On a warm April morning, I gaze at a ghost tree towering above me. Its leafless canopy seems to be staring up as well, in similar disbelief, at the 500-foot-high sandstone cliffs surrounding us.

There’s a cluster of 70-foot-tall cottonwoods on this river-bottom spot, dead for decades yet seemingly frozen between the worlds of the living and the dead. Their trunks are black and encrusted with white sediment, but somehow this ancient desert forest is still standing—like a phantom reminder of what we’ve lost.

The base of the tree trunk is swallowed by oozing, fine-grained silt that matches the palette of the walls. This cliffed cathedral is hidden inside a drainage arm of the Escalante River, which flows south into Glen Canyon, and for much of my life until recently, the grove at its base was underwater, submerged beneath what used to be a northern reach of Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the United States.

As of November, Lake Powell was 37 percent full—unnervingly dry, but significantly up from its record 22 percent low in spring 2023.

What amazes me most is that I’m walking in roughly the same path that my father, John McBride, did more than 50 years ago. I’m sure about my location because I’ve studied the old Super 8 footage he shot with his Beaulieu in 1968. The soundless clips show my father and a few pals joyfully exploring this same side canyon, which is at nearly the exact same level it is now. This was a few months before it was all drowned, and three years before I was born.

They wanted to see what nature photographer Eliot Porter called “the place no one knew” before it completely vanished. Of course, Indigenous people had lived throughout this region for centuries and knew these labyrinths intimately. But few non-Natives—relative newcomers—did. And so, during America’s dam-building era, when the Bureau of Reclamation put nearly every western river in its sights, the government flooded Glen Canyon behind the 710-foot-high wall known as Glen Canyon Dam. Little thought was given to what might happen to the river and its hydrologic cycles, habitat, and archaeological wonders.

Seeing the same trees my father did is weirdly sad and joyous. Lines of cement-colored silt and sediment, known as the bathtub ring, mark the walls around me. On the canyon floor, partially buried recreation detritus—beer cans, golf balls, lawn chairs, even a sunken Jet Ski—add to the time-
capsule experience.

Len Necefer, a friend, documentary filmmaker, and member of the Navajo Nation, is with me today. He walks over and casually says, “Wild. The canyon is returning. Nature bats last.”

“I guess so,” I say. “Especially when you’re playing with deep, geologic time.”

I think about what my father saw more than half a century ago. These days his memories of that adventure are murky, but his grainy old footage is profoundly revealing. It shows these same trees thriving, with grassy meadows around them. Indigenous structures are perched on cliffs, and lush springs create dancing waterfalls that spill into green alcoves. He and his friends appear equally vibrant—running, laughing, jumping. My dad looks tan and strong, his mood carefree.

It’s as if the Colorado and my father loosely reflect each other: Back then they were both wilder. Today both have been slowed.

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Last Monday, in the town of San Luis Río Colorado, in the Mexican state of Sonora, hundreds of people gathered below a bridge that spans the dry channel of the Colorado River. The polka-beat of Ranchero music mixed with sound of laughter across the sandy basin. It was a party of all ages and everyone waited for the guest of honor: agua.

Located 23 miles downstream of Morelos Dam—the last dam on the Colorado—San Luis is where the river finally leaves the border behind and journeys into mainland Mexico. From here, the riverbed winds 90 miles to the Sea of Cortez. But for nearly two decades, water has rarely escaped the sealed downstream gates of the dam. Instead, Mexico’s entire Colorado River allocation turns west—diverted into a giant, concrete irrigation canal—leaving a river of sand below.

But at 8 a.m. on Sunday, March 23, the red steel gates glided open, releasing the beginning of a 105,392-acre-foot “pulse flow”(an acre foot is roughly a football field one foot deep). This blast of moisture, designed by hydrologists to mimic a natural flood, will last eight weeks with a peak flow cresting today, March 27, until 30. An additional 52,000 acre-feet will be dispersed over a five-year period as a supplemental “base flow” to support sprouting vegetation. All said and done, this gush of liquid gold represents what many thought to be the unfathomable—an international partnership to bring a river back to life.

