's like a purposefully old timey antique way of going 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.920 down the Colorado River. And they still use dories today 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:17.720 as a matter of fact, some outfits too. 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.280 Yeah, and Greua was like, this thing is amazing, because 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.480 you know, he wanted, as we'll see, he really enjoyed 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.040 getting down that river fast and this the dory is 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.400 like they won't obviously, because they're made of wood, they 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.760 won't bounce off a rock like a raft will. But 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.280 they're much more able to be steered, they handle a 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.760 lot better, they're much more I don't know if lithe 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.679 is the right word, but you can motor down that 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.040 river in a dory better than you can in a 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:49.440 raft if you're into speed and churning. 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.640 Sure, but a lot of the most of the dory 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:57.640 expeditions use ors their road, right. Oh yeah, So the 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.160 other thing about it that you mentioned is that like 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.040 it won't handle bumping against rocks like a raft will. 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.200 They're much more fragile, much less forgiving than a rubber raft, 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.439 which means you have to be that much more experienced 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.920 and have that much greater ability to take a dory 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.320 down the Colorado River than you would like a raft. 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:20.719 Yeah, and you know, they can get dinged up a 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.680 little as I kind of thought at first, like you 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.040 hit a rock with one of these and you're sinking immediately. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:28.560 This explosion catches fire, right. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:33.199 Exactly, And I'm sure that can happen. But as as 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.600 you will see, you know they can. They can get 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.000 bumped up a little bit, and you know they're pretty hardy. 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.160 I think, yeah, no, for sure, but it's just some 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.480 of those rapids can be pretty rough on the old boat. 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:45.520 Yeah, absolutely so. 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.320 Grua was in love with dories just like Martin Linton was, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.120 and he came on Linton's company, Green Canyon Dories and 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.840 began piloting a dory called the Chattahoochie. He did that 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.120 for like ten years down the Colorado River. He made 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:06.920 nearly one hundred trips, which, by my estimation, that's almost 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.360 half of the days between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.000 seventy nine. When he made those hundred trips he spent 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:18.960 on the Colorado River. That's a lot of time on Colorado. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.240 That's exactly what he wanted to do. He could not 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.520 have been happier. He chose this life for himself and 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.520 he just did it. He made it work, and he 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.360 became an expert on the Colorado River as it runs 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:30.360 through the Grand Canyon. 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.440 Totally like reading this, I got very jealous of his life. 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.480 Yeah. I was looking at some of the dory expeditions 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:40.600 they have and I was like, man, that's amazing. Then 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.280 it's like eighteen days. I said, no, I'm not going 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.920 to do that. Like, are there helicopters that you can 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:47.640 lower in and do a couple of days and then 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.800 come out. No, there's not apparently. 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.000 Well sadly, there are helicopter trips that they will take 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.480 you down and land you on a big plateau. That's 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.520 one of the things I learned from that documentary that 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.960 Fiderco was in was they were trying to raise awareness 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.040 for these you know, they were trying to build some 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:11.120 big like hotel basically like halfway down the canyon, and 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.320 all these people were fighting it, seeing like you can't 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:13.719 do that. 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:15.080 You can't turn this into. 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.360 A place where people can get rich, people can get 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.640 helicoptered in and stay in a five star resort. 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.520 Like no, no, no, okay. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.320 First of all, I felt like a jackass before. Now 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.120 I really feel like a jackass. 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.040 But some of you were talking about getting dropped off 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.439 to Row. Sure, like ziplining out like a ranger. 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.760 Right, But I mean like walking down from a resort 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:39.240 to go row for a couple of days. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:40.840 Maybe that's as pretty good. 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:41.600 But the. 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.000 Kind of upshot of what you're saying is a good 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.440 analogy from what I understand. To compare rafting or boating 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.199 down the Colorado River these days would be like going 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.560 on an expedition to Everest. It is nothing like it 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.400 used to be. Yeah, even twenty thirty, forty years ago, 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.360 it's just gotten so much easier. There's so much money 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.240 being thrown at this now, it's just not even a 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.600 challenge any longer. It's like a posh vacation for people 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.439 who like to act like their adventurers. And I'm saying 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.360 that I'm not going to climb Everest, so I can't 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.320 really be critical, but I'm saying comparing it to how 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.920 it originally started, when these outfits were first created in 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:31.080 like the forties, fifties, sixties, it's just nothing like that today. 