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Willie Stewart loves to tell the story of his first day kayaking through the Grand Canyon. He carried his brand-new purple-and-blue plastic boat to the water, strapped on his helmet and life vest, slipped into the cockpit and shoved off. In a matter of minutes, he was getting bounced around in the roughest white water he had ever seen. But there was nothing the river threw at him he couldn't handle. A quick flick of a paddle blade here, an executed turn there, and he glided through the churning waters with ease. Pleased with himself, he turned to his buddies -- experienced river rats all -- and said, "Great run."They looked at him, totally baffled. "What are you talking about?" someone said. "We haven't gotten to the rapids yet."
"That was the biggest stuff I had ever seen," Stewart laughs. "I remember thinking: I'm dead."
He's the first to admit that his situation was crazy; there he was in a 40-pound boat, with only a few months of training -- and one arm. Strapped to his left shoulder was a prosthetic limb that he'd had for just about a week. The plan was to paddle for 20 days over 227 miles of some of the roughest white water in the United States. What took place was one of the most remarkable adventures the Grand Canyon has ever seen.
It started with a casual phone call in the spring of 2005. A good friend, Mike Crenshaw, finally got a permit from the National Park Service to lead a private party of 16 boaters down the Colorado River that coming August. He had a slot open for Willie. Was he interested?
"It was the chance of a lifetime," Stewart says. He had been waiting years for this trip to happen. "How could I refuse?"
But before they shoved off, he had a couple of things to take care of. He had to get a white-water kayak, learn how to use it, and get an arm.
For most of his life, the rugged 45-year-old has lived with only his right arm intact. He lost the left in a horrible accident when he was 18. Fresh out of high school, Stewart was working a summer construction job in Washington, D.C. The trailing end of a rope he was carrying got entangled in an industrial fan. Before he could react, the fan reeled in the rope taut and severed his arm just above the elbow.
He became a bitter young man, angry at the unfairness of what had happened, getting into brawls. When asked if one story told about him is true -- that he got into a bar fight the day he got out of the hospital -- Stewart looks off to the side. "A lot of fights, but it's nothing to be proud of."
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