Friday, December 3, 2021

Grand Canyon - changeover days

Photo credit (various pictures in the Grand Canyon series of posts) to David Bogle, Robyn Cantor, Art and Jillian Cook, Cathy Cox, Sheila Reiter, Leslie Reuter, Steffen Saustrup, and Sheila Torres-Blank

Things were about to get real.  I believe Mark called the next two days the hardest ones on the river.

I look surprisingly calm about it on the morning of day 6.  I think working on the menu and food planning kept my brain busy with dry land things.  Obviously I had been awake before first light:


Setting off, and it's another lovely day on the river:


Scouting Hance, a class 8.  There was a lot of discussion about rowing from right to left at the top, trying to hit the "duck pond eddy" behind a large boulder, and staying away from the "Land of the Giants" (huge waves) along the right side.


Even though we had the advantage of watching Charlie ahead of us end up too far right, each raft in succession had even less luck making it across to the duck pond.  Too much drifting at the top, not nearly enough "row for your life" effort as the river pushed each of us to the right.

So we were in the Land of the Giants, not where we wanted to be.  This was probably not the first time Robyn and I yelled "Hit it straight!  HIT IT STRAIGHT!!" at John but it was definitely the first time we really, really meant it.

I'm certain we got absolutely submerged, with water pouring over us plus everything in the raft.  John might have even gotten wet in this one.  We held our breath and hung on, through wave after wave, until we were at the bottom.  Then there was the Son of Hance, of which I have no memory.

OK, that was a bit crazy, but John did hit it straight (thank you John!) and all the rafts made it through without incident.

Mark and Thomas watched all of this from a "safety kayak" position, not impressed by our steering skills.  Mark told us that he doesn't give out "D" grades, and we didn't flip or lose anyone out of a raft so no one failed.  Therefore we all barely ended up with a "C".  We'll take it!

Mark trying to teach us how to do better:


Along the banks we could see dark Vishnu Schist and colorful Zoroaster Granite, which apparently makes for steep canyon walls and sharp, difficult rapids in the Upper Granite Gorge.  We had two class 7's to go, Sockdolager and Grapevine.

Jeff, Sheila, and Sheila starting down a rapid, possibly one of those two (although I can't place the location for sure):


Charlie coming out of a rapid, with Dave brave enough to have his phone out (!), while Leslie hangs onto Dave and Randall:


Here we go!  I think we're about to get wet...


On the other hand, some of the waves popped us right up over them:


It was a short but exciting day!

In order to stage ourselves for the "people exchange" the following day, we pulled up at Clear Creek camp.  It's a small beach and our tents were stacked up together, which seemed fitting (and comforting) for the last night with 4 of our friends who would be hiking out to the South Rim.


But first!  A hike up Clear Creek, seeking shade and a waterfall.  I could use a shower, sounds good.


Walking up the shallow creek:


What a lovely waterfall!  Perfect for washing us all off.  Sheila jumped right in:


What a great picture of Randall:


And Jillian  :)


Leslie and Dave, perhaps chatting about how this is much easier than expedition racing, once they got out of race mode and settled into "river pace":


Climbing back over rocks to return to our cozy camp:


Day 6:
  C-minus on Hance
  Love the Clear Creek waterfall
  Sad our friends will leave

Yes, it was hard to say goodbye to Dave, Cathy, Art, and Jillian.  They piled into the raft with John for an early departure, giving them ample daylight for their long climb up to the rim.  We will miss you!  Dave had loaned out items to almost everyone so he wouldn't have to carry them up the hill.  Including the shirt Mark is wearing:


The early raft, approaching one of the two Phantom Ranch footbridges:


After breakfast the rest of us followed in that direction:


Parked at the boat beach for a brief opportunity to run up to the little camp store:


Bright Angel Creek, looking serene and cool.  What isn't pictured are the hoards of hikers, mules, campers, all the people we saw that morning.  It was a bit of a shock to the system after a week of only seeing other people occasionally and at a distance.


Mark directed people to fill up our water jugs from the faucet (nice not to have to filter it for once), I grabbed a couple treats for John from the store, Randall splurged on a bag of ice, and we eventually reconvened at the rafts.

Time to welcome some new friends to the floating party!  Payton, Mollie, Pam, and Steffen hiked down that morning to meet us at Pipe Creek.

Gear rearranging with Sheila's help before jumping on the rafts:


I didn't actually witness their arrival.  John had parked his raft at the far end of the beach, and each raft in our flotilla squeezed into a spot next to it.  Until Jimmy tried to pull in and missed his last chance to sneak over to shore.  There was a rope tossed and a valiant effort to help us, but we ended up saying "never mind!" as we turned to face Pipe Creek rapid instead.

So Robyn, Jimmy, and I spent some time pulled over downstream, chatting and relaxing and waiting.

We even got to critique another set of rafts running the rapid, as we watched at least one of them catch a giant eddy and go in a big circle across the way.