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.120 It's far more commercialized, I guess, is what I'm trying 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:33.480 to say. 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.320 Yeah, so in the meme how it started, how it's 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.600 going to be a person like bleeding from the head 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.120 and spitting a river water out of their mouth, and 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.080 then another one with a dude holding a martini as 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:47.800 he goes down the river. 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.240 Exactly, all right, I said. 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.480 We took a break, oh yeah, and we come back 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.960 and we talk a little bit more about Kenton Grua 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:19.320 the man. All right, as promised, We're going to tell 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.720 you a little bit more about the personality of Kent 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.920 and Grua. He was quite an adventurer like you said 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.680 was just in love with nature, and in particular the 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.160 Grand Canyon in that river. His nickname was the Factor. 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:34.200 If you ever read anything you're going to see him, 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.440 probably called Kenton the Factor Grua and that was because 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.440 apparently he was just like this larger than life personality 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.280 and like anytime he was a part of something he 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.480 had some sort of influence on it, he was a factor, 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:49.840 and thus the Factor. 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.000 Yeah, we'll put he was also very fond of pot 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:59.240 and drinking liquor while he was working on the trail 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.520 and after, I guess after rowing for the day, sitting 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.480 on a beach, Yeah, you'd probably light up what one 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:06.000 might call it. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.200 Split back then might be a doobie for sure. 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.320 And I'll bet it just gave you a headache instantly. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.200 But he also is a little kind of fashion conscious, 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.200 you can say. Anna points out that he would wear 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:24.720 cutoff levies that look cool, especially if you're barefoot and 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.520 you have long hair in your stone. But if you're 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.320 like falling the water, it takes like a week for 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.200 those things to dry out. So long story short, Kent 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.320 and Gruel was very frequently chafed on the inside of 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:38.920 his thighs. 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.720 Right he was not at all man. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.800 He was five foot six, but you know, had an 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:51.440 outsized personality and sense of adventure. I guess there was 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.240 one story that he was on one expedition and they 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.360 drank all the booze, so he hiked all the way 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.800 out of the Grand Canyon to go get more booze, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:00.600 hike back in. 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.840 Yeah, that's just one story about Kent and grew, but 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.439 it definitely drives the point home. Like he liked booze, 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.360 but he was also willing to physically exert himself at 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.880 the drop of a hat. So he was a tough 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:19.439 dude essentially, But he was also supposedly really kind and 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.720 gentle with the tourists that he took down the river. Yeah, 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:25.359 he was well known for that. But he was also 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.960 known for being very opinionated about how the river should 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:34.159 be navigated, how an expedition should be run, and so 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:36.680 he would be more than likely to butt heads with 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.040 some of the other river guides that he worked with, 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.560 but that didn't rub off toward the passengers, which I 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:43.680 think makes him a pro. 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.600 I'd say, yeah, absolutely, And you know we're going to 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.160 build up sort of story wise to the record breaking 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.520 river run. But he did some pretty remarkable things before that, 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.320 one of which was to hike the entire length of 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.600 the Grand Canon from Lee's Ferry to Grand Wash Cliffs. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.679 He read a book in nineteen sixty eight that was 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:10.800 a backpacker named Colin Fletcher who did that hike, well 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.520 sort of, we'll see the man who walked through Time 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.720 was the book and he said, I'm the first person 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:18.439 to hike the entire link of the Grand Canyon. 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.720 And Grew was like, no, you didn't. 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:26.040 You hiked the canyon within the National Park System. But buddy, 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.000 that ain't all of the Grand Canyon. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:28.879 The guy went, what. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.160 So I'm going to do it? And he did. 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.119 He tried a couple of times, he tried the first time, 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:39.320 and you know, this is two hundred and seventy seven 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.679 miles as the crow flies. Yeah, like I mentioned before, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.320 when Faderka did it, they hiked seven hundred and fifty miles. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.200 Because you can't just walk a straight line, there's things 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.560 you just can't navigate around, so you're having to hike, 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.439 you know, three times as much or at least two 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.280 and a half times as much as the length of 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.159 the canyon to complete that high. 