By Tuesday in San Luis, the party by the bridge had built momentum. The river was late, but no one seemed deterred. Two men in business suits walked the dry riverbed before me. I asked them why they braved the heat here on this sunny afternoon.

“We are here to see the water, of course. Do you know where it is?” they asked in Spanish.

“Arriba. Upstream I think. It should pass here soon, for a bit,” I speculate.

“Si, que bien, soon is good but we need to see it here permanently.” He smiled and they continued walking the sand, looking upstream.

By Wednesday afternoon, I returned to see the fiesta had quadrupled. And in the distance, 300 yards above the bridge, I saw why. Like nearly everyone passing by either in vehicles or by foot, I was stopped in my tracks. The agua had finally made its debut. Inch by patient inch, the river moved down its old dusty path toward the San Luis bridge. A sense of giddiness grew with every foot the water advanced. Families picnicked in the backs of trucks and on beach towels beneath shade tents; fireworks popped, kids splashed in the shallows, cowboys danced horses, and ATVs and dune buggies roared about, rooster-tailing sand into the afternoon light.

To see crowds celebrating the return of the river—even briefly—leaves me marveling. When I first started chasing the Colorado, nobody spoke about water in the delta. That was six years ago, when I joined my friend Jon Waterman on a mission to . While Jon paddled every inch of the main course, I chased every bend in her path by foot, boat, and plane—anything to get me a unique perspective. For me it was personal. My family, like many, depends on the river’s flow to irrigate the hay crops on our cattle ranch upstream in central Colorado. I was curious to see firsthand what became of our irrigation water downstream; would it reach the sea?

For six million years, the river did, annually flooding its delta. That cycle, however, diminished starting in the 1960s and then stopped completely in the late 1990s. The growing demand for water across seven U.S. and two Mexican states finally surpassed the river’s over-allocated and drought-stricken supply. Today the Colorado is the lifeline for 36 million people and over four million acres of farmland. Without the Colorado, the West and most of the nation’s salad bowl wouldn’t exist.

This week’s rare flow is just a test to solve the decades-long issue of water shortage on the river. In 2012, after years of uphill work, officials agreed on an addendum, known as Minute 319, to . The agreement states that the United States and Mexico will share water surpluses and shortages until the end of 2017. It also mandates the experimental release of what it calls “water for the environment,” in a deal brokered by a coalition of NGOs, including , , , and the .

Don’t worry, California. The flow isn’t coming from your water budget. Technically, it’s made up of surplus Mexican water from previous years, which has been banked in Lake Mead (providing additional benefits like helping Vegas’ drinking supply). And in the grand scheme, the water allocation is puny—less than one percent of the river’s average annual flow.

For some, there is a concern that this flow will prove to be more symbolic than a true fix. Fred Philips, a habitat-restoration expert based in Yuma, Arizona, is moved that this section of river, “the most forgotten in the world,” is getting attention. For months, Phillips and scientists from Pronatura and the Sonoran Institute have been scurrying around the chapped delta, wedging saplings and planting seeds, holding their breaths to see if the vegetation recovers and if some of the delta’s 300,000 migrating birds return.

But Phillips worries that the hype will die with this week’s pulse–leaving many people’s hopes to dry up with the delta again. “They should use the minimum amount of water for the photo op,” he says, “and the maximum amount for habitat restoration.”

No matter what happens downstream, there is no denying one thing. Enthusiasm on both sides of the border is rising along with the water.

Yesterday I visited Morelos Dam. Most of the dam’s gates were flung wide open like windows, and a giant lazy lake stretched downstream. In six years of visiting here, I’ve never seen anything but a trickle of seepage flowing downstream. Five years ago, when Jon and I paddled that trickle, we made it only a few miles before we were marooned in a pit of frothy muck and garbage—forced to hoof the last 100 miles of delta shouldering our rafts and packs.

Tomorrow, ���ϳԹ��� contributing editor Rowan Jacobsen and I will join a band of river biologists and restoration experts to see if we can actually paddle to the sea. It will be my third attempt. This time, I’m hopeful the crest of this historic pulse will float us across the delta. Walking is out of the question.

Peter McBride and Jonathan Waterman vividly showcase the Colorado River in

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