What goes on on the river, stays on the river, until the photos start showing up in Dropbox, that is. It probably isn’t hard to tell who didn’t get the memo about bringing a costume for the traditional costume party, but the gals anticipated it with a few extra tutu’s and a kimono.

Rafting the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River is one of the “must do’s” on most outdoor recreation people’s bucket list.  I’ve been fortunately enough to have done it six times now and it’s still awe-inspiring in it’s majesty and constantly thought-provoking in it’s creation. Relative concepts of time are shattered contemplating what’s transpired on earth as evidenced in it’s exposed layers and fossils.

Having lost the use of my iPhone camera has limited the accompanying photos to those posted in Dropbox so far.  Suffice it to say, our Maravia raft flipped (I wasn’t on the oars) early in the trip in a “hole” at Tanner Rapid.  Nothing was lost off the boat other than the two guys that swam the remaining ¾’s of that white-water rapid. The rafts are typically “rigged to flip” by lashing all the gear down with river straps and nets. In the time that it takes to corral the raft to the shore-line and get 10 people on top to “right” the raft, my iPhone (which was inside a small water-tight bag, inside a water-tight day bag) got swamped probably due to the weight and pressure underwater.

A good time was had by all as you can see by the waterfall hike up to Elves Chasm where our group enjoyed jumping out of the cavern into the pool.  The 15-day trip was designed to maximize our hiking opportunities which are some of the best experiences along the river.  Many trails and slot canyons are only accessible from the river and as such, provide somewhat unique experiences, if you forget that 30,000 people get to float the “Grand” each year.  Since the traffic on the river is limited by permits, we often hiked without other groups and the camps are such that you might never see another group near your river camp.

The Little Colorado River confluence, Matkatamiba, Havasu and Deer Creek are the exceptions where the large commercial rafting companies always take their clients each day.  During the summer season there is only one private trip and four commercial trips launched each day.  The commercial trips are 7 to 10 days and move their clients quickly down the 225-mile river; many clients are helicoptered out after the famous Lava Falls Rapid experience at mile 179.

Since this trip was primarily to support kayakers, the group rented five 18′ commercial-sized rafts with all the trip gear from Moenkopi Riverworks out of Flagstaff. Normally we’d bring our own 16′ rafts and gear but the group opted for a fully outfitted package: boats, gear and food.  Since it was a private trip we didn’t have any guides, cooks or swampers, providing all the “man-power” ourselves.  It was a new experience to see how a commercial trip is provisioned and outfitted.  Food and menus were great and our 16 members divided into crews of 4 to take turns preparing each day’s repast.

Google Earth Map shows approximately 225 miles from below the Hoover Dam at Marble Falls to Diamond takeout on the Hualapai Reservation.

Happy to be back home, but if you ever get an chance to “do the Grand” — private or even on a commercial trip — don’t pass it up.  It’s a once in a lifetime experience.

And I’ve now invested in a LifeProof case for my replacement iPhone.

Halfway into the trip rafting down the Colorado River our raft flipped and the iPhone didn’t survive the 30 minutes upside down inside a water proof sack, inside another waterproof day bag.  Owner is fine. Rice-to-rice resuscitation didn’t bring it around this time, even after 7 days in the RCU.  I’ve ordered a replacement but that won’t happen for several days, therefore my phone won’t ring, nor be answered until I put the old SIM card in a new replacement iPhone.

Still available via messages or email.

Stanna has a saying from a river trip on the San Juan River, one March some thirty years ago, back in the last century: “If it’s snowing at the put-in, step off the raft and get back in the car and say: I’ll meet you at the take-out.”  This photo isn’t at the put-in, rather at the rendezvous point just outside of Durango last week.  Two inches of snow had fallen while we were loading the rafts for the trip to Green River, Utah, to run Grey and Desolation Canyons of the Green River.  Her advice could have applied.

It wasn’t a bad trip at all, just stormed and rained more than I’ve ever experienced on a river trip.  The online weather outlook was poor for the first day, “…high of 56 and low of 39 with 30% chance of rain…,”  but the remainder of the week to warm nicely with mostly sunny days according to the forecast.  We did have one nice day, thankfully, sunny enough to dare bathing in the river and drying off in the sun (while it lasted).

However, much of the time we were in long pants with fleece and rain jackets. We did manage a number of canyon hikes along the way.  One unusual site was a bootlegger still and cliffside rock cabin located in such a remote river canyon that we couldn’t figure out how he got his grain in and hooch out. This was situated 45 miles downriver halfway between two towns, but it was adjacent to an Indian reservation, so he wasn’t all that crazy.  Another site was the elaborate petroglyph panel featured below.

It was intimidating taking photos with my iPhone next to our trip-mate Jeff (note him in the bushes with his tripod mounted lens) and his Sherpa son carrying all his professional photography gear.  His Nature Revealed photography gallery is located in Durango and it was very interesting seeing him work and appreciating his “patience.”

Several evenings we had to cook dinner in the rain and warm ourselves with a fire in the firepan (a long-running requirement for campfires and BBQ’s in the river-permitted regions).

