Grand Canyon -- Day 6

September 30 -- Into the Precambrian
After a quick float from camp we eddied and explored the mouth of the Little Colorado which was muddy from the storm that hit northern Arizona a couple of days before we started the trip. In Andy's blog he speculates about the water level, this chart shows that Andy's estimate was just about right:

From Grand Canyon Storm

I clambered around on the bluff between the confluence, a classic shelving outcrop of Tapeats Sandstone, poorly sorted and lots of cross bedding. At point on the bluff there was a large ring and a big bolt to tie off boats, this ring must predate the dam, as it is quite a way above the river. Others played in the mud and watched the mixing of muddy and clear water.

From Grand Canyon Day 6

After the LCR confluence the riffle at Crash canyon was pretty exciting at this water level, the Grabner flipped, Marshall and I made the eddy and tried to help corral swimmers and boat but think that we hindered the self rescue more than we helped. The eddy was very active and unpredictable.
After that we crossed the "Great Unconformity" and the Canyon opened up.

From Grand Canyon Day 6

For the rest of the day we kept company with ruddy rocks of the Dox Sandtone and could see much of the rest of the Unkar Group around us after we crossed the Temple Butte Fault at Carbon Creek.

From Grand Canyon Day 6

Lots of active riffles in this part of the river and sharing the oars with Marshall made for fun rowing. Tanner Rapid was pretty easy and had a great exposure of a fault contact between the Dox Formation and the Cardenas Lava.

From Grand Canyon Day 6

After lunch we took a hike (map form Dan's blog) to some hilltop ruins and an overlook of the Unkar Rapids and Unkar Delta where there are ruins of an Anasazi agricultural settlement.

From Grand Canyon Day 6

At the overlook of Unkar Rapid and later at the gravel bar on the rapid there was much gnashing of teeth, discussing of routes, holes, rocks, and so on. It looked really intimidating without many options for an easy run. This was our first real major rapid since House Rock some of us were a little jittery. The kayakers and one raft took a bony right sneak, while the other three rafts took the center of the main tongue but powering to right...a fairly dry and uneventful run.
That night we camped at Rattlesnake, a nice spot, shelving sandy platforms on Proterozoic sandstone. Tomorrow will be exciting! We'll drop into Granite Gorge, the Archean heart of the canyon, and first day of multiple big rapids. YeeHA!

Grand Canyon -- Day 5

September 29 -- Nankoweap Granaries

From Grand Canyon Day 5

An early start this morning; 8:30!!! Even with a hearty blueberry pancake, egg & bacon breakfast, what kudos to the breakfast crew!
We floated down through long straight stretches as the river cut through the soft Muav Limestone and into the Hermit Shale. We encountered several small riflles. Really nice play waves at about 48.5 mile or so. This stretch has classic Grand Canyon scenery; isolated buttes and monuments appearing as the canyon opens up below Marble Gorge and the steep walls of the Redwall Limestone.

From Grand Canyon Day 5

Nankoweap rapids were fun, pretty much as described in the guidebooks. We stopped in a big eddy right at the foot of Nankoweap Rapids to have lunch and walk up to the Nankoweap granaries. What an iconic spot with down river views of the canyon and the emerald water of the river. The granaries are right at the base of the Redwall limestone and the top of the Muav. Here the Muav has knobby weathering suggesting that there may have been current or wave ripples in the thinly bedded limestone. The cold water of the river in the eddy helped with overheating before and after the hike. We had another great lunch buffet under the beach umbrellas!

From Grand Canyon Day 5

From Grand Canyon Day 5

Several Rapids and riffles in the afternoon. Kwangunt Rapid was accurately described in the guidebooks. However, other rapids and riffles in this section had some short sharp drops through chutes that lead into surprising tailwaves and sharp pulsating eddylines on either side. These hydraulics led to a few swims including Tim and Marshal in the Grabner at 60-Mile Rapid, Dan in a riffle below 60-mile and Dan and Erin at 60.5 mile.

For those of us that didn't swim in the river above the camp at Above Little Colorado afforded some very nice private bathing pools. The pull-in here is tight for four rafts, but the shelving camp of sand banks formed on the Tapeats Sandstone provided lots of room. Carp in the eddy here must have chased out all the trout...big fish, but no one wanted to eat them.

