October 18, 2022 - EyeClarity Podcast
I had a great trip white water rafting on the Colorado River, and I wanted to share my experience, reflections, and some of the things I learned with you. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
colorado river, canyon, trip, river, part, places, utah, great, stars, saturn, wife, comforts, sam, text, wilderness, guides, hiking, avid hiker, predicament, globular clusters
Hello, everyone. It’s Dr. Sam. I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.
Hey everybody, its Dr. Sam and I’d like to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. So I’ve been off for about two weeks and on vacation, one of the things I like to do is do kind of active vacations. And one of the things that my wife and I have done over the years is whitewater river trips. One of the reasons we like those is because it’s a fabulous way to get into the wilderness, and have all of your gear transported on the rafts. Some trips we’ve done previous to this, we did the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho actually, we did it twice, and 2014 and 2015. And that was an incredible trip because we went through the Frank Church wilderness, which is one of the most remote wildernesses in the lower 48 states. So on this river retreat, we did, we actually floated down the Colorado River, we put in just below Moab, Utah. And as we got further down the Colorado River, the Colorado meets with the Green River. And they call that the confluence. So then at that point, the Green River and the Colorado River come together. And that’s where the whitewater rapids start. And we go all the way down to our takeout, which is near height, Utah. And it’s deep in the heart of the Canyon Country, in South Central Utah. There are some really great things that I received being on that trip, first of all, the guides are really incredible, you know, it’s very inspiring to see young people in their mid 20s, who are just passionate about the river nature, and showing people you know, what is going on, deep in the wilderness, and the Colorado river goes through the the heart of Canyon lands, which is one of the great national parks. And it’s a vast area, difficult to get into, although you can do it on, you know, some dirt roads and things like that.
But Trent, traversing through the middle of Canyon lands, we actually saw some things that, you know, usually you can’t see, the canyon walls get so high as you’re going down the Colorado River. And just the different designs that have been created over the years through whether it’s a geological masterpiece, as you see all the different kinds of rocks. And the the interesting thing I would say, number two that I received from being on this trip is that the Colorado River used to be really high. And due to climate change, and the stress that, you know, water is, is feeling the river is feeling from all the huge population centers like Phoenix and Las Vegas and California that need to draw on that water to know to survive, that the Colorado River has really shrunk. And this, of course, is the conversation that’s around the lake Powell Lake Mead areas that are losing so much water, partly because of evaporation and heat and climate change. But also, because of our use in the West. It’s one of the big controversies going on right now. And the federal government is trying to jump in to say, look, you know, these western states can’t keep using this amount of water because the whole river system is going to dry up. I would say the third thing that I really loved about this trip was the hiking and you know, I’m an avid hiker, you’ve seen me out They’re doing
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my, my daily morning walks and talking to you guys. But on this level, what was amazing is we did two hikes out of the canyon and you, you get to the trailhead where you’re gonna go up the trail, and you look and it’s like, is this straight up, because basically the relief is, I would say it’s 60 to 70 degrees, it’s not 90 degrees, although some places it is. But you’re, you definitely have to traverse the mountain and the canyon in a way to get on top of it. And fortunately, there are trails that have been created, and you do a lot of switchbacks. And even, you know, stair stepping. And both my wife and I did very well, in being able to get up out of the canyon when one of the hikes we did was to the doll house, which are these amazing stone formations. And it really struck me the silence out there, because when you get up there, really the only two ways you can get in is through the river floor like we did, or by backpacking several miles in the other direction. And this is in a part of the canyon lands called the maze District, which is probably the most remote part of the, of the park.
And just seeing some of those rock formations. I mean, they look like prehistoric times, you know, just way back when the dinosaurs were there. Not a lot of humans, which we all like, you know, kind of preserves the place. And so the hiking was just phenomenal. And we had great food, the camping, being able to be outdoors, you know, pretty much 24/7 And there were some challenges, you know, the daily things that we go through, you know, the comforts that we don’t have, we had sand and everything because all the camping campsites were beaches, so you get sand and everywhere, your sleeping bag, and so on. And you know, you don’t have the comforts of home. But you get really bonded with the group, I think we had over 2025 people on the trip plus seven guides. And this was the last trip of the season. So we had like the best of the best guys, I guess they all came together. And this particular theme of this was called strings and, and stars. So the guides were all musicians, and my wife is a professional musician. So she got to play with them. She’s a flutist. And of course, they were playing guitar.
And even one night I like playing percussion. I’ve studied percussion for a long time. So I also was able to play with them. And then the other part of it was the night sky and being an amateur astronomer, I’ve studied the stars and astronomy for many, many years, actually, since I moved out to New Mexico over 30 years ago. And I would say the sky, the quality of the sky was exquisite the things that I could see that even in New Mexico in Santa Fe where we live, I couldn’t see those kinds of things. So the night sky, we’re losing that in a lot of places because of the light pollution. And I think it’s a very important part of our environment that, you know, when we connect to the stars, we connect to the bigger vision, the macro, and we start, you know, having that curiosity of all the different, you know, galaxies and globular clusters and stars and planets. And we were able to see Sam Saturn was coming up every night. So we’re able to see the rings of Saturn and I saw some of the moons of Saturn. So the the components of the trip were really excellent. And you know, I have a great team that supports me and putting out great content for you. Because I was offline. It was the first time I was offline since the summer of 2019. And it was actually very nice to be offline for for that, you know for that time slot time period and I’m back, I’m home now. So
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that was basically our trip. And, you know, if you ever get a chance to go over to central South Central Utah, I’m sure many of you have seen some of the great red rocks. It’s just vast. And, you know, places like bridges National Monument and Bears Ears monument. Those are really sacred places that we need to protect, and just support nature. Because in a lot of trends, we’re using up nature and it’s part of the reason why we’re in the predicament predicament we are.
So I wanted to bring you up to date on that. And by the way, we are starting a new way to get in touch with me. We’ve started a service where you can text your questions to me, and I’ll give you the the number in the US 1-844-932-1291. That’s 844-932-1291. And that will be for US and Canada. If you’ve got any questions, you can now text them to me. It’s another way that I will connect with you. And I promise I won’t bother you with a lot of texts. But it will be basically educationally based where I might send you you know, a link to a certain video blog or written blog that I’ve just produced. And of course, you can also keep sending me your emails Hello at Dr. Sam berne.com. So that’s our show for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, take care.
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