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So far, I have been on four rafting trips on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon. The first trip, in 1994, was a one-weeker. The other trips were two weeks.

I know it’s crazy, but even today, that first trip lives in my memory as the longest of them all. It was as if time slowed down and allowed me to savor every moment of the experience.

Oddly enough, the only time I was in any danger was on dry land, not in the rapids. It happened during the 1994 trip.

On either the first or second afternoon (I can’t remember everything), our group made camp.

Either at Georgie‘s Camp, river mile 19 (the 1st night) or at Buck Farm Canyon, river mile 41 (the 2nd night), we passengers dispersed to stake out our sleeping spots on the sand, and the guides proceeded to set up the kitchen and start supper.

We had about an hour of free time, so I decided to stroll off into the surrounding wilds to see what I could see. Per the trip rules, I informed Andrew, the trip leader, and departed.

In an ideal world, I would have had my camera with me, but the accursed thing had died that morning. Stopped working. Croaked.

Andrew said it was my own fault; I had somehow offended the River Gods. He said they won’t put up with crap from anybody, least of all a tourist.

The trail was good, and the walk was fairly easy. But soon, the trail being rather monotonous, I decided to venture off-trail. I headed up a slight incline to the right that appeared to lead to an overlook.

The route I followed was a faint sheep trail that climbed the hill in a mostly straight line, angling from lower left to upper right.

The overlook gave me a great  view, but I couldn’t see the river. I wanted to see the river. So I continued upward.

Before long, I was 20 minutes into the ascent and beginning to gain altitude. I was too far from camp to see or hear the activity below.

Not only that, the nature of the slope was beginning to change.

In Grand Canyon, the rock layers change as you go higher or lower. I don’t know what layer I reached that afternoon — my understanding of Grand Canyon geology is only superficial — but whatever it was, the terrain consisted of a layer of thin, fractured, flat grey rocks that were exceedingly unstable.

As I proceeded up the slope, I was forced to ascend on all fours because the loose chunks of slate or shale covering the slope would not be still. They were very slippery, constantly sliding and shifting underfoot as I walked.

Situation: I was on a steep, slippery hillside that was getting steeper and slipperier with every step.

At that moment, the voice of common sense and self-preservation that dwells in one’s brain, the survival instinct that one should heed in such situations, spoketh.

I looked around. The sheep trail seemed to have faded out. If I continued, I might become ledged out and in real trouble. The voice said it was time to turn back, and I concurred.

Carefully, I turned around on the path and positioned myself sideways, using my right arm to form a tripod and gain stability.

It was a good thought, but it didn’t work. I took one step, and my feet slid out from under me. I landed on my backside with a thud.

I tried again, this time descending backwards, looking over my shoulder, both hands on the trail for stability.

After one or two steps, I ended up flat on my belly. By golly, that slope was a lot easier to ascend than descend.

I turned around, sat up, and studied the slope. It appeared that the dicey part was a stretch of only 10 or 20 yards. If I could cover that distance without losing it in a spectacular way — and by that I mean cartwheeling head-over-teakettle several hundred vertical feet back into camp — I would be back on more firma terra.

I probably took a sip of water, adjusted my daypack, and wiped my brow with a bandana. Then, very gingerly, standing sideways, I took a step downhill.

Immediately, there came a deep rumble, as if of thunder.

The ground around me shook. Dust began to rise. I was being shaken violently, but somehow remained standing.

My first thought was earthquake! My fate was in other hands, and I probably was doomed.

But something wasn’t right. In spite of the sudden wild activity and movement, the ground beneath me looked perfectly normal. The earth should be splitting asunder, shouldn‘t it?

Then I realized it was no earthquake. It was a landslide.

A giant slab of the shale/slate material, probably a dozen feet square, had broken loose and was sliding down the slope in one chunk, with me on top of it.

Our slow, rumbling, downhill slide probably lasted 10 seconds. The slab stopped and started three times.

Each time the slab stopped, I thought, Thank God! Thank God!

Each time it started again, I thought, Oh, God! Oh, God!

And believe me, I wasn’t addressing the River Gods.

Eventually, the slab came to rest. For a few seconds, rumbling and booming echoed through the canyon.

The dust was awful, but I didn’t care. I had ridden the beast, kept my balance, and survived completely unscathed. It was good to be alive. It was SO GOOD to be alive.

The slab of rock had moved about 15 yards downhill and stopped at the base of the slope — the very spot I needed to reach. I stepped onto more solid ground and joyfully made my way back down the hill.

On the way back to camp, I decided not to mention the event to my traveling companions. The guides might bar me from leaving camp alone. Or at all. Besides, no harm was done. It would be my little secret.

When I arrived back at the beach, Andrew was waiting.

“I was about to go looking for you,” he said. “There was a rockfall somewhere back up there. We heard it in camp.”

“Really?” I said. “Too bad I missed the excitement.”

Technical depiction of your average rockslide.