Water serves as a bond for the West

As our raft guide navigated the gentle rapids and rocky canyon walls of Colorado’s Taylor River, Los Angeles felt a world away.

- SAMMY ROTH COLUMNIST, BOILING POINT

THE Gunnison River flows past Sapinero in western Colorado.

The river was quiet, serene. Keep an eye out for bighorn sheep, our guide told us.

But even as I reveled in the soothing scenery, I kept thinking about home.

A few miles downstream, the water would reach the Gunnison River. From there, some of the flow — the stuff not diverted to farms and ranches and cities — would continue 180 miles to join the Colorado River at Grand Junction.

Then it would meander through Utah’s red-rock country, before stopovers at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Eventually it would be pumped hundreds of miles across California. A few drops might reach my apartment.

Last week, I rafted the Taylor River; this week, back home from vacation, I may be drinking it.

It’s easy to get lost in abstractions. Sure, I know much of my city’s drinking water comes from faraway mountain ranges, and much of its electricity from distant power plants. As an environmental journalist, I’m aware the dams and generators built to serve the West’s major cities have reshaped communities and ecosystems.

But sitting here in L.A., that’s all a thought exercise. For the people and places at the other ends of the aqueducts and power lines, the consequences are extremely tangible.

Take the raft guide who steered me and my friends down the Taylor.

He was in his early 20s and living his best life, having moved to Colorado to be a ski bum before falling for rafting. His goofy, carefree vibes belied a wealth of knowledge. When I asked him about drought, he rattled off cubic-feet-per-second river flows. (They're low this year.) He mentioned a water board meeting happening that night.

Then our raft snagged on some rocks.

“Here we gooooo!” he called, flipping us back around.