Marshal and Jim turned out a wonderful pasta topped with an itallian sausage and veggie saute!

From Grand Canyon Day 6

Grand Canyon -- Day 4

28 September -- Shinumo Wash and Redwall Cavern

A group of us set off to go up Shinumo Wash,/Siver Grotto. Actually the suffered attrition as we saw the conditions of muddy pools to swim and difficult scrambling. The attrition included me as I was was gripped by the exposure and risk. Eventually Sam climbed up on a wide ledge above the mouth of the side canyon and found a bolt that allowed a rappel down into the water-carved gulch. Initially, I was uncertain about the rappel, as Sam had not explained that the the rappel off a well anchored bolt. When I retrieved the throw-rope that was used for the rappel I saw the bolt and was assured of Sam's good judgment. By this time I had already committed to going back to the camp.

From Grand Canyon Day 4

After we all got back to camp and got packed up we rowed on down through the flat water to Redwall Cavern, a spectacular and iconic spot that was already occupied by the private group from Montana who were hitting the beer and the weed hard at 11:00 AM. Eventually we had the place to ourselves. Dan S. (and I) became entranced by the wave interference patterns resulting from sunlight passing through ripples on the surface of the shallow water playing on the sand ripples on the bottom of the eddy. The videos will be on a Physics lecture coming soon. At this point my camera was begining to suffer from my inability to recharge the battery using the untested setup I had purchased just before the trip.

This is an incredible section of the river that deeply carved into vertical cliffs of the Redwall Limestone. After the Cavern, the river was flowing through the Muav Limestone, so the rapids had mellowed out, but the cliffs remain. There was an abundance of solution cavities in theis section of the river, most of the side canyons such as Buck Ranch Canyon, Red Bud Alcove and especially an alcove just above Red Bud actually look more like collapsed caverns rather than gulches created by head-ward erosion of surface water.

From Grand Canyon Day 4

Michael and I shared rowing today, it was great to have his company and helped in this mostly flat water. However there were a lot of riffles with nice surfing waves and he lamented that none of the kayakers were taking advantage of them.

From Grand Canyon Day 4

36-Mile rapid was very wavy and fun. President Harding rapid was just as described in the guide books. Eminence Camp looks like a great place for a future camp. We ended up at Saddle Canyon, the upper pull-in was no good, we used the lower pull-in. Scott and Dan provided a lot of trout for dinner.

We were all starting to feel the rub of too-well used Paco pads provided by Moenkopi...we started the nightly musical pad routine, trying to snatch a better pad than we had used the night before. This is where we might have started to recognized the significance of the Purple Princess Pad ( a wider, almost new Paco pad that actually held air and was not water logged). We also started coveting Max's super thick yellow pad that he had brought from home.

Grand Canyon -- Day 3

27 September -- The Roaring Twenties

Today was a day of Kayak Carnage!
We started at the 18.5 mile ledges, a great camp site with entertaining interplay of the moonlight playing on the cliffs above. Floating through the boulder narrows was interesting, seeing the > 40 year-old driftwood at the top of the large rock gave me a respect for the amount of water that flowed here when the river was wild.

From Grand Canyon Day 3

First on the agenda of the day was North Canyon Rapid. We got backed up behind the private group from Oregon and a commercial trip so we had to wait our turn. It was a fun run with a nice long wave train. The camp in the eddy below would be a really nice spot. Next was 21 Mile, my log says I can't remember...must not have been notable. Indian Dick Rapid (23 -), well marked by the phallic pinnacle on river right, had pour-overs left and right with large lateral waves. 23.5 - rapid, my notes say run the right channel. We ended up not scouting 24-mile rapid, bigger than expected, Michael flipped and rolled back up.

From Grand Canyon Day 3

We stopped for lunch at 24.5-mile r. Dan caught a trout here. We scouted the rapid and were awed by how tight and sharp the turn is. While setting up to run I watched Tim ride the crest of the guard wave above the big hole at the base of the rapid. He seemed like he was on the skyline for a long time. Everyone got through this just fine. In short order we were at 25-mile rapid, big waves, hole in this rapid was pretty easy to miss. Big Eddy below, it took me three tries to break free and get back into current.

Since we are now in the Redwall Limestone, caves, alcoves, and springs are starting to appear. