The Colorado River is special in many ways

Many easterners and a lot of Midwesterners know very little about one of the major rivers of our country. Sure, everybody knows about the Mississippi or the Rio Grande. But one of the most necessary rivers actually touches seven states and is a life-needed tributary for much of our country.

The Colorado River is the sixth longest river in our country at 1,450 miles. It supplies drinking water for one of every 10 Americans. Along with that it irrigates almost 90% of our winter vegetable crops.

This past week I visited that river for one of many visits. Probably the most difficult visit was when I hiked down the Grand Canyon. The trek ends on the south bank of the river, and a bridge lets you cross over and have a beer on the north side.

Then you get to cross it again and hike two more days to the top. Without a doubt one of my most cherished adventures.

The waters of this river come from the melting of the snowpack of the Rocky Mountains. The headwaters begin in Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado. From there it flows south through Lake Granby. As it moves south, it joins numerous other rivers and flows into Lake Powell, a huge lake on the Utah-Arizona border.

The water is then released south and will be divided by the division of water rights that include Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and California. Some of the flow will then go through the Grand Canyon and off to the Gulf of Mexico as it was once called.

California desperately needs this water, but its flow to that state is not necessarily a given. Certain states have priority rights on that flow of water if they need more that year. In other words, some states have more rights to this water than others. As the wildfires rage and weather becomes more unpredictable, this division can become very touchy.

Last week, I attended the graduation of a grandson from the University of Colorado in Boulder. I wouldn’t miss it. It was a return to one of my favorite states. After the ceremony, I headed back to my old familiar skiing spot in Winter Park, the place many of us Kankakeeans skied over the years.

On the very next day I made the trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. We arrived before there was a need for a permit to enter. The proposed staff cuts will require those preordered passes later this month.

As we started the drive, I noticed what the wildfires had done to this side of the park. Miles of forest were now bare. The usual sighting of deer, elk and moose did not occur. They probably had moved to the more covered areas.

The forests of Colorado had suffered a tremendous loss when the Pine Beetle struck about 20 years ago. I could remember huge patches of brown trees stretching over the sides of mountains. It was so massive that there was no way these dead trees could be removed.

But Mother Nature has her ways, and the regrowth is phenomenal. She will certainly replace the trees and brush that burned in the last couple of years in her way and her time.

What is important about Rocky Mountain National Park is that is where the Colorado River starts. It is merely a dozen feet wide, growing a bit as it makes its way south. It is so clear you can see the bottom about three or four feet down, and it is cold. But that is not the reason I frequently visit the west side of the park.

In the late 1990s, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She eventually needed the care of a nursing facility in San Diego. We three children visited as we could with the brunt of the duties falling on my older sister. Her memory was disappearing.

On one of my visits, Mom pulled me aside and told me something a bit unusual. In the early 1980s, my father had contracted hepatitis while they were staying the winter in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He made it back to California but died within weeks. Mom decided that his ashes would be scattered in the Sea of Cortez where he had caught his last marlin. All the children attended the scattering that year.

Now came the insightful mother as she spoke to me: “We don’t go to Mexico anymore. When I die, I want my ashes scattered in the water, any water, and I will find my husband.”

Where better to scatter those ashes than the Colorado River that flows into the Gulf of Mexico and the Sea of Cortez? After her death in December of 2002, we all gathered again, but this time in Rocky Mountain National Park on a little bridge that crosses the Colorado River for hikers.

We spoke of memories and closed with the singing of “The Rose," a song written by my first cousin, Amanda McBroom, and made famous by Bette Midler in the movie of the same name, always a very special song to our family.

A day none of us will forget as we watched her only grandson walk out on the ice to a small hole in that river and gently pour his grandmother’s ashes into the river, starting her journey to find her husband. In my family, that bridge is called Mom’s Bridge. Perhaps it might be the site of other ashes as time passes. May the Park, the bridge and our memories last forever.