Granby – With the over-their-heads gunshots of an irate landowner still echoing in their ears, Tom and Gary Lacy were ready to get back in the river. They can handle the river. The jogging through what ended up being private land, not so much.
And at a nondescript bridge over the Colorado River west of Granby, where the soon-to-be-mighty river joins the Fraser River, the duo of Boulder kayakers regained their first-ever and one-of-a-kind mission.
“At this point, a lot of the unknowns are gone now,” said Gary, a 52-year-old pioneering engineer of Colorado’s most prestigious whitewater play parks.
From that bridge 11 years ago, Tom and Gary paddled the length of the Colorado River to Utah’s Lake Powell in fewer than six days. This time around the two adventurers are allowing two months to chase a drop of melting water from the top of the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park for 1,000 miles down the Colorado River to Las Vegas and possibly beyond. They started Wednesday with a day snowshoeing up and down to the divide atop the La Poudre Pass in Colorado’s Never Summer range. As soon as the river allowed, they squeezed into their boats and rattled down the headwaters of the then-trickling river before it poured into Shadow Mountain Reservoir.
On July 16, the brothers will fete Tom’s 50th birthday in Las Vegas. If interest in the trip is high, they might continue until the river returns to its trickling, unnavigable roots in California.
The birthday party, while a heck of a way to memorialize the half-century mark, barely makes their list of goals for the trip, though. Just below “surviving” on the goal list is a celebration of charitable giving. The brothers have a donation system at their website www.thegrandtime.com to encourage visitors to donate to a variety of causes.
Leading the rotating roster of seven charities are the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. Tom and Gary’s parents died of heart disease and cancer. Other charities include funds that support historic preservation and victims of domestic violence in towns along the Colorado River.
“I like the idea of connecting with communities on the side of the river,” said Gary, whose 24-year career as one of the country’s pre-eminent engineers of whitewater kayak parks has forged new bonds among communities such as Golden, Boulder, Salida and Nevada’s Reno and the rivers they border.
A scary beginning
In their two months on the river, the Lacys will do what never has been done before by traveling the length of the Colorado River under their own power. That’s why they ended up jogging 7 miles on what they thought were county roads to bypass private land above Granby. For their first big adventure, the duo had to duck warning gunshots from a local landowner as they ran along what was apparently a private road.
But the self-powered ethos will be suspended when the Lacys reach Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
“We figure if the white man stopped the river, the white man can motor us across the reservoirs,” said Tom Lacy, a self-professed “recovering CPA” who considers himself a recreational paddler.
With each mile, Tom’s GPS device pings and he snaps a photo. Those 1,000 snapshots of watery adventure are part of the mission’s charitable push, with each available in return for a $1,000 donation to a charity.
Tom and Gary have adventure in their blood. Their dad, Joe, a pioneering kayaker, was the first to paddle Westwater Canyon in 1962. He joined the fabled Walter Kirschbaum in that first-ever descent, which was accomplished sans lifejackets, helmets and Eskimo roll, the seemingly essential technique for righting a kayak without exiting.
Been there, done that
Tom’s sense of adventure doesn’t reach as deep as his dad’s. He strolled Gore Canyon, where the Colorado River dives from a meandering float into a dark chasm of roaring holes and Class V paddling. And he’s definitely walking around the Class VI Upper Death and the IV+ Barrel Springs rapids a few steps west of the Glenwood Canyon dam.
“I’ve run Barrel a few times, but now that I have kids, I’m done with that,” said the father of a 4- and 6-year-old.
The low point of the trip will be the endless miles of flatwater between Glenwood’s South Canyon and Loma.
“That is such a long way,” said Gary, slightly perturbed to be pondering those lonely miles early in the trip. “It’s amazing how long that is.”
The highlight of the trip – really the peak of any Colorado River experience – will be the Grand Canyon below Utah’s Lake Powell. Tom first put his name on the permit list for paddling the world’s greatest ditch in 1991. When he learned last year that he had a permit for 2007, he quickly began brewing plans that would rival the still-talked-about 50th fiesta Gary and pals celebrated in Las Vegas in 2005.
Like any good adventure, it’s the trip not the destination that burns the brightest memories. And maybe this trip can inspire someone to consider the impossible, Tom said.
“If they can figure out what tickles their fancy, there is an endless list of things like this to do,” he said. “All you have to do is get moving.”
Learn more — Follow the Lacy brothers on their journey at www.thegrandtime.com
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
