The Magazine of The Sierra Club
You're Stuck in an Impassable Canyon. Now What?
Our boats flipped, and it was too steep to hike out. So I prayed.
My family is tough. We have been adventuring in Utah since 1990. For our weeklong packraft trip on the Escalante River, we had loads of emergency gear. My wife and two daughters had dry suits, and I had a wetsuit. This was not our first rodeo. But then on the fifth night . . .
It rained and hailed very hard. The next day, we put in to some heavy, chocolaty, angry water and missed a portage around a dangerous section of river. The current toppled us all.
We retrieved the boats and most of our gear, then built a comfort fire and ate dinner. We said a prayer for wisdom and gave thanks.
We rose early to try to hike out on a steep, crazy-loose slope; large boulders were falling below us into the water. We gave up and headed back down.
Then I had a raw moment with God: I said that I'm out of options. Within minutes, a chopper was blazing toward us. The crew were looking for someone else, but they pulled us out.
This article appeared in the January/February 2018 edition with the headline "Divine Intervention."
Ask the Expert
Steve Akeson is a river guide for the Sierra Club's Inspiring Connections Outdoors program.
"Don't even think of hiking out of canyons in desert country without a good sense of where you are and what you are getting yourself into. Searchers are more likely to find you on the river. As for prayer, when you are in a pinch, it helps to have something you believe in."
