Thursday, December 16, 2021

Grand Canyon rafting, days 12-15

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

Days were starting to blend together, as we were fine-tuning our systems and getting better at everything, and life on the river became "normal".

We were "in the groove", as it were, so this seems like a good time to show a particularly good groover photo - both the groover location and the photo are excellent:


Day 12 started innocently, with medium rapids (class 3-5).  Autumn was closing in and temperatures slowly dropped away from the hotter first week.  Quite pleasant air, as long as you weren't wet.  Since that wasn't always possible, I was starting to think about adjusting my clothing strategy.

The beautiful scenery continued, with darker black schist lining the banks:


John had been seriously studying the instructions and video for Bedrock Rapid, and everyone took note.  I didn't think too much of it, because this was a "walk around" rapid, and I was never one to pass up that opportunity.

We all got out to scout, first admiring the "Doll's House" fluted rock sculpture on the bank.  Looking at the rapid, it was clear that everyone needed to stay right of the giant namesake rock in the middle of the curved channel.  We couldn't see what's on the other side but it sounded loud and narrow.

John went first, so he was the first one to find the submerged rock that spun the raft around.  Ideally the boat would be facing left so the oarsman could "pull hard" back to the right.  The raft spin meant that he was facing to the right and now had to "push hard", which is a weaker motion.  John was developing some nice finesse, but that would not help him in this situation.

Payton was riding in the front of John's raft while several of us watched from shore and Mark monitored from the top of Bedrock (how did he even get up there?).  Pam wrote a wonderful article about her trip experience, highlighted by a picture she took of John and Payton at Bedrock Rapid.  Her article is totally worth reading and perusing her excellent photos.

Anyway, back to the action - the front of John's raft bumped head-on into the big rock and Payton flew up in the air.  Somehow, and no one can really say how (including Payton himself), he grabbed a line or bounced in exactly the right direction, and he ended up back in the raft.

Then they disappeared behind Bedrock, coming briefly back into view at a gap in the middle before leaving our sight again.  Finally they popped out further down, everyone still in the upright raft.  Mark reported "broke both oars!" but at least both guys were fine and the rest of the raft was undamaged.  John said later that his main thought was being eternally grateful that Robyn and I weren't in the raft at the time!  We join him in that sentiment.

Jeff was next, with Sheila and Sheila in the front.  He also got spun but managed to push hard enough on the oars to barely clear the rock to the right.  We yelled for them to please pull over (to pick us up since our ride was too far downstream), as Mark was calling a halt to any more rafts coming down.  A second close call was enough for one day.

Mark hiked back to the rafts to get on the oars himself.  He even got snagged by the submerged rock and we heard some loud muttering as he willed the raft down the right side and parked next to Jeff.  One more shot!  Mark's second run went a lot better, starting further left and coming across at the right moment to easily clear the Bedrock rock.  One good run out of 4 and 2 broken oars.  I do believe we failed at this one.

John and Payton managed to unhook both replacement oars (each raft has two replacements) and get them into place, then landed on a beach.  Nice quick reaction on their part.

Everyone found a place on the other rafts, tried not to get caught in a tight little eddy (some had better luck than others at this task), and eventually we all converged further down the river.

Well that was exciting.  John, I'm so glad you and Payton are OK!  Big hug.

One more class 7, Deubendorff, and I'm sure it was also wet and wavy but without drama.  We were relieved to pull into Stone Creek camp right after that, phew.

We still had enough sunshine for a lovely shower in a nearby waterfall - that was good for a rinse and recover.


Jimmy had some time to fish:


It was a great camp for playing horseshoes, with lots of room on the beach:


A man and his kayak - thank you Mark, for everything you do!


Sunset view from camp.  I loved watching the sun set and rise on the far walls:


Day 12 was an anniversary - John and I had been married for 21 years on that day.  Amazingly, he had started trying to get this rafting trip since before I met him (25 years in total).  It was a joy to be there when it finally happened, especially to share it with all of our wonderful friends.

In a neat coincidence, someone had created this artwork on the beach near where we set up our tent - thank you whoever did this, it's perfect:


Day 12 haiku:
  Bedrock ate our oars.
  John and Payton are OK!
  Anniversary  :)

Each morning I added more clothes to the rafting getup, finally settling upon a set that worked great.  It included a light wool top and tights, thicker socks, and the rain jacket.  But no sun gloves - those were making my hands cold, so I stopped wearing them.  Being wet and in the shade for the first few hours of each day was creating some shivers, and I was happy to have options to fix that.