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:02.560 That's a nuts and he did it first time he 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:04.560 tried it. Remember I said he liked to run around 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.560 barefoot and cut off Levi's oh, yeah, well this he 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:09.760 realized he was going on a very long hike, so 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:11.880 he went to the trouble of buying himself some leather 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.639 moccasins to hi kid. Those lasted very short time before 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.400 he started wearing through them and actually cut his foot 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:20.399 on a cactus started to get infected. He's like, I 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:21.880 should probably stop now. 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.360 That surprised me that he would. I mean, that's a mistake. 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:27.280 Yeah. 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:29.800 I think he knew that that wasn't going to work. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.000 You know, I don't know that that's true. Like he 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.560 was capable of making mistakes, for sure. He's also capable 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.760 of evolving his opinions and understandings about things. And he 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.280 wasn't so dumb that he kept going until he died, right, Yeah, 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.760 you know that was nineteen seventy two, I think. Yeah, 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.119 four years later, he's like, I'm going to do this different. 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:54.720 I'm going to not only wear work boots instead of moccasins. Smart, 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:55.800 move out of the gate. 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:56.800 Yeah. 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:02.119 He scouted the whole route in advanced and supply caches 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:04.880 along the route, so that he could travel as light 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.359 as possible, and that's when he set out that second time, 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:13.240 and that's when he was successful. Hiking almost six hundred 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:15.240 miles is the route that he took. 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:20.639 Wow, that is amazing. I think he if you average 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.119 it out, he was averaging like almost seventeen mile a 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:29.000 day clip, which is super fast. I mean, when I've 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.240 done hikes and I'm really hauling it, if I get 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:34.800 ten miles in a day, that's like a really long, 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.600 hard day. And he was in the Grand Canyon, arduous 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.600 conditions in the seventies when gear was not like it 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.199 is now and averaging close to seventeen miles a day, 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:47.560 which is nuts. It took him thirty six days to 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:48.440 complete the whole thing. 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:50.800 I can barely get seventeen miles in a day in 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:55.960 a helicopter, let alone hiking. So yeah, thirty six days 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.480 to hike almost six hundred miles. And this is again 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.280 it's not a straight line flat like there's up and 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.000 down and over and it's what he did was very significant, 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.560 and he became the first person on record at least 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.399 to have hiked the entire length of the Grand Canyon, 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.800 not just the National Park, the whole Grand Canyon. And 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:19.520 so whenever you're hearing about people boating through the Grand 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.159 Canyon on the Colorado River, what they're talking about is 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:28.320 that same length, the whole geographical Grand Canyon from Lee's 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.600 Ferry to Grand Wash cliffs. 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:32.680 Man. 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.800 All right, so let's talk a little bit about that 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.640 river run that you just described. You know, from point 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:46.000 to point. The very first expedition down that Colorado River 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.720 was by a guy, a Civil War veteran with one arm, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.920 named John Wesley Powell in eighteen sixty nine. It took 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:58.200 ninety eight days at that point and pretty much wrecked 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.199 the crew. I mean it was by the time they 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.760 got there, they were starving. Was it was a very 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:05.640 very tough ride in eighteen sixty nine. 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:08.800 Can I just say one thing about that expedition, Chuck? Sure, 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.840 Three of them, three members of the expedition said nuts 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:15.840 to this, like we're giving up, and set off on 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:20.280 foot and we're never heard from again. And they left 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.440 two days before this expedition finally reached its destination. They 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.560 just didn't know that they were that close to the end, 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.120 and they left and died. Isn't that crazy? 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:30.880 Yeah, that's sad. 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:33.399 Yeah, but they were the first Europeans on record to 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:37.480 have circumnavigated the Colorado River through the entire Grand Canyon, 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:38.680 and it was a big deal. 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.199 Yeah, that's like the old mine in apocalypse Now. Never 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:44.679 never get off the gd. 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:48.159 Boat, right, the gosh darn boat. 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:50.320 In the case of apocalypse. Now, it's because there might 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:51.359 be a tiger in the jungle. 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:54.280 Right. So I saw also that this was considered the 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:57.639 last voyage of discovery in North America. It was a 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.760 big deal that John Wesley Powllin is his grew did this. 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:01.800 That's right. 