Wow. Where to start. This adventure may be too big to write about.

It is hard to imagine that it almost didn’t happen. And even more absurd to think about how close we came to missing the cut.

Over a year ago a family friend of ours won the river rafting lottery and wound up with an October 1, 2013 launch date to put on the Grand Canyon. Since then he’s been gathering supplies and group members to join him on this 226 mile trip from Lee’s Ferry to Diamond Creek, the next place a road touches the water. Multiple Indian reservations border the canyon but the National Parks control the put-in, regulating the size, frequency and length of the groups that can go these 226 miles every year.

In 2006, the 7,296 person waitlist was discontinued and replaced with a weighted lottery system, effectively giving everyone who hasn’t been on a trip within the last five years (or ever) five chances for every person whose gone sooner’s one. The chances for going on this trip of a lifetime are still slim, but instead of a guaranteed wait of 15 years, you’re looking at decent odds for going within seven years.

Needless to say having the opportunity to go on this trip is a big deal, not to mention having the ability to take the time off from ‘real life’ and being physically healthy enough to enjoy it. For all these things to align it takes an absurd amount of preparation, hard work and luck, so when we heard that there was a chance it could all come crashing down due to a deadlocked House and Senate, it was hard to believe that such good luck could be erased with one decision (or lack of).

In the days leading up to the trip we tried not to think about what could happen if the Government shut down the Grand Canyon on October 1. Forcing the National Parks to close over a partisan health care battle seemed like a bad joke to begin with, the idea that they’d spend time and money to keep us out was too absurd to consider.

If anything, we thought, they’d just look the other way and let people like us through. We didn’t need anything from the Park Rangers besides a check in and a safety talk before they’d let us go on our merry way. Fine, they might have to close the gift shops and high traffic viewpoints at the rim, but surely they wouldn’t deny people who’d waited YEARS and spent THOUSANDS of dollars an opportunity that costs the National Parks nothing more than a few cleaned toilets and a few hours of worked from one VOLUNTEER Park Ranger. The government isn’t that dysfunctional, right?

The last time our government had had an issue like this it was resolved in a few hours, so we were optimistic that even if the worst happened, it wouldn’t last for long. But our launch day was October 1, if any river runners ended up being affected, it would be us.

Tensions were high as we drove into Lee’s Ferry on September 30 to unload our boats and gear to the ramp. According to our permit we could arrive a day early to check in and set up our boats for the morning launch on October 1, so with no rangers in sight we worked quickly and quietly alongside the other two groups with October 1 launch dates. It felt like we all collectively held our breath as the ranger pulled up to the put in around 2:30pm. I was so nervous I hadn’t made eye contact with anyone all day.

He talked to the groups before us first, and by way of gossip we heard that they were still running normal operations until they were told to stop. They, like us, hoped beyond hope it wouldn’t come to a shutdown and were doing everything they could to help everyone get on the river.

Over the next hour or so the ranger checked our gear and relayed the latest information from his radio, eventually telling us that he was going to give us the safety talk they usually wait to give us on launch day in just a few minutes.

Even at 4pm as we gathered around the Ranger, we weren’t sure we’d be allowed to go. We tried our best to avoid jinxes and sudden movements as we waited for him to begin. All three groups listened intently as our volunteer ranger announced that the Grand Canyon National Park was now officially expecting to shutdown the next day and that we would be the last group of river rafters allowed on the river. A large cheer erupted from the crowd when he explained that since our boats were already in the water (before 12:01am on October 1) they could technically count our trip as already in progress and allow us to continue. All trips with a launch date of October 2 or later would be canceled and we would be the last people on the river until the government reopened.

As he continued with the safety talk, the tension we’d felt over the last week slowly melted into the soothing warnings about rattlesnakes, scorpions, hypothermia and murderous rapids. Nothing mattered except that we’d be able to go, and while we felt a mixture of excitement, anger, relief, sadness, and guilt for being the last group through, mostly we were numb, emotionally drained and physically exhausted.

It was only after our ranger urged our three groups to look out for each other that the full extent of our situation hit me. Someone made a joke about living through a Lord of the Flies type situation, leading me to draw the largest laugh of the night as I exasperatedly realized, “Oh my God there is NO GOVERNMENT,” and collapsed my head in my hands. We all laughed out of pure astonishment, gratefulness and relief, doing our best to push to the back of our minds the unlucky groups arriving tomorrow to be turned away. We’d made the cut. We were allowed to take our trip. We were the last people to raft the Grand Canyon.

We floated our boats a few feet downstream to the put-in’s campsite and got as much sleep as we could, tossing and turning as the stress attempted to leave our bodies, none of us really feeling secure until we could be floating downstream in the morning. We got up early and piled in the cars to get breakfast at the only nearby restaurant (15 minutes away), writing postcards to our families to explain that we’d made it out safe and that they’d hear from us again in 21 days.

The post office wasn’t open yet so we headed back to our boats to finish rigging, thinking we’d send someone back out a half hour later to send the letters right before we headed out.

But after only a few minutes at the boats, our ranger walked down with a serious look on his face and said we had a “hard 20” minutes to be out of sight. He didn’t say what would happen if we weren’t out by the deadline but none of us asked questions, making note to be gone by 9am.

Without thinking too hard I grabbed the keys to our van and declared I was going to rush the postcards to the post office. I promised I’d be back in time and ignored the skeptical discussion as I ran off towards the far away parking lot. Looking back now it probably wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made in my life; I learned a lot about how the brain is altered by stress and change in those hours leading up to 9am on October 1, 2013.

But it also wasn’t the worst decision I’ve ever made, and though those 20 minutes of driving a very large van towing a very bouncy empty trailer way too fast over a very windy road with very shaky hands and a super worried father waiting on a boat were some of the most stressful of my life (the Post Office guy was the SLOWEST human on the planet), we also got our letters out in time and I was officially the LAST PERSON allowed to river raft the Grand Canyon during what would become a 17 day government shutdown. I pushed myself that morning and didn’t find a limit. Moments like that are worth whatever risks they bring.

I hopped on the boat and we drifted away from shore, watching two cars towing boats rush to the ramp and presumably attempt to unload. For the next 21 days our only news from the outside world came from 20 second satellite phone conversations and the rare hiker that had snuck in to the park through the Indian reservations. We found out at the take out that it was only after a tense standoff that those two boats packed back up their cars to join the hundreds of other rafters camping in the parking lot of our breakfast restaurant, waiting for the government to come to a decision and remove the blockade the rangers had been told to set up at the gates.

For 17 days we were the last three groups on the Grand Canyon. For the first twelve days we saw the other two groups off and on, passing and getting passed as our schedules overlapped. But on day 12 we waved goodbye to the last people we’d see on the river until we reached the take out on the 21st.

Let me reiterate. We had the GRAND CANYON to ourselves as three groups for 21 days and as our own group for 9 days after that. THIS NEVER HAPPENS.

Top put it in perspective, at this time in the year (fall/winter) two or three groups of up to 16 people launch every day, in the summer it’s more like 10 groups, many containing up to 32 people. There are a limited number of camp sites on the river, many of them better than others and it’s first come first serve, making much of the trip usually about logistics of hitting a campsite early to secure it from the other groups (some of which could even attach motors to their rafts).

At any given time 100 people are in front of or behind you, making popular waterfall or slot canyon hikes overcrowded and dangerous, not to mention less than pristine. It was absolutely unreal to be that alone in a place like that and absolutely life affirming to look behind us and know we were the only ones who got to see this.

I’m not saying that the trip isn’t worth it under normal circumstances, and I’m sure I will jump at the chance to go again if the opportunity ever arises (you should too). But what we were allowed to experience was something entirely unique and absurdly wonderful; something only a few other people in a world of 7 billion will ever have the chance to do. All the other trips down the Grand Canyon are still about the journey, the time away, the scenery, but ours will always be so much more. We got to feel an isolation and autonomy in a location that is one of the most trafficked places in the world. We lounged in the blue waters of Havasu, fell asleep above the Deer Creek waterfall, raced to the top of the treacherous slot canyons without any concerns of plans or people or logistics. The members of our group had one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World to ourselves for 21 days. Beyond anything else that happened on the trip, that is the thing we’ll always appreciate. It wasn’t worth the cost, by any means, but we’ll always be grateful anyway. Thank you.