The Sound of Rushing Water

The Sound of Rushing Water

is a collection of field recordings of Cataract Canyon

made during the 2023 river season

by Moab river folks Mike DeHoff and Meg Flynn.

This project shares an intimate experience

of traveling along the last truly wild stretch

of the mighty Colorado River.

There’s this wild place downstream. It has a lot of names. 

“The graveyard of the Colorado River.” That’s what some people of the past used to call this place…people traveling on wooden boats that would get eaten up and smashed against its rocks. 

“The last truly wild stretch of the Colorado River.” That’s what some people call this place now, the final spot on the river before Lake Powell forces it into the flow and personality of an irrigation ditch. 

And then there’s this name. It originates from the Greek word katarráktis. Meaning to down-rush, to strike, to smash. It’s the word people use for a sudden rush of water.

Cataract. 

It was famous river runner John Wesley Powell who gave this place its most well known moniker. Traveling downstream in July 1869 he wrote:

“We come at once to difficult rapids and falls, that in many places are more abrupt than in any of the canyons through which we have passed and we decide to name this Cataract Canyon.”

Rapid #29, The Chute, in its highwater majesty. Courtesy Returning Rapids Project

You enter Cataract Canyon traveling by boat at the confluence of the Green and the Colorado Rivers. The canyon then unfolds from this watery meeting place over 40 river miles. It’s a place you’re guaranteed to meet some of the most complex rapids of the river itself. 

People who travel this waterway describe the experience as amazing. Unforgettable. Alive.

But that’s all over by the time you reach Lake Powell. When the man-made dam filled up the lake, it pushed into the lower half of Cataract Canyon. For decades some of the most storied rapids of the past were quietly submerged underwater.

But river runners knew the stories. They heard them from the old timers. And being interested in this stuff, they tracked down photos from the archives, read records of historical expeditions. And a few years ago they even started to see it themselves – with their own eyes – evidence of the returning rapids of Cataract Canyon. 

Meg Flynn rowing to the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. Courtesy Mike DeHoff and Meg Flynn

Camp just above Easter Pasture Canyon. Courtesy Mike DeHoff and Meg Flynn

Gypsum Canyon rapid in 2023. Courtesy Mike DeHoff and Meg Flynn

2023 was a dynamic year for water. It was a good snow year. And when the weather warmed up, that big snowpack melted across our region…becoming a force. Especially in Cataract Canyon, where this dynamic high water scoured the river channel. It opened up more obstacles and more gradient. That’s because it moved mud. 

Anyone who has dipped a toe or thrown a mere glance at the Colorado River can feel and see that it’s muddy. And the story of where that mud goes is so different before and after the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. 

Before the dam, the river would carry its sediment further downstream to make beaches in the Grand Canyon, topsoil in the Imperial Valley, food for fish in the Gulf of California. But that all stopped in 1963 when the gates on the dam closed, causing Lake Powell to rise for the very first time. The river started dropping a lot of its sediment once it hit calmer waters before entering Lake Powell. For six decades, the river has been dropping mud into Cataract Canyon.  

So studying this mud is a big objective on Returning Rapids research trips. Especially this past season. 

That’s because one of the biggest recorded movements of sediment happened just last summer. 1.32 million cubic meters of mud moved in just a few hours. As Mike DeHoff explains, that’s like two Costco-sized buildings sliding downstream. The event was so big it could be seen from satellite imagery and so earned the nickname ‘the space slump.’

Pulling over at the space slump. Courtesy Mike DeHoff and Meg Flynn

River meets the lake. Credit Molly Marcello

The Sound of Rushing Water is a collection of field recordings of Cataract Canyon from Moab river folks Mike DeHoff and Meg Flynn. Thank you Meg and Mike so so so much for carrying a recorder down Cataract on all your trips last river season. I know mostly everything I know about Cataract Canyon thanks to the stunning research made possible through the Returning Rapids Project. And, listener, there’s a whole team associated with the Returning Rapids project. You can find them and their detailed reports at returningrapids.com. 

As we broadcast this in March 2024, Canyonlands National Park is starting a comprehensive river management plan for the Green and Colorado Rivers. Their last plan was made in 1981 and, well, they need a new one. The park just released an overview of its river resources. And they have this to say about the lower Colorado River:

This zone is raw, majestic, and challenging. It should continue to feel like the most primordial place on Earth, a cathedral to wilderness…the sound of rushing water from powerful rapids inspires awe for the physical forces of the river.

The Sound of Rushing Water was made possible through the field recordings of Mike DeHoff and Meg Flynn. We also thank super cool musicians like Dan Bern, who’s song The Sound of Rushing Water was obviously an inspiration here. The track is off his iconic album Wilderness Song, a tribute to writer and wanderer Everett Ruess. Also thanks to musicians Peter Biedermann, Lobo Loco and Josh Woodward whose instrumental pieces were heard in this project. 

And big thanks to you, listener. If an audio project broadcasts on the airwaves and no one is around to hear it, does it even make a sound? You are the essential ingredient here to make projects like this happen. So thank you so much for spending time with us in Cataract Canyon. 

–Molly Marcello