Burke is talking to 28 people—male, female, young and old—about to plunge 225.7 miles down the Colorado River. Today there are 21 companies which operate rubber-pontoon passenger rafts through the towering gorges and prehistoric Indian campsites of the Grand Canyon. Preeminent among the companies is Fred and Carol Burke's Arizona River Runners, and his river savvy is only part of the reason. Just as important is his wife, who has borrowed on her experience as an airlines stewardess to make the trip a culinary delight. "I just like good food" is Carol's explanation for boondocks menus that include prime steaks, artichoke hearts salad and chocolate cake (baked in a Dutch oven).
Running the Colorado is an adventure for the elite—and the courageous. The first white man to survive the trip, with its 64 white-water rapids that can stand a 37-foot raft on its end, was explorer John Powell in 1869. When the Kennedy family made it part of the New Frontier (Bobby even swam the Badger Creek rapid, rated six in danger on a scale of 10), river-rafting became the thing. The numbers have always been small, however—from 2,100 hardy souls in 1967 to 16,432 in 1972, when the National Park Service froze the number until it could assay the danger of people pollution in the canyons.
A tourist who wants to go downriver with the Burkes must sign up a year in advance (and pay $410 for the seven days). The trip begins with some advice from Carol. She tells them a case of beer will be provided each passenger, but adds, "Bring twice as much liquor as you think you can possibly consume. There's no liquor store down in the canyon." There is ice, however, thanks to a special container Fred designed, with walls two inches thick. The ice preserves the gourmet meals, then chills the drinks.
Fred and Carol Burke stumbled into river-rafting by chance, much as they first met in Tombstone, Ariz. Fred, who had spent his youth as a cowboy, joined the cavalry at the beginning of World War II and parlayed a 90-day-wonder commission up to the rank of lieutenant colonel by 1962. He bought a ranch for retirement, only to find "My wife didn't want to live there. Zap, real fast, I found myself divorced with two teenage girls to raise." Carol's marriage to her college sweetheart had also ended, and after a stormy courtship Fred persuaded her to marry him. Carol called her Western Air Lines roommates and said, "Pack my gear and ship it. I'm never coming back."
After serving a term in the Arizona state legislature, Fred was offered a job with a U.S. Geological Survey team on the Colorado. "We started running boats for fun and then gradually got to thinking we could operate a company as well as anybody."
The scenery is unmatched and the thrill of the rapids never diminishes, but Fred says, "It's the people who keep us down here." The passengers quickly adapt to the rhythms of the canyon. "You should see the business executives," Fred says. "First couple of days they're organizing things—volleyball on the beach, a duffel line to get the gear off the rafts every night. But by the third day they just kind of melt."
Carol remembers "families with teenagers who haven't talked to their parents in years. Then they see Dad making a fool out of himself jumping into the falls like a kid, and pretty soon the family has jelled again."
The last night the river runners stay in a motel on the edge of the Hualapai reservation. Fred was right. When they say goodbye to one another, there are always tears.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
