riverECHO

Happy Birthday BJ!! The big 3-2. It rained most of last night and since our tarp extended past our tent footprint we actually created a little tunnel for all the rain to pour into. We stayed relatively dry but woke up to a very wet tent and wet “dry” clothes that we hung out last night. Also I kept BJ up most of the night with fears of being under a waterfall. Sorry BJ – no sleep for you.

So BJ’s Birthday has been interesting. After a leisurely morning in camp the sun slowly came out to warm and dry us. I woke BJ up with a bright green leprechaun beard (since it is also St. Patty’s Day). He wore it most of the morning until we launched and made the less-than-one-mile trek to Phantom Ranch, the only “facilities” on river where you can buy things like souvenirs and food at a little store as well as send mail via mule. We sent a postcard to my grandma. The bigger news: as we approached Phantom four rangers quickly rushed over to our boats to talk with us. Turns out there was a fatality in Hance Rapid yesterday. 45 y/o male fell our of the raft but made no attempts to swim back to the boat or to shore. We never really found out what happened but it sounds like he may have gone into cardiac arrest before going into the rapid. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and the rest of his group who continued on down the Grand.

We approached the big rapid of the day: HORN and after scouting it for a while Tom and Drew took all four boats down. BJ and I went with Tom on his second trip down. BJ had wished he had rowed it after the fact but thank you to Tom for stepping up. Next time, BJ. We camp above Granite Rapid tonight, a rapid that BJ is already excited about rowing. Cheesecake for the birthday boy.