Now I'm ready to get splashed:


We drifted past a camp called Talking Heads, at which point I pulled out my cheap phone to play "And She Was", my favorite Talking Heads song.  A little singing and dancing to get the day started, yay!

Side note about the phone, it's not my primary device but a 2nd one I bought specifically for this trip to do things like pair to the InReach for easier message writing, take pictures as a backup camera, and play a song here and there.  No cell service, just WiFi for downloading/uploading.  One of my better $40 purchases in quite some time.

Hey, it's a Big Adventure Day!  Time to get off the river for some hiking, and this hike was special.  A group of us were going "overland", up Tapeats Creek and then across through a big valley to drop back to the river on Deer Creek.  That sounds awesome, I'm in.

Some people hiked up Tapeats to see Thunder River and then returned to the boats.  Others hung out at the river, waited for the return hikers, and then rowed the rafts down to meet us at the bottom of Deer Creek.  It's a good thing we're relatively organized; I wonder if there has ever been a trip that forgot someone somewhere in that process.

The big climb away from the river to start the loop:


We got up high quickly, proceeding up-creek on a delightful day:


The trail traversed back to creek level and we continued our pleasant walk through some shady sections:


Our path turned up a side drainage, as we hauled ourselves up to this beautiful waterfall.  It was plenty loud, befitting the "Thunder River" moniker:


Not only was it a wonderful waterfall, but it comes RIGHT OUT OF THE CLIFF.  We have never seen anything like it.  Where does the water come from?  Boggles the mind.  So cool!  A view of the waterfall appearing out of nowhere on the left, with grand canyon scenery beyond:


The "overland" group continued climbing while the return group started back to the boats.  We popped out at a wide-open area called Surprise Valley, and it was indeed surprising.  What is this flat area doing in the middle of all the steep cliffy stuff?  Still no sign of where the Thunder River water comes from.

Heading across the open landscape:


One large bit of shade in the middle of the desert, seems like a good place for a snack (and I cannot recall what I was pointing at):


John found a friend that is about my height, but less huggable:


We're on top of the world!  There was more music and dancing, and we were all in a great mood:


Coming down the trail toward Deer Creek:


The last short section is narrow and has a sharp drop-off, plus a couple obstacles to squeeze around.  It didn't help to know that someone had fallen here recently.  We were very careful, and quite relieved to get through this without incident.  And it was worth it for everything else about the big loop.


That's our boats!  Heading back down to the river to meet back up with the rest of the gang:


Deer Creek Falls, at the outlet to the river - stunningly tall and impressive (I believe that's Pam in a pink jacket at the bottom, for scale):


Jeff and Sheila at the waterfall:


It was just a short ride to our evening stopover at the Football Field.  As expected from the name, it's a long beach with plenty of room to spread out.

Another nice sunset view:


Our camp and the last bit of sun in the distance:


We'd been told that a black light might be interesting at night, because there might be scorpions, and scorpions glow in black light.  We first saw them way back in the first couple camps.  I took certain advice to heart, like shaking out my shoes before putting them on, and I always slept inside the tent (removing the rain fly whenever possible so we could see the stars).

So it wasn't a complete surprise when a scorpion walked onto my right foot that evening at Football Field.  That didn't keep me from yelling and flicking it away - sorry Sheila who happened to be sitting in that direction.  We tracked it with the black light and it seemed mostly motivated to get away from these crazy people.  That could have been worse.  It didn't keep me from wearing sandals most of the time, though (and I never wear sandals in other places, they just worked really well on this trip).

Day 13:
  Dancing, singing day
  Thunder River rocks! - Surprise!
  Deer Creek pucker crawl

The next morning, Jeff demonstrated some boat yoga:


You can also see that the river water had turned reddish brown, apparently from upstream rains washing down a bunch of dirt.  It stayed muddy until the end of our trip, as much as we wished for the clearer green version of the river.  Ah well, it had been nice while it lasted.

We had an uneventful morning, eventually arriving at a short day hike up Matkatamiba (or "Matkat") Canyon.  There are a couple ways up, and I personally liked the low route:


It was quite entertaining figuring out how to scramble up short sections amid the tiny creek, weaving left and right along the narrow canyon.

Hello Charlie!


Mark knows a lot of fun games, but I think Charlie was the instigator in this case, suggesting a group "butt dam" to hold back the water flow before releasing a wave all at once.  Good clean fun (no really, I swear):


The one bit of excitement of the afternoon was Upset Rapid.  It's a class 8 with some diagonal waves and a big hole near the bottom.  Just the name was scary, but I was starting to see how I might help (or, "help", as it were) by predicting when our boat would get hit from one side or the other.  The passengers could "high side", or move toward the wave, which might provide enough weight in that direction to keep the raft in the water instead of flipping over.  Whether it made much difference or not, feeling like I was participating instead of simply riding along made me feel better.

Randall rode in the back of our raft and shot a great video (he has uploaded others that I plan to go back and add to previous posts at some point).

A couple things of note - Randall says, "oh crap" as we watched Jeff yet again fall out of their boat ahead of us; Randall correctly states that no one was on the oars after that.  That's because Jeff grabbed onto the side of the raft, looked around to see that everything would be fine and no steering was needed, and proceeded to ride the rest of the rapid hanging on while Sheila and Sheila sat in front, totally oblivious.  So funny!

Back in our boat, Robyn starts making sure that John is holding on and won't fall out, because we prefer to keep our captain in the driver's seat if possible.  This is a fun one for me to watch, perhaps because John seems to "get" lateral waves and was always pointing in the right direction.

Maybe I was also excited because this was the last big rapid before Lava, and I knew I was walking Lava.

The Upset Rapid video from Randall - thanks Randall!


Not far after that we landed at the Ledges camp for the night.  I really like this camp.  Sand never bothered me much (as long as it was dry and not blowing 40 mph through camp), but the chance to set up on mostly-flat rock was a welcome change.  The views were great, plus we had a tiny waterfall for a quick rinse - so nice!


It was a hike up to where John set up the groover, complete with a rope to follow in order to find it in the dark.  John even hung the little tarp using an oar as a curtain rod.  Love it!  This groover spot was the only one where I sat and watched rafts go by on the river - the next morning as another group was heading out from Upper Ledges.  As far as I know, they never looked up (and we'll just assume that's true), as they were greeting Mark and the rest of us a "good morning!".

Sheila posing at the best groover location we had:


Day 14:
  Last large one for me!
  Upsetting, but not upset
  Loving our ledges

Another pretty morning on the river:


Soon we were docked at Havasu Creek, where we met a wonderful guide who was playing a guitar (!) while he waited for his group to return.  We had a good time talking to him.  Lava Falls came up in the discussion, and I muttered "I'm walking Lava" (everyone on the river apparently needs to know this), and he had the same comment as Mark, that walking around rapids is more dangerous than running them.  Yep, nope, still not going for that.

Thank you for the music and conversation:


We climbed up a few rocks to find a small trail going up the creek a short way.  Here's Leslie, overlooking the spot where the green creek water merges with the red Colorado:


What a beautiful and peaceful place, it has such a calm and magical vibe to it:


Steffen happily jumping into clearer water than we have seen in some time:


Sheila admiring the giant ocotillo, bigger than any we have ever seen:


I could stay here all day:


But we had to get moving, miles to row before dark.  The rest of the day was long and lovely, little 2 and 3 class rapids, and I think Robyn and I were finally starting to relax, after all this time.  She took a nap in the afternoon sun.  I enjoyed reading the guidebook and following along.

At one point I took a turn at the oars.  There was a class 2 rapid approaching, so I clarified with John that it didn't really matter which way the raft was facing on the way down.  We shouldn't have any problems no matter what I did at the helm.  Sure, he said, this one is benign.  So I took aim at the edge of the current at the top of the little rapid, trying to break through to miss the wave train.

Well, that didn't work (it takes more power than I've got at this point), so I said "oh well" and sat on the oar handles as we went for a ride.  The raft slowly rotated and each passenger in turn got splashed by a wave, John on one side at the front, Robyn on the other side, and even Randall in the back who almost never gets wet.  I think I heard him say, "hey!" and I started giggling at the silliness of it all.

With everyone looking at me like "what the heck?" I could imagine Mark watching and shaking his head.  That made me laugh more.  I found out later that Leslie was driving the boat behind us thinking "why doesn't she steer?"  Because it was more fun sitting in the middle of the raft, staying dry, watching the canyon walls slowly spin around and deciding that this was the highlight of my day.

Well, OK, Havasu Creek was pretty great too.

We finished up at Lower Cove camp, about where volcanic rock started to appear.  Hmm, I wonder where Lava Falls rapid gets its name?

Day 15:
  Marcy gigglefest
  Havasu Creek wonderland
  Robyn sleeps on boat

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