Rafting through the Grand Canyon. I’d heard from several people that it’s the trip of a lifetime, so when Carolyn told me a friend of hers had organized a trip and did I want to go, I said “YES!”. Took a charter flight from Vegas to get to Marble Canyon
where Lance and I joined 27 others at the Cliff Dwellers lodge and left the morning of the 2nd with Hatch expeditions for our big adventure. We rode to Lee’s Ferry, where we met our guides: Lars, Josh and Sean, and set off in our boats.
These were super big rafts, constructed for maximum safety and the choice of ride: on the pontoons on the side, where you could ride like a bronco buster, up in the front “in the bathtub” to get right into the waves, or in the back sitting area, “the tea room”, which saw little action. Want to experience the calm ride?
I started off in the tea room and worked my way around the raft, spending the ride through the trip’s biggest rapid right in the bathtub. I had to remember to breathe between crashes of the waves!
Each day was hotter than the one before, and brought a new adventure off the side of the main Colorado. We would break for lunch on a beach:
and usually enjoy a stop for swimming at a swimming hole,
hiking to a waterfall,
or putting our PFDs on like a diaper and running the rapids through the little Colorado alone:
or in a big train:
Every evening, we’d stop at a site for camping, where we’d form a fireline to unload all of our night bags, cots, chairs, kitchen items and other necessities:
because it was just sand everywhere, we had cots to sleep on:
Lars gave me excellent advice on how to handle the heat: Use the river to regulate body temperature. While we all kept our bandanas and feet wet, complete dunking in clothes was even better, and by the third night, I was taking my sheet, dunking it in the river, and draping it over me with a brief squeal and then a sigh. Up at 2:30 am to do it all over again. It is really hard for you to imagine how hot it was at night with the breeze blowing the radiant heat from the 100+ foot high walls. But it was a good exercise to deal and even enjoy. Some travelers didn’t want to get into the 50 degree water, but I would sit in it for a while, and any time I got out, I usually ended up right back in it!
Breakfast was always early (usually up about 5 am, wanting to be packed up by the time the sun came out) and coffee ready first thing. A bit of chatting:
and then the line loaded the boats back up and we were off.
Fourth of July we hiked to Phantom ranch, used flushed toilets (oh boy!) and enjoyed a fresh brewed iced tea at the snack bar. Carolyn and I (along with many other folks) were dressed festively for the occasion:
This trip provided powerful visual evidence of plate tectonics and how the earth came to be shaped as it is. I learned about that in school, but as with everything, seeing it right before your eyes is entirely different.
Lars gave us so many geology lessons in the 1.b billion year old layers on top of the .5 billion year-old-layer, with the lava flow around the side that caused the course of the river to change. And so on…
But sometimes it was just amazing to stand like the little living organism that I am, and look up in wonder:
or enjoy the spectacular view from the raft:
and shore:
until the party was over. up at 4:30, we packed up our bags and awaited the helicopter that flew us up to the Bar 10 Ranch, where we all awaited our planes back to Vegas or Marble Canyon (where we began). I left a happy girl with great memories of an incredible adventure with 28 lovely people!