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:03.880 Then in nineteen forty nine there was a guy named 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.520 Ed Hudson who was a pharmacist who made a run 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:10.680 in a motor boat. So it was obviously the fastest 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.560 at the time at five days and ten minutes. And 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:18.719 then all of a sudden, motor boats and regular boats 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:23.359 started attempting these speed runs. People are trying to, you know, 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:28.320 break previous records. You know, depending on how adventurous you were. 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:29.920 I guess it depends on whether or not you want 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:34.160 to use some motor But obviously the berets are off 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:37.679 to the people who didn't use the motor. Yeah, I'm 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.040 sure it was still hard but it ain't like paddling, 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:40.479 you know. 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:45.040 No, Ed Hudson, a pharmacist in nineteen forty nine, he 0:23:45.440 --> 0:23:47.359 did it in like five days and ten minutes using 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:51.720 a motor boat. Jim and Bob Rigg I think two 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.200 years later, said nuts to the motor boat. We're going 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:59.080 to not only go down the same path that John 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:01.560 Wesley Powell did in eighteen sixty nine that nearly killed 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:06.119 him without a motor we're going to break Ed Hudson's 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:07.159 motor based record. 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.520 And they did actually, yeah, fifty two hours. 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:12.800 And this was at a time in the fifties when 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.840 like a tourist trip, that same tourist trip and a 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:19.879 non motorized boat would be about three weeks. And of 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:22.080 course they're not trying to break a record, they're trying 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.879 to show everyone a nice, good time, right exactly, probably 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:31.720 fairly relaxing, so it's not yeah, but some people did 0:24:31.760 --> 0:24:37.240 like the slow train. The longest attempt was in seventy three, 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:38.960 and that took one hundred and three days. That's a 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:40.240 little more of my speed, I think. 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.320 So we need to say something about the Colorado River. 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:46.439 As Kent and Grua knew it. He came along in 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:50.040 what was it, nineteen sixty eight or sixty nine, Yeah, 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:53.159 one hundred years exactly after John Wesley Powell Kent and 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.960 Grewa came along and took up life on the Colorado 0:24:57.040 --> 0:25:00.439 River through the Grand Canyon. But unfortunately for Kent Grewa, 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:03.680 that was six years after the I think the Department 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:08.280 of the Interior created the Glen Canyon Dam, yeah, upstream 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:12.520 of the Grand Canyon in uh on the Colorado River, 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:16.240 and the Colorado River was tamed. That's the best way 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:18.720 to put it. It was up to the I think 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:21.160 the Army Corps of Engineers or whoever runs the dam 0:25:21.200 --> 0:25:26.640 there at Glen Canyon to decide how much water the 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:29.640 Colorado River had. And before that it had been considered 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:34.360 the wildest river in America because the snow melt from 0:25:34.400 --> 0:25:39.400 the mountains upstream. Depending on how how much it snowed 0:25:39.440 --> 0:25:42.240 that year, and then how how much, how high the 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:46.000 temperatures rose, and how quickly they did that spring, that 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:50.080 river could turn wild in an instant because so much 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:52.359 water would come down from the mountains and it would 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:56.040 just flood the Colorado River, including some of the side canyons, 0:25:56.200 --> 0:25:58.960 and it would make it nuts. And Kent and Grua 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:03.600 he knew this too, came along after that ceased, and 0:26:03.640 --> 0:26:05.840 so now the Colorado was relatively mild. 0:26:06.760 --> 0:26:08.720 Yeah, Like, if you're going to go down a river 0:26:09.359 --> 0:26:13.399 and you want to see how you know, challenging it 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:16.800 might be as a rower, You're going to look at 0:26:16.840 --> 0:26:21.200 what's called the gradient in feet per mile, And obviously 0:26:21.640 --> 0:26:25.160 the higher the gradient, the more you know, the faster 0:26:25.240 --> 0:26:28.920 that water's going to be. A pretty wild river can 0:26:28.960 --> 0:26:31.879 have a gradient between twenty five and sixty feet per mile. 0:26:33.160 --> 0:26:37.520 The Colorado River has a gradient of eight feet per mile. 0:26:37.600 --> 0:26:40.480 So the actual you know, the where the river sits 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:45.320 and the land beneath that river, that gradient isn't too crazy. 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:49.000 It is the steepness of the sides of that canyon 0:26:49.440 --> 0:26:52.000 is what makes it crazy. Because, like you said, when 0:26:52.040 --> 0:26:55.760 that stuff flash floods and it hits the Colorado River, 0:26:56.560 --> 0:27:01.240 it can move boulders, it can create you know, waves, 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:03.080 and when that water hits the still water, it can 0:27:03.119 --> 0:27:05.879 create a wave like twenty to thirty feet high. 0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:09.399 Yeah, for sure in a river. Yeah. One of the 0:27:09.440 --> 0:27:12.199 reasons why stuff like that happens is because all that 0:27:12.359 --> 0:27:15.360 debris and boulder create these natural dams on either side 0:27:15.359 --> 0:27:18.359 of the river, narrowing the channel, speeding up the water, 0:27:18.680 --> 0:27:21.080 and once you have fast water running into slow water, 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:25.399 all sorts of crazy stuff happens. So speaking, geographically, the 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:28.760 Colorado River shouldn't have rapids, but because of its situation 0:27:29.400 --> 0:27:32.600 in that stretch of the Grand Canyon, it does. It 0:27:32.640 --> 0:27:35.920 has some pretty cool rapids. And Kent and Gruin knew 0:27:35.920 --> 0:27:37.760 how to do this, Like his job was to take 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:41.080 people through these rapids down this stream. But again the 0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:43.160 river that he was on was not the same river 0:27:43.240 --> 0:27:47.000 that John Wesley Powell had been on because of the dam. 0:27:47.440 --> 0:27:50.679 Yeah. Absolutely, So you. 0:27:50.720 --> 0:27:54.800 Want to talk about the first the first attempt in nineteen. 