Eventually our group was all back together again.  Hello John, we haven't seen you in a while!

Payton and Mollie getting their first taste of life on a raft:


Just over a mile after throwing their gear on the boats and jumping in, our new river friends got thrown into the deep end, although not literally.  Horn Creek is a class 8, and the good news for me and Robyn was that it was walkable.  Say no more, we were already walking.  Have I mentioned that we basically trained for this a couple months ago?  Scrambling over boulders but without heavy backpacks - yep, we got this.  Mark kept trying to tell us that we were less likely to get hurt in the raft instead of on shore, but we aren't taking a river person's word for that.

Pam also took the "dry run" route in order to snap some pictures for her article (link in an upcoming post), and I suspect there was someone else with us but I don't recall exactly.  Part of the "walkaround" included swimming along the shore next to tall boulders, also way easier on our mental state than taking a ride in the rafts.

It was quite entertaining watching everyone else run the rapid, especially Charlie who basically went over the top of one of the two rocky "horns" at the beginning.  I wish I had a picture of Leslie (the one passenger in Charlie's raft) as she almost did a split while bracing her feet between the gunnels as the raft tipped sideways.  Amazingly, they both stayed in the boat, it didn't tip over, and the rest of their run was fine.

Leslie proclaimed at some point that these rafts are indestructible.  I'm not sure I'd go that far, but every time someone tested them they passed with flying colors.  We all appreciated that!

Sheila and Jeff enjoying a break between rapids:


Mollie took to the whole experience like she was born on the river.  As a Binion (a big name in Texas Water Safari history), perhaps she was.


The 2nd class 8 of the afternoon was Granite.  I thought Mark had said earlier that we could walk all three of the 8's today, but he told us we should ride Granite because it might be tough to pick us up at the bottom.  OK fine, I reluctantly stayed on the raft.  

And actually, I'm glad I did.  Granite is probably my favorite big rapid.  It's long and has a bunch of "laterals", waves bouncing off the right wall and coming back toward us at an angle.  John ran it perfectly, aiming the boat toward the lateral waves instead of directly downstream.  It felt sort of like a washing machine, getting rocked from left and right, somehow not huge or overwhelming.

I'm pretty sure Robyn and I still freaked out, did a lot of yelling, and I said "It's OK!" over and over while she replied, "Is it?  Is it really?"

Charlie lining up for Granite, with Mollie, Payton, and Leslie hanging on for the ride:


If that had been the end of it for the day, I would have been fine.  But we still had to run Hermit Rapid.  While scouting it, I learned that Mark wanted everyone to ride this one too.  What?  What happened to walking all of these class 8's?

During scouting along the bank, I could see why it was better to ride.  It's another long rapid and it wouldn't be easy to catch back up to the boats at the bottom.  Still, "Mark promised," which led to some whimpering on my end.  John gave me a big hug and we all got back on the raft.  They're indestructible, right?

Robyn took over the role of asserting "It's OK!  It's OK!" all the way down the big waves, which made me laugh.  Thank you, John and Robyn!

Randall filmed an excellent video from the back of our raft at Hermit:


We landed at Boucher Camp and got to work explaining camp life to the new arrivals.  And celebrated surviving another day  :)

Day 7:
  So. many. people.
  We can't eddy out for sh*t
  Big rapids - scary!

Scenes from Boucher Camp in the morning - Payton learning from Charlie how to wash and sanitize the breakfast dishes:


A friendly neighborhood raven checking for anything loose and interesting it might fly away with:


Jeff demonstrating his "feet in the air" approach to abandoning ship during a rapid:


Loading up and getting ready for departure:


Day 8 was short, less than 10 miles, taking us most of the way through the "gems".  We just had to manage Crystal rapid, a class 8 and the only large one of the day.  Our book talks about holes at the top and a mid-stream rock garden at the bottom, but I don't remember anything about this one (in spite of the haiku below).  My brain was probably still processing the prior day's events.

Randall's video at Crystal shows that John managed to miss most of the big stuff, probably why I don't remember it - thanks John!


The remaining rapids were 3's and 6's, including Tuna (that's a strange gem), Agate, Sapphire, and Turquoise.  We were deep in the middle of Granite Gorge, with high dark walls around us.  In hindsight, I think I liked the gems.

Randall's video of Turquoise, notable for a glimpse of the eddy at the bottom where we spotted an unusual object amid the sticks:


We had one minor scare when Mark asked us all to hold up while a group around the corner ahead of us dealt with a flipped raft.  Oh my.  It didn't take them long to get themselves going again, and we suspect it was a "people raft" without the big frame like we all had.  Which might be more likely to "taco" and flip people out.  But easier to get back upright, perhaps.

I don't have much to add about this day, for once.  Here's a picture of our small Emerald Camp, with a beautiful sunset lighting up the cliffs in the distance:


Day 8:
  We survived Crystal!
  Someone flipped a raft - not us!
  Thank you, John, thank you  💜

No comments: