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Show , Cedar City Man ! Participates in River Adventure I Ramon Prestwich, son of Dr. I and Mrs. J. S. Prestwich, return-j return-j cd home this week from a har-j har-j rowing trip down the Grijalva River In Mexico with a group compoiod mostly of Salt Lake City men. Prestwich was not just "glad" to be back, but reported that the river was so rough and treacherous treacher-ous that he felt extremely "lucky" to get back. Scenes of the trip ' down the roughest 17 miles of the trip were shown on television indicates indi-cates that as some of the travelers travel-ers stated it was really "not runnable,,' and it is amazing that no one was lost. As it was many "near misses" and miraculous escapes were reported. It took eight days to travel the first three miles of the treacherous treach-erous El Sumerdera Canyon, but the remaning 11 miles were covered cov-ered in three days. Some of the rani.ls ?re so t.-cschirous iiiai it was impossible even to get the boats through, and it was necessary neces-sary to portage over extremely rough terrain. Other rapids were traversed by letting the boats through on lines, with the men climbing around the falls. Men rode out some of the rapids ra-pids miraculously coming out alive, and not having their boats dashed to pieces against the rocks. Pontoons were used, fortunately, for-tunately, because other typos of boats surely would have been destroyed. It became necessary for the group to abandon at least a third of their equipment in order or-der to get through the canyon. This is the first time the river has ever been run, and, at least as far as most of this party is concerned, It will be the last. Films of the trip were taken by a Hollywood cameramtn and also by a representative of the National Geographic Magazine, and good pictorial coverage can be expected soon. |