0:27:54.560 --> 0:27:58.480 Eighty, Yeah, I mean successful. A tip makes it sounds 0:27:58.520 --> 0:28:00.760 like he didn't do it. He actually did set a 0:28:00.800 --> 0:28:05.960 speed record in nineteen eighty I think how fast was 0:28:06.000 --> 0:28:06.280 that one? 0:28:06.480 --> 0:28:09.040 He did him forty six hours in fifty six minutes. 0:28:09.080 --> 0:28:12.400 He beat Jim and Bob Riggs nineteen fifty one record, 0:28:12.440 --> 0:28:15.040 which it stood for almost thirty years. 0:28:15.359 --> 0:28:18.200 Yeah, so he breaks the record and you would think, 0:28:18.320 --> 0:28:19.800 you know a lot of people would say like, all right, 0:28:20.160 --> 0:28:23.000 I did what I attempted to do, broke that record, 0:28:23.359 --> 0:28:25.800 But Kit and grew It was like man that river 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:29.920 was was not fast that day, a couple of days, 0:28:30.440 --> 0:28:33.240 and I can do this a lot faster. And he 0:28:33.359 --> 0:28:36.080 became sort of I don't know about obsessed, if that's 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:37.760 the right word. I don't know if someone who smoked 0:28:37.760 --> 0:28:39.520 that much weed can then get that obsessed or worked 0:28:39.560 --> 0:28:43.200 up about anything. But he said, I know I can 0:28:43.280 --> 0:28:45.800 do this if that like, it doesn't matter how fast 0:28:45.840 --> 0:28:49.240 I'm rowing. Unless I have a faster river just from 0:28:49.280 --> 0:28:53.360 the natural conditions, then I can't break that record. So 0:28:53.480 --> 0:28:57.400 I'm gonna wait until the conditions are right. And that 0:28:57.560 --> 0:29:02.280 happened in nineteen eighty three because of El Nino. It 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:04.640 was at the time, at least the most extreme El 0:29:04.760 --> 0:29:08.040 Nino that had happened to that point. Caused a ton 0:29:08.080 --> 0:29:11.880 of snow. All that snow melts at some point, and 0:29:12.240 --> 0:29:14.880 all of a sudden, you're gonna have flooding such that 0:29:15.960 --> 0:29:18.880 if you're measuring like a river flow, you measure it 0:29:18.960 --> 0:29:22.960 in cubic feet per second. The Colorado River through the 0:29:22.960 --> 0:29:27.440 Grand Canyon averages about twelve thousand to fifteen thousand cubic 0:29:27.440 --> 0:29:32.120 feet per second, and that summer that June specifically, I 0:29:32.160 --> 0:29:35.600 saw anywhere from between seventy thousand and one hundred thousand 0:29:36.120 --> 0:29:40.200 cubic feet per second, which is, you know, up seven 0:29:40.240 --> 0:29:41.440 to ten times as fast. 0:29:41.720 --> 0:29:45.160 Yeah, that is a lot more water. Number one, it 0:29:45.200 --> 0:29:49.560 goes a lot faster, and it changes the river. Like 0:29:49.680 --> 0:29:52.360 the river that he was used to, the rapids, he 0:29:52.440 --> 0:29:55.120 was used to the features that he had to circumnavigate 0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:59.200 during a normal boating trip down the Colorado. It was 0:29:59.320 --> 0:30:01.920 not there. They were different. They were altered by this 0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:05.680 huge influx of very fast moving water. And so what 0:30:05.800 --> 0:30:09.480 had happened is Kevin Fudarco points out in the Emerald 0:30:09.520 --> 0:30:14.480 Mile that for the first time, probably for the only 0:30:14.520 --> 0:30:17.040 time in his lifetime, Kent and Grua had a chance 0:30:17.120 --> 0:30:21.120 to take on the Colorado River, the same river that 0:30:21.240 --> 0:30:25.040 John Wesley Powell took on in eighteen sixty nine. This 0:30:25.080 --> 0:30:27.920 stuff did not happen. It caught the corp of engineers 0:30:28.240 --> 0:30:31.480 by surprise, so much so that they to keep the 0:30:32.160 --> 0:30:35.160 Lake Powell from topping over the Glen Canyon Dam, they 0:30:35.160 --> 0:30:39.720 were putting up plywood barriers. That's how unprepared they were 0:30:39.760 --> 0:30:43.200 for this incredibly historic flooding. I think there was like 0:30:43.600 --> 0:30:48.040 twenty six hundred miles of shoreline in Lake Powell. The 0:30:48.080 --> 0:30:52.040 reservoir that's behind the dam, and the reservoir was rising 0:30:52.120 --> 0:30:55.000 a foot a day, that's how much snow melt was 0:30:55.040 --> 0:30:58.120 coming down, And so they were just releasing. According to 0:30:58.160 --> 0:31:02.520 Arizona Central, up to a million cubic feet per second 0:31:02.880 --> 0:31:05.720 in a release at a time. So this was flooding 0:31:05.720 --> 0:31:08.600 the Colorado downstream. But it's the only option they had 0:31:08.640 --> 0:31:11.160 to keep the dam from breaking or from being toppled, 0:31:11.800 --> 0:31:15.560 and you know, the water coming out of control. So 0:31:16.040 --> 0:31:18.080 it was a wild river again all of a sudden, 0:31:18.120 --> 0:31:20.880 like it happened before. And Kent and Grew was all 0:31:20.960 --> 0:31:21.400 about that. 0:31:22.480 --> 0:31:23.320 He was all about it. 0:31:23.360 --> 0:31:26.160 So I say, we took a break and then we'll 0:31:26.160 --> 0:31:28.640 come back and let everyone know what happened on June 0:31:28.720 --> 0:31:49.200 twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three. 0:31:52.760 --> 0:31:56.040 Okay, So Kent and Grew says, it's time. Like that 0:31:56.200 --> 0:31:58.719 nineteen eighty record that I broke that I'm not very 0:31:58.760 --> 0:32:01.320 happy with, I'm now going to break that record. I'm 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:03.600 going to take this river like I know it can 0:32:03.640 --> 0:32:07.280 be taken. And he went to his friend Rudy Petschek, 0:32:07.680 --> 0:32:10.080 who was at the time forty nine. Kenton would have 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:15.120 been thirty three. Yeah, So Rudy Petchik was like old 0:32:15.760 --> 0:32:21.000 and then Steve Wren Reynolds was the other guy that 0:32:21.040 --> 0:32:23.440 they they brought on. So the three of them decided 0:32:23.480 --> 0:32:25.800 that they were going to take the Emerald Mile out 0:32:26.280 --> 0:32:30.000 onto the Colorado River. And they was by the way, 0:32:30.080 --> 0:32:34.560 okay Ren, Yeah, okay. And they went to the Park 0:32:34.600 --> 0:32:36.640 Service and said, hey, we'd like a permit. We're gonna 0:32:36.720 --> 0:32:39.360 take the Emerald Mile down the Colorado River. It's nuts 0:32:39.440 --> 0:32:42.000 right now, isn't it. And the Park Service said, no, 0:32:42.160 --> 0:32:43.120 you're not going to do that. 0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:45.760 Yeah, you got to get a permit to do something 0:32:45.800 --> 0:32:50.920 like that. They said, no, Like you said, they were 0:32:50.920 --> 0:32:55.160 trying to send people, trying to keep people off the river, 0:32:56.680 --> 0:32:58.520 and as we'll see you later on. They even had 0:32:58.680 --> 0:33:02.160 a ranger stationed on the river. I guess it was 0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:07.640 Benjamin Bratt probably telling people to get out. What you 0:33:07.680 --> 0:33:08.920 never saw the River wild. 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:11.920 No, is that the one with Bruce Willis where he's 0:33:12.200 --> 0:33:14.040 a cop in a boat. 0:33:14.680 --> 0:33:14.920 Nope? 0:33:15.040 --> 0:33:15.400 Okay. 0:33:16.400 --> 0:33:22.280 River Wilde was Meryl Streep and David Stratham, Kevin Bacon 0:33:22.440 --> 0:33:23.840 and John c Riley. 0:33:24.200 --> 0:33:27.520 Isn't Kevin Bacon like a crazy homicidal serial killer is 0:33:27.760 --> 0:33:29.240 stalking these guys? 0:33:29.880 --> 0:33:32.800 Not a serial killer. He's a bad guy. Though. Okay, 0:33:32.840 --> 0:33:34.560 it's a really good movie. I highly recommend it. 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:37.800 But Benjamin Bratt is a ranger that literally does what 0:33:37.840 --> 0:33:40.080 this other ranger did is like stationed down before the 0:33:40.080 --> 0:33:41.640 bad rapid saying get out. 0:33:41.800 --> 0:33:42.640 You shouldn't be here. 0:33:42.920 --> 0:33:46.000 I just want to shout out my favorite Benjamin Bratt 0:33:46.040 --> 0:33:50.080 fact that he was born on Alcatraz during the American 0:33:50.120 --> 0:33:52.480 Indian Movement's occupation of Alcatraz. 0:33:53.680 --> 0:33:54.600 Did we talk about that? 0:33:54.800 --> 0:33:58.120 Yeah, in our Alcatraz episode? 0:33:58.280 --> 0:33:59.560 And did not remember that? 0:33:59.600 --> 0:34:02.920 Well? Also talk about it in our forthcoming Benjamin Bratt episode. 