One particularly stormy, thundering loud and windy morning, I moved the camp stove under the teetering table and made coffee huddled on the ground below the collapsed “parawing” rain fly.  Luckily breakfast was just granola and yogurt with no need of a proper galley.

As unusual as the weather was for a mid-May desert river trip, so was the theme of the trips conversations.  Of the eight rafters, 4 were teachers with science backgrounds, one
of which enthralled and overwhelmed several of us with details about quantum mechanics (the science of the very small: the body of scientific principles that explains the behaviour of matter and its interactions with energy on the scale of atoms – Wikipedia).  “There are more atoms in a pebble than grains of sand on the earth,” “…everything is now regarded as a wave” and “all light comes from photons” –  just to give you a sense of the responses to our naive questions.  Electrons entered much into the camp and raft conversations, along with an ample portion of geology.  Learning was going all directions just like photons and electrons.

One mystery no one could explain, was just how beavers managed to chew through a number of trees almost 7 feet off the ground, near one of our lunch stops.  There was a large abandoned “lodge” close by and at least four of these higher trees lopped off above our heads.  No evidence of a perch or floating vantage point.  And snow doesn’t get that high at that elevation, even if the beaver wasn’t hibernating.

“My father wasn’t very careful with fire…,” is how one of the campfire stories started when Ed Zink livened up the sophomoric and socratic moods.  His jokes and limericks made for great company and balance to the 101-level non-traditional student questions firing back and forth to the professor.  Add in the great meals, side hikes and camaraderie, not to mention the wonder of drifting down a 90-mile section of one of the West’s remote desert rivers: this was a great trip.  Now if we could remember all that was taught and said, we’d have jokes and trivia for many more gatherings.

Once again we had the pleasure of rafting the Middle Fork of the Salmon, but this was one of the best trips ever. Even though the initial rigging and pre-camp was totally in the rain, plus the temps for day one were in the 60’s, it was a superb trip.  The 12 folks on the trip got along super, the food was great, the hot springs wonderful (we were the only one’s at Sunflower), we saw enough wildlife to write about, and the flows were just right at 2.6 to 2.9′.

Our trip leader was the only one who knew each one in the group before launch, but it didn’t take long for everyone to blend in.  One technique Ed Zink (an experience hunting guide) used to get folks to talk about themselves was his “Question of the Day”, where he asks, in round-robin, something like “What was your most interesting: River Trip/Vaca

tion/Childhood Memory”.  Within a couple days we knew quite a bit about everyone and had new ideas for travel, books to read and things to talk about.

Once the rains stopped, Idaho was slated for unusually high temps which we appreciated.  As the photo shows we had quite a variety of rafts, including 2 inflatable kayaks and a pack raft.  Best news was the old Argonaut’s most current patch job held the best ever.  No flips and only a couple rafts got “high centered” on rocks.

Two of our favorite hot springs were completely vacant when we visited them.  And the trough shower at Sunflower is always a favorite even though you can’t use soap or shampoo.

One of those totally unexpected encounters happened as we arrived at Indian Creek.  Standing atop his raft as I pulled in, was my old high-school buddy Don Ahlert, who I cycled across the latter half of the Southern Tier of the US with in 2011.  Great to catch up with him before we each headed down river to meet up with our individual trips.  He launched one day ahead of us and was able to hook up a double permit for the Middle Fork and Main Salmon combined.

Elk Bar is a totally sand beach where we tried to camp with Don Pole back in aught 11.  We made good use of the bar and even managed an extensive biology lesson watching a dozen randy frogs mating in the fish trap at the north end of the beach.

If Ed asks us again “What was the best river trip you been on”, we’ll all have to say Middle Fork 2013 because when John Lawson answered about the most interesting place he’s ever visited in his travels, following answers such as, the Sistine Chapel, the Panama Canal and Ankor Wat, with “a Stuckey’s along the Kansas Interstate”, to which Ed laughed and cried for a very long, long time.  No one could speak again for hours without using the word “Stuckey’s” in their comment.

Lucky to land a spot on a Middle Fork of the Salmon river trip once again this summer.  Trip was a last minute cancellation that good friend managed to hook for June 17th.  Only 7 folks on the trip as water levels were high (above 5’ while recruiting) and it was such short notice.  Only four rafts and 2 kayaks.

One of the colder river trips I’ve been on, as the first couple of days had frost on our tents, but by the third day it warmed up and we could finish the trip in shorts for the last 3 days. At 4.68’ we only took 3 1/2 hours on the river each day to do 15 miles of white water and reach another wilderness camp site.

Met some interesting people along the way, one of which flew into a local river resort and hiked to one of the many hot springs we enjoyed.  They were Ozzy snowbirds who kept a Cessena 182 in Tuscon. We had much in common as he was a Master Captain for a 160’ motor sailer who visited many of the same places we did, just at a different level.  For example they would use the on-board helicopter to do their “check-ins”, a method that frankly never occurred to us when we arrived at a new port.

We didn’t see as much wildlife as in past trips, but the swallow-tail butterflies were out in the hundreds.  I’d never seen them congregate on a portion of wet sand beach before.  Our best guess was they were sucking the moisture out of the sand.