riverECHO

Long whitewater day. Ran Specter “6″ and Bedrock “7″ Rapids. Also stopped at a “slow-motion” waterfall. Super cool, maybe a couple hundred feet tall. Just water moving over rock the whole way down so it looks slow-mo. Don sliced his finger during our scout at Bedrock. There was an area called the dollhouse at the scout, fluted schist that you could climb in and through. Don slid his hand over the one sharp object in the dollhouse and sliced his hand pretty deep. But not to worry when a doctor is on board. Brian quickly busted out his suture kit on one of the rafts and stitched him up. Camping below Dupendorf at Racetrack Camp. BJ and I found a little cove to sleep in. Scotch and tequila night (thanks to Goose).

We were on cook crew today and assigned cold cereal for breakfast. Our day on the water didn’t bring us much white water excitement but we stopped at Elve’s Chasm, a short hike up a canyon that had a ton of waterfalls and pools and algae. At the end of the canyon a big pile of rocks blocks the trail from going any further but also dams the water above it creating a waterfall and a deep “swimming” pool below it. We all swam across the pool, climbed up behind a slippery section of moss covered rock and jumped off into the pool. Everyone with dry suits quickly climbed up and jumped off. Those of us without all made our way there but were slow to start our swim. Brrrrrr!

We arrived at Blacktail Canyon Lower Camp not too long after. BJ and I are camping ON the trail to the groover (see note below). We just hiked up Blacktail Canyon Narrows in the moonlight. Andy and Scott played guitar while Jaime and Julie played dueling native flutes from two different sections of the canyon. It sounded amazing.

• Groover footnote (I don’t think I have mentioned much yet about the groover): The groover is our portable toilet, but more like a box that we poop in. Its an ammo can with a toilet seat but got its name from leaving grooves in your butt before people brought toilet seats along. You can’t pee in it so we have a yellow bucket that sits directly next to the groover and all the ladies on the trip will agree that the yellow bucket to groover shuffle is exciting. The groover is the last thing to get packed up in the morning and always goes on our boat. We have 8 boxes to fill up if needed. I quote Scotty: “I love being on the river . . . burpin’, fartin’, and takin’ a dump in a box.”

Layover day at Bass Camp, probably our favorite camp out of all. BJ, Scott, Tom and I went on a hike up Shimano Chreek and found a sweet slot canyon to hike up and then another slot canyon off of that one that allowed us to get up on top of a mesa overlooking Shimano Creek. Also an old miners camp along the trail with lots of rusted “stuff” nicely displayed on a wooden bench under a rock overhang. Lots of fish in Shimano, including sucker fish, not really sure what they were. We came back to camp with plenty of time for river showers and lots of horseshoes. Goose decided to harass all with tequila shots. “Leroy,” Drew’s alter ego came out tonight and cooked us delicious pork chops and spanish rice. Evening music provided once again by Andy and Tom. Electricguitar is a bit out of place yet fitting tonight. Listening to it now and can’t wait to cozy up to the girl I love. Good night! — Lisa wrote nightly in a journal but tonight BJ finished it up for her (italics).

Wow – almost half way. BJ ran Granite, Hermit, and Crystal (rated “10″), the big three. He did great and we had some fun, wild rides. Continued the day with the Gem Rapid series and got REALLY wet in Sapphire. Although this one was only rated a “3″ Ben and Andy changed their route after watching us go through it. Bass Canyon Camp tonight with a layover day tomorrow. Beautiful camp and a great day!!

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.

Cold and rainy big water day on the Grand. Went through Hance Rapid after a 2 hour scout. Most of our group watched from the shore as Tom, Julie, and Drew rowed this “8″ rapid. Quite a few features that you would want to miss throughout the rapid, including a big-ass hole at the bottom. It was a good feeling that BJ could say he wasn’t comfortable rowing the rapid (little did he know he would kill it on every other rapid). The sun came out for a while at Hance but then quickly came back in with a dousing of rain for the rest of the day and evening. Ran two rapids, Sockdolager and Grapevine, which were some of the most fun rapids so far with big waves and lots of maneuvering. Everyone is really cold tonight after about 18 cold miles on the river. We are camping at Cremation Camp. Chicken Curry for dinner. Not sure if the rain will stop. Tomorrow is BJ’s birthday and more big rapids to come.

Layover day at Unkar Camp. BJ, Scott, and I went on a shorter hike today. Toward Unkar Delta Ruins just down river from camp. Pretty “neat” ruins. We continued up the delta to the first draw we found on the right. A scramble and scree field to the top brought us beautiful views over the river and a series of rolling hills. The dirt up here is bright red and really soft. Plants and cacti grow easily up here. We made our way around the mesa and ended up directly above camp, the only way down a talusy slope. Drank a beer, took a REALLY long nap, steaks! for dinner, followed by many hours of music. Preparing for three days of bigger white water.

Long river day – 20 miles with quite a bit of wind and lake size eddies. BJ and Scott shared a majority of the rowing with some help from Tom in the afternoon. The Little Colorado River enters the Colorado and dirties the clear green water that we’ve experienced on the Grand until now. Typically the Little Colorado runs a bright milky blue color. Went for a short hike up the Little Colorado during lunch. Camping at Unkar with plans for a layover day tomorrow. Kate leads us through two rounds of Mafia around the campfire.

Our first layover day. BJ just said “baby wipes are the bomb-digity.” We had a leisurely morning with french toast and lots of bacon (we basically eat bacon or some sort of pig product every morning . . . even the vegetarians on this trip all eat chicken). Today we hiked little Nankoweep Canyon toward the mesa. Made it up quite a ways until we ran into a dead end. Both ways out would require a rope. We retreated thinking we were heading back to camp and then saw another draw that we had missed on the way up. We started up this second draw and found a much more obvious trail. The mesa that we reached was beautiful, overlooking the river. We took a group photo. On our way back down we ran into two naked hikers (Goose and Drew) as well as a small elven cove with bright green grass and a dried up waterfall. Back at camp we finished the evening with reading, horseshoes, and bobcat tracks.

We visited Red Wall Cavern today. Powell estimated that you could fit 50,000 people in the cavern. It may be more like 3-5,000 but who’s counting. It was huge either way. We hung out for about an hour and played music, horseshoes, and frisbee. It was pretty flat water today with two “4″ rapids which BJ made look easy. Scotty was rowing a bit today too and almost put us upside down in a hole. But that was after Tom and BJ were hollering instructions at him at the same time. We’ve named it Scott’s Hole.

We also scouted a few cliff dwellings and granaries along the way. Not sure how “they” got all the way up there. There was also a wooden bridge about a hundred feet from the river that connected two canyon walls. Don’t think I would test the sturdiness today but it was impressive.

We are in bed a little bit earlier than usual. We were on cook crew (Lisa, BJ, Scott, Dave) today and even though we had it easy with oatmeal, sandwiches, and fajitas it still felt like a “work day” … well let’s not go that far.