0:34:04.240 --> 0:34:05.760 We haven't done one on Alcatraz, have we? 0:34:05.960 --> 0:34:09.880 Yes? Dude, you sure? I believe we did one on 0:34:09.960 --> 0:34:12.080 Alcatraz itself. And the escape from. 0:34:11.920 --> 0:34:14.840 Alcatraz, Yeah, I do remember escape from Alcatress. 0:34:14.920 --> 0:34:17.160 That escape from Alcatraz one, by the way, was a 0:34:17.200 --> 0:34:18.640 good one, all right. 0:34:18.680 --> 0:34:21.879 So he doesn't get the permit, so he goes back 0:34:21.920 --> 0:34:25.839 to Martin Litton, his mentor, and he says, hey, man, 0:34:26.000 --> 0:34:28.719 you got a lot of pull around here. I'm wondering 0:34:28.719 --> 0:34:31.000 if you could help me out, And Linton said, sure, 0:34:31.080 --> 0:34:36.200 I'll call up the Grand Canyon National Park superintendent himself, 0:34:36.520 --> 0:34:41.360 Richard Marx ks not X. Did we gonna make it 0:34:41.440 --> 0:34:42.080 Richard Marx to it? 0:34:42.760 --> 0:34:44.920 No, I just thought it would if it had been 0:34:45.440 --> 0:34:48.200 b Richard Marx, like in his life, right before he. 0:34:48.440 --> 0:34:51.200 Hit it big, right, and he said, he said, you 0:34:51.200 --> 0:34:53.160 know what, it don't mean nothing. And he went, hey, 0:34:53.280 --> 0:34:54.360 that's got a nice ring to it. 0:34:54.480 --> 0:34:58.040 Yeah, that's right, sign on the dotted line. 0:34:58.160 --> 0:35:00.839 That's a good song, it is. And so Mark said, 0:35:01.520 --> 0:35:02.600 all right, here's what I'll do. 0:35:03.400 --> 0:35:05.719 I will call up the rangers out there on the 0:35:05.800 --> 0:35:09.680 river tomorrow and I'll get back to you. He didn't 0:35:09.680 --> 0:35:13.479 get back to them, and so Litton and Grewubo said, 0:35:13.920 --> 0:35:16.880 I guess that means we have permission, right, right, And 0:35:16.920 --> 0:35:20.160 so they took off on June twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three. 0:35:20.239 --> 0:35:23.360 Yeah, eleven pm they took off. I guess under the 0:35:23.400 --> 0:35:26.279 cover of darkness. Maybe that's the only reason I can 0:35:26.320 --> 0:35:28.000 think of that they took off so late. 0:35:28.840 --> 0:35:32.360 Yeah, Or maybe they just timed it so they've finished 0:35:32.440 --> 0:35:34.080 at a certain time, or I don't know. 0:35:34.160 --> 0:35:36.759 I don't know either, but they did take off just 0:35:36.800 --> 0:35:37.640 before midnight. 0:35:38.080 --> 0:35:38.919 That to heat. 0:35:39.000 --> 0:35:43.719 Maybe maybe that's a great one. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. Anyway, 0:35:44.200 --> 0:35:49.440 the fact is this, they were paddling for hours in 0:35:49.800 --> 0:35:54.239 pitch darkness because the canyons, the canyon walls of the 0:35:54.239 --> 0:35:58.040 Grand Canyon can prevent the sunlight from hitting inside the 0:35:58.080 --> 0:36:03.120 canyon at the river level during the day. This was nighttime, 0:36:03.600 --> 0:36:06.799 and so the canyon walls were preventing any moonlight from 0:36:06.800 --> 0:36:09.759 even getting down. So they were rafting on a river 0:36:09.960 --> 0:36:13.759 that was flowing at about ten times its normal rate, 0:36:13.760 --> 0:36:18.120 if not more, in the dark without the benefit of 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:21.080 using their eyes. So they were having to like literally 0:36:21.239 --> 0:36:24.239 feel the vibrations in the oars to tell what was 0:36:24.280 --> 0:36:27.120 coming up in which way they should go during this 0:36:27.280 --> 0:36:29.160 nighttime paddling event that they did. 0:36:29.960 --> 0:36:32.560 Yeah, and I mean to be sure, these were some 0:36:32.600 --> 0:36:36.279 of the most experienced people to undertake something like this, 0:36:36.440 --> 0:36:40.520 but that is still like it just can't be overstated 0:36:40.560 --> 0:36:42.880 what a accomplishment this was. 0:36:42.960 --> 0:36:44.320 Just to make it through that first night. 0:36:44.320 --> 0:36:47.920 Yeah, especially doing it stoned wearing nothing but cut off levs. 0:36:49.960 --> 0:36:50.840 So they would paddle. 0:36:51.320 --> 0:36:53.400 There were, like I said, three of them, so they 0:36:53.440 --> 0:36:56.840 would paddle for about fifteen to twenty minutes at a 0:36:56.840 --> 0:37:00.000 time because it's really rigorous, tough stuff that they're doing. 0:37:00.760 --> 0:37:03.839 I grew up, went up first and paddled first, and 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:06.920 they would switch off when they would get tired. They 0:37:06.920 --> 0:37:09.680 would rest take little cat naps when they could when 0:37:09.680 --> 0:37:13.240 they weren't paddling, obviously, and things were going pretty good 0:37:13.360 --> 0:37:16.520 for the first few hours, and then they reached a 0:37:16.560 --> 0:37:20.480 series of rapids called the Roaring twenties. That is really 0:37:20.480 --> 0:37:24.319 tough in particular with all this water, because there's something 0:37:24.320 --> 0:37:26.480 in rivers called I would assume people know what and 0:37:26.560 --> 0:37:29.400 eddie is, but you might not. Eddie is like a 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:31.640 very calm part of a river, usually off to the 0:37:31.719 --> 0:37:36.040 side where the water is flowing back upstream and like 0:37:36.200 --> 0:37:38.840 avoid in the current. Usually it's like blocked by a 0:37:38.840 --> 0:37:41.640 big rock or something, and it's a good place. Usually 0:37:41.680 --> 0:37:44.520 that's where if you want to pull off and you 0:37:44.680 --> 0:37:46.440 get out of the boat and get on land, you'll 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:49.160 pull off to a nice little calm eddie. But you 0:37:49.200 --> 0:37:54.480 can also have an area where the eddie meets the rapids, 0:37:54.880 --> 0:37:57.880 and that's called an eddie fence. I saw it described 0:37:57.880 --> 0:38:01.319 as confused water. It doesn't really know which way to go, 0:38:01.400 --> 0:38:04.399 so it's going everywhere at once, and it's just really 0:38:04.440 --> 0:38:08.719 really unstable water. And these eddy fences were all over 0:38:08.760 --> 0:38:12.759 the place, just like not crushing literally but just like 0:38:12.880 --> 0:38:16.160 wreaking havoc on their boat in this trip they were taking. 0:38:16.280 --> 0:38:19.600 Yeah, because the water, the boat's going the direction of 0:38:19.640 --> 0:38:21.360 the water, and if the water all of a sudden 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:24.080 is going multiple directions, that gets telegraphed to the boat 0:38:24.120 --> 0:38:26.560 and it makes it very difficult to move around, right. 0:38:27.400 --> 0:38:30.000 Yeah, But they did get through that part, obviously they did. 0:38:30.080 --> 0:38:33.879 And again they're going through the roaring twenties at night 0:38:34.160 --> 0:38:37.040 in pitch darkness. JUSTI I just really want to make 0:38:37.080 --> 0:38:40.560 sure everybody keeps this in mind. The other thing is 0:38:40.560 --> 0:38:43.720 is they were taking these rapids wide open. They weren't 0:38:43.760 --> 0:38:46.600 stopping to scout what was ahead and then getting back 0:38:46.600 --> 0:38:49.120 in the boat and then taking it with full knowledge 0:38:49.120 --> 0:38:51.680 of what was coming up. They just took it as 0:38:51.719 --> 0:38:55.400 it came, essentially, Yeah, which is again really nuts considering 0:38:55.440 --> 0:38:58.600 that this was not the river that they were used to. 0:38:58.800 --> 0:39:03.160 It was the wild, raging version of the river that 0:39:03.200 --> 0:39:08.719 they were used. It was like the Colorado on bath salts. Basically, 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:12.719 that's what they were taking on in the dark without 0:39:12.840 --> 0:39:14.040 the benefit of eyesight. 0:39:14.800 --> 0:39:16.880 Yeah, I think steroids is ever used bath salts. 0:39:17.400 --> 0:39:19.319 Yeah, if you really want to drive the point home, 0:39:19.520 --> 0:39:22.919 use bath salts. No, don't actually use basalts. I meant 0:39:23.040 --> 0:39:23.920 in your analogy. 0:39:24.880 --> 0:39:29.360 Yeah, they get through this on you know, experience, on instinct, 0:39:30.400 --> 0:39:33.719 like you said, feeling their way. The sun finally comes up. 0:39:34.160 --> 0:39:37.400 They're flying down this river. They're going through, you know, 0:39:37.480 --> 0:39:41.919 all kinds of crazy rapids, the huge whirlpools, these big 0:39:41.960 --> 0:39:44.400 standing waves that talked about that you know, got up 0:39:44.440 --> 0:39:46.239 to twenty feet. I think one of the guys even 0:39:46.280 --> 0:39:49.160 said pet Chick said some of them were like three 0:39:49.200 --> 0:39:53.400 stories high. Yeah, at times. And they finally get to 0:39:54.600 --> 0:39:58.120 Crystal Rapid, which is at mile ninety eight, and they 0:39:58.160 --> 0:40:01.920 were worn out, like super super tired obviously. And that 0:40:02.040 --> 0:40:07.239 is where Benjamin Bratt was stationed. Yeah, park ranger Benjamin Bratt, 0:40:07.520 --> 0:40:10.319 and he said, hey, you shouldn't be paddling through here. 0:40:10.960 --> 0:40:13.040 And also I was born on Alcatraz. 0:40:13.239 --> 0:40:15.080 That's a great Benjamin Bratt in person. 0:40:15.840 --> 0:40:17.839 Uh No, he was stationed there to get if there 0:40:17.840 --> 0:40:21.400 were any tourist boats that you know, had somehow already 0:40:21.400 --> 0:40:23.279 been on the water, which they shouldn't have been to 0:40:23.320 --> 0:40:24.800 begin with, because they were denying permits. 0:40:24.880 --> 0:40:27.600 Yeah. I didn't understand that part, you know. 0:40:27.600 --> 0:40:30.319 I guess they were just there were some already out there, 0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:34.080 maybe because especially if some of them were taking three weeks. 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:36.000 Oh got, they didn't want to ruin people's vacation. 0:40:36.760 --> 0:40:39.479 Maybe, but they were Basically he was there basically to say, hey, 0:40:39.880 --> 0:40:43.520 pull over, all of you tourists, get out and hike 0:40:43.600 --> 0:40:47.200 out and boat captain and whoever else you're gonna have 0:40:47.239 --> 0:40:48.919 to take this thing down the rest of the way, 0:40:49.200 --> 0:40:49.920 like by yourself. 0:40:50.040 --> 0:40:52.800 Yeah, I hope you don't like company because ts for you. 0:40:54.239 --> 0:40:57.400 Uh, that's right. But what happened with this group. 0:40:57.400 --> 0:41:01.000 So they didn't what. One of the things that caused 0:41:01.120 --> 0:41:04.120 Benjamin Bratt to be stationed there was that a commercial 0:41:04.239 --> 0:41:07.560 rafting outfit had gotten overturned. One of the boats had 0:41:07.560 --> 0:41:13.520 been overturned at this under normal circumstances, very tough rapid 0:41:14.080 --> 0:41:18.520 called crystal rapids, and one person had died. I believe 0:41:18.520 --> 0:41:22.600 a passenger had died. This happened like eleven hours before 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:26.080 the Kent and Grew and his group came along in 0:41:26.120 --> 0:41:29.320 the Emerald Mile. They were totally out of contact with everybody, 0:41:29.320 --> 0:41:32.680 so they had no idea this happened. And so the 0:41:32.760 --> 0:41:35.440 reason Benjamin Bratt was there was because it was so 0:41:35.680 --> 0:41:40.319 dangerous what they were coming up on that. Literally, their 0:41:40.360 --> 0:41:43.440 lives were in danger. So when they came upon the 0:41:43.480 --> 0:41:47.840 park ranger, Benjamin Bratt, they pretended they didn't see him. 0:41:48.080 --> 0:41:49.120 What was cool is. 0:41:49.440 --> 0:41:50.760 Look over there on the right, guys. 0:41:50.760 --> 0:41:56.040 Exactly what was cool about it is that this park 0:41:56.160 --> 0:41:59.960 ranger had been a river guide himself. He immediately recognized 0:42:00.040 --> 0:42:02.839 two was in this boat, and he pretended he didn't 0:42:02.880 --> 0:42:06.040 see them. Yeah, so that everybody could just kind of 0:42:06.080 --> 0:42:07.919 go their own way and just pretend like they hadn't 0:42:07.920 --> 0:42:10.279 seen one another, and these guys could continue on because 0:42:10.280 --> 0:42:12.879 he said he knew immediately what they were doing because 0:42:12.920 --> 0:42:14.600 of the river conditions, so he just let him go 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:16.520 their way. He kept an eye on them as they 0:42:16.640 --> 0:42:21.359 went further along, though, and hit that crystal rapid and 0:42:21.719 --> 0:42:24.759 he witnessed their boat being overturned very violently. 0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:27.759 Yeah, this is when they hit one of those the 0:42:27.800 --> 0:42:31.120 one that Petchick said was two to three stories high, 0:42:31.680 --> 0:42:34.440 fliped that thing at the top. Everyone ends up in 0:42:34.480 --> 0:42:39.760 the water. Kent and Greua was pretty okay and Petchick 0:42:39.880 --> 0:42:43.560 was pretty okay. The boat got banged up a little bit. 0:42:43.960 --> 0:42:46.520 I think it lost some of its bowel post, a 0:42:46.600 --> 0:42:49.000 chunk out of the stern but it was still very 0:42:49.040 --> 0:42:53.080 much operational, and Reynolds was injured. I think there was 0:42:53.080 --> 0:42:56.120 a head injury, and as a result, he did not 0:42:56.280 --> 0:42:59.200 do a lot of at least tough rowing after that, 0:43:00.320 --> 0:43:02.040 he did anything at all. I figure he'd be like 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:04.759 Burt Reynolds in Deliverance at that point, just sort of 0:43:04.840 --> 0:43:08.279 laying down in the middle of the canoe. But he 0:43:08.440 --> 0:43:13.480 apparently would row some calmer parts. And I guess take 0:43:13.520 --> 0:43:14.960 that with a grain of salts, because I don't think 0:43:14.960 --> 0:43:18.239 any of it was very calm and grew and Petchick said, 0:43:18.280 --> 0:43:21.560 all right, it's the two of us basically doing the tough, 0:43:21.640 --> 0:43:26.600 tough rowing in one hundred degree heat, and it was. 0:43:26.880 --> 0:43:29.319 It was real tough stuff from that point on. It 0:43:29.360 --> 0:43:31.759 was already tough, but it was really really tough. But 0:43:31.840 --> 0:43:32.960 they decided not to quit. 0:43:33.040 --> 0:43:36.080 No, they didn't, and that's really significant because again their 0:43:36.120 --> 0:43:40.600 boat overturned. They Reynolds was injured, they were thrown out 0:43:40.640 --> 0:43:43.320 of the boat violently into a whirlpool, got sucked under. 0:43:43.680 --> 0:43:48.040 All three of them miraculously got free and then they 0:43:48.080 --> 0:43:50.520 had to turn the boat back over upright again get 0:43:50.520 --> 0:43:54.520 back in it. Totally exhausted at this point and decided 0:43:54.560 --> 0:43:59.000 to continue on. They did that was just absolutely nuts. 0:43:59.280 --> 0:44:01.839 Problem is is they knew the park ranger had seen them, 0:44:02.480 --> 0:44:05.000 and so they were kind of all worried about possibly 0:44:05.040 --> 0:44:08.200 losing their river guide licenses because again, this was a 0:44:08.320 --> 0:44:12.640 wildcat river run. It was not sanctioned, it was technically illegal. 0:44:13.280 --> 0:44:15.520 But they continued on. They said, we've made it this far, 0:44:15.880 --> 0:44:19.680 and they kept going and gave themselves I guess a 0:44:19.880 --> 0:44:23.160 period where they're like, okay, this is not working anymore. 0:44:23.200 --> 0:44:25.720 We're all too exhausted. We need to take some rest. 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:28.520 Let's just take an hour and we'll all get some sleep, 0:44:28.600 --> 0:44:31.000 and then we'll wake up and be refreshed and it'll 0:44:31.000 --> 0:44:33.000 be like starting over again and new. 0:44:33.920 --> 0:44:34.320 Yeah. 0:44:34.360 --> 0:44:37.280 And of course what happens is they sleep for three hours, 0:44:38.200 --> 0:44:41.840 almost woke up in a panic because they had just 0:44:42.280 --> 0:44:45.279 you know, almost killed themselves. They're exhausted, and now they're 0:44:45.280 --> 0:44:48.560 thinking like, now we've jeopardized this record that we're trying 0:44:48.560 --> 0:44:50.640 to get. We don't know if the river will ever 0:44:50.680 --> 0:44:53.680 be this fast again, right, and here we slept for 0:44:53.719 --> 0:44:58.279 three hours. So instead of taking their ball and going home, 0:44:58.320 --> 0:45:01.200 taking their ore and going home, they said, now we 0:45:01.280 --> 0:45:05.479 got to go extra fast. So at mile two thirty nine, 0:45:05.760 --> 0:45:09.719 they get out another set of ores and someone said, 0:45:09.840 --> 0:45:13.120 where did those even come from? And Grewa said, they 0:45:13.120 --> 0:45:16.399 were at our feet the whole time. Dumb, dumb, And 0:45:16.560 --> 0:45:19.480 they started rowing two at a time, so they were 0:45:19.560 --> 0:45:23.600 hauling but rowing together, which obviously, you know, I don't 0:45:23.600 --> 0:45:25.640 know if that probably doesn't double your speed, but you're 0:45:25.640 --> 0:45:27.040 you're going much faster at that point. 