I have spent my life on the water and on the land, rowing handcrafted wooden dories through the heart of Grand Canyon and tending cattle under the big Colorado sky. Both callings have taught me something essential: We don’t get to take more than we give. Nature keeps score, whether we want to admit it or not.
I’ve always tried to live without regrets. That’s how I ended up on the river in the first place, because I refused to accept that being a cook was the only way a woman could be part of a Grand Canyon trip. I trained, I rowed, I proved myself and I kept showing up. And in return, the river gave me more than a livelihood — it gave me purpose.
George Wendt and Martin Litton, the founders of OARS and Grand Canyon Dories, respectively, were environmental activists who fought for places that couldn’t speak for themselves in their own right, which instilled this sense of purpose in many of us. They supported the first women rowing dories such as the Dark Canyon, Ticaboo, Hidden Passage, Music Temple, to name a few.
I just came off my 152nd Grand Canyon trip, and lately I’ve been haunted by a fear I can’t shake: What if we’ve used her up? What if the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the American West, isn’t just struggling, but breaking?
Spanning nearly 2,000 square miles and carved by 277 miles of the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon is as wide as 18 miles in places and drops over a mile deep. Approximately 5 million people come each year to stand on the edge and take in the view, with only 22,000 dropping below the rim in 2023. From up top, it looks unshakable.
But those of us who have spent years down on the water, rowing through her heart, we know she’s not invincible. We’ve felt the changes, seen the signs. The canyon speaks if you’re willing to listen — and I’ve been listening for decades.
It’s easy to feel powerless when you’re up against something as big and political as water rights, dams or drought. But as Americans, we hold something powerful, too: the ability to bear witness and to speak for a place that can’t always speak for itself.
No one person gets to decide the fate of the Colorado River. This river quenches the thirst of more than 40 million people, stretches across two countries, seven states and 30 tribal nations. It links Colorado mountain towns to desert cities, feeds farms and families, and carved out some of the most iconic places in this country, including the Grand Canyon.
The Colorado River’s story is, in many ways, the story of America, or at least the version we’re choosing to write. And the truth is, we’re at a turning point.
With the West drying up, climate change bearing down and more people needing water, food and energy, the river is putting us on notice. One thing’s for sure: No matter where you live, the choices we make about this river in the next few years will ripple out far and wide. People are going to have to figure out how to share and reduce their use, because the Colorado doesn’t just belong to one of us. It belongs to all of us.
When we take someone down the river, we’re not just offering them an adventure, we’re offering them a relationship. A relationship with awe. With humility. With something bigger than themselves. And maybe, if we’re lucky, that relationship turns into responsibility.
But you don’t have to join one of my trips to know this. We are connected to the Colorado by the food and water we consume. This river connects all of us. It stitches us together.
The Colorado River has shaped the West, and in many ways, she’s shaped me. The dories I row are named after landscapes harmed or threatened by the hands of man. I won’t sit back and let the Colorado’s story be one of extraction and loss. Not while I still have a voice and the oars in my hands.
We don’t get to choose when we’re born or what moment in history we inherit. But we do get to choose how we respond. I choose to row forward, speak up and fight for the places that made me who I am. Because I don’t want to look back and say I stayed silent while the river ran dry.
No regrets. Let’s listen to the Colorado and share her story far and wide like those who came before us. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from future generations. Let’s protect what’s ours and let us start right here on the Colorado River.
Cindell Dale, of Ignacio, is a OARS Grand Canyon dory guide, Colorado rancher and artist.
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