0:45:27.160 --> 0:45:30.919 Yeah, so that was They woke up at I guess 0:45:30.960 --> 0:45:33.120 about one, because they took that rest at ten and 0:45:33.200 --> 0:45:38.640 accidentally slept for three hours, so actually, yeah one, I 0:45:38.680 --> 0:45:40.600 had to count it out on my fingers for a second. 0:45:41.719 --> 0:45:46.360 And then they kept rowing and they another ten hours 0:45:46.440 --> 0:45:50.600 later they finally reached the end, so that like they 0:45:50.600 --> 0:45:54.839 had just been exerting themselves almost constantly for thirty six 0:45:54.880 --> 0:45:57.080 hours and thirty eight minutes. That's what their final time 0:45:57.160 --> 0:46:02.320 ended up being. So they just destroy Grewa's previous record 0:46:02.360 --> 0:46:06.120 setting run thanks to the river being so nuts. 0:46:06.600 --> 0:46:09.640 Yeah, he did it. The three of them did it 0:46:09.719 --> 0:46:12.040 rather and he did not lose his license. He was 0:46:12.040 --> 0:46:15.080 worried about that, so that's the good news. Apparently he 0:46:15.120 --> 0:46:18.160 got a five hundred dollars fine, which he couldn't even pay, 0:46:18.719 --> 0:46:23.279 so his lawyer negotiated community service, which he may or 0:46:23.320 --> 0:46:26.080 may not have even done. And like you said, at 0:46:26.080 --> 0:46:28.280 the very beginning of this, he wasn't a big braggart 0:46:28.360 --> 0:46:31.480 about his own accomplishments. They kind of spoke for themselves 0:46:31.560 --> 0:46:34.120 to him. Yeah, for sure, So he didn't really you know, 0:46:34.160 --> 0:46:36.400 it's not like he started making the talk show circuit 0:46:36.480 --> 0:46:39.719 or anything like that. But of course word was going 0:46:39.800 --> 0:46:43.160 to get out people talk, and he you know, he 0:46:43.320 --> 0:46:46.320 will always remain a legend of the Grand Canyon and 0:46:46.400 --> 0:46:48.279 the Colorado River because of the speed run. 0:46:48.560 --> 0:46:51.480 Yeah. He died at fifty two in two thousand and two, 0:46:51.719 --> 0:46:54.759 and he died while he was riding his mountain bike. 0:46:55.560 --> 0:46:57.440 And I couldn't find out how. It's like that sounds 0:46:57.440 --> 0:46:59.440 like he went over a cliff or something. Apparently he 0:46:59.520 --> 0:47:02.680 had torn aorta somehow. They're not sure how, but he 0:47:02.760 --> 0:47:07.799 was found laying beside his mountain bike dead and his 0:47:07.920 --> 0:47:10.880 wife at his I believe his third wife, Michelle Grewa, 0:47:12.719 --> 0:47:15.040 said this is exactly how he would have wanted to go. 0:47:15.360 --> 0:47:17.600 So yeah, I mean, if you're going to be like 0:47:17.640 --> 0:47:20.239 a rugged outdoorsman and you die on your mountain bike, 0:47:20.320 --> 0:47:22.040 that's not the worst way you could go. 0:47:23.040 --> 0:47:27.319 No, they you know, it seemed like he was he 0:47:27.360 --> 0:47:29.680 was just sort of laying there on his side, and 0:47:29.719 --> 0:47:32.640 they said it looked like sort of a peaceful position. 0:47:32.800 --> 0:47:35.719 So there there is speculation that he may have sort 0:47:35.760 --> 0:47:37.520 of known what was going on and just sort of 0:47:38.239 --> 0:47:40.680 laid down and you know, to be with the woods. 0:47:40.800 --> 0:47:44.000 Right, to be with the woods. That's the new euphemism 0:47:44.040 --> 0:47:44.759 for it, isn't it. 0:47:46.400 --> 0:47:46.840 I guess so. 0:47:47.480 --> 0:47:51.759 Michelle Grew also wrote in a memorial Boatman's Quarterly, I 0:47:51.760 --> 0:47:56.400 think that he had mellowed out some a lot actually 0:47:56.719 --> 0:47:59.799 in his later years. Still lived the life that he lived, 0:47:59.800 --> 0:48:01.919 but he became focused on being a dad. I think 0:48:01.920 --> 0:48:06.040 he had three or has three kids, and it was just, 0:48:06.200 --> 0:48:09.320 from what I can tell, an all round interesting neat dude. 0:48:10.320 --> 0:48:13.239 Yeah. I mean he started a conservation group, didn't he. 0:48:13.239 --> 0:48:17.160 He did called the Grand Canyon River Guides, that's right, 0:48:17.680 --> 0:48:22.800 which is still around today, and that Grand Canyon Dories 0:48:22.960 --> 0:48:28.080 was sold to an existing outfit called Oars, which gives 0:48:28.800 --> 0:48:31.200 dory tours down the Grand Canyon still today. 0:48:33.120 --> 0:48:33.560 Tempting. 0:48:34.200 --> 0:48:36.600 It tempted me too, and then I was like, again, 0:48:36.840 --> 0:48:39.520 seventeen days is a little much and also do I 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:43.480 want to perish in the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River? 0:48:43.520 --> 0:48:45.200 And I decided, now I don't. 0:48:45.640 --> 0:48:46.880 He could just be with the woods. 0:48:46.920 --> 0:48:52.239 I'd just rather stay locked inside my house. Right, You 0:48:52.239 --> 0:48:52.960 got anything else? 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:54.480 No, I got nothing else. 0:48:54.520 --> 0:48:56.160 I just know that that's one place you will not 0:48:56.320 --> 0:48:59.080 crash a dory into a boulder is in your house. 0:48:59.120 --> 0:48:59.799 It's definitely not. 0:49:00.320 --> 0:49:00.600 Yeah. 0:49:00.680 --> 0:49:03.399 Well, since I said definitely not, that means it's time 0:49:03.440 --> 0:49:04.160 for listener mail. 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:09.200 Uh oh, this is cool. 0:49:09.320 --> 0:49:14.239 This is from someone who whose grandmother had a nice 0:49:14.239 --> 0:49:15.680 little what do you call them? 0:49:16.280 --> 0:49:17.400 A mnemonic device? 0:49:17.800 --> 0:49:18.680 Yeah? 0:49:19.000 --> 0:49:20.560 Yeah, for when you want to remember. 0:49:20.239 --> 0:49:24.920 Something mnemonic you're thinking's a pneumatic no nomonic. 0:49:26.480 --> 0:49:28.319 Hey, guys, stuff you should know as a staple of 0:49:28.320 --> 0:49:32.560 my daily commute. Truly enjoy learning about common and obscure stuff. 0:49:32.600 --> 0:49:36.400 And you've helped our trivia team, the Meerkats, claim victory 0:49:36.480 --> 0:49:37.520 on more than one occasion. 0:49:38.960 --> 0:49:40.480 Go Meerkats for sure. 0:49:41.000 --> 0:49:43.160 Anyway, just finished the episode on the Wreck of the 0:49:43.200 --> 0:49:45.839 Coast to Concordia and thought i'd share the way that 0:49:45.880 --> 0:49:49.279 my grandmother taught me how to remember which direction was 0:49:49.360 --> 0:49:54.600 port versus starboard. She would say, there's not much port 0:49:54.680 --> 0:49:58.480 left in the glass like port whye y port side 0:49:58.480 --> 0:50:02.440 being left port left in the glass. Interestingly, she was 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:04.160 not a seafaring woman nor a. 0:50:04.120 --> 0:50:04.800 Lover of port. 0:50:05.800 --> 0:50:07.880 I wish I could recall the context of her telling 0:50:07.920 --> 0:50:10.400 me this even but it's always stuck with me. And 0:50:10.440 --> 0:50:12.239 I thought you might get a kick out of that. 0:50:13.360 --> 0:50:15.600 Thanks for all the information and laughs. And that is 0:50:15.600 --> 0:50:18.600 from Aaron. And I wrote Aeron back to see if 0:50:18.640 --> 0:50:23.000 I could get report No grandma's name, but I didn't 0:50:23.160 --> 0:50:26.160 hear back. So let's just let's just say grandmother to Aaron, 0:50:27.640 --> 0:50:29.480 okay inntribute? 0:50:29.760 --> 0:50:36.000 Yeah, and that's it. Okay. Is that Aaron with the 0:50:36.040 --> 0:50:40.520 A A or Aaron with the E E R? I am, oh, 0:50:40.600 --> 0:50:43.240 thanks a lot, Aaron. That's a good one. It's at 0:50:43.320 --> 0:50:45.759 least as good as mine that I came up with. 0:50:45.800 --> 0:50:47.000 But what was yours? 0:50:47.400 --> 0:50:49.920 There's four letters in both port and left. 0:50:49.960 --> 0:50:52.000 I think, Oh, think that's what it's good too. 0:50:52.120 --> 0:50:55.040 That's how that's what I remember. So apparently the system works. 0:50:55.360 --> 0:50:56.000 Yeah, I agree. 0:50:56.239 --> 0:50:58.280 Well, if you want to be like Aaron and improve 0:50:58.400 --> 0:51:01.520 or try to improve upon our devices, we love that 0:51:01.640 --> 0:51:03.800 kind of thing. You can send it in an email 0:51:03.960 --> 0:51:08.479 to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:51:10.239 --> 0:51:12.520 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:51:13.040 --> 0:51:16.240 For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:51:16.440 --> 0:51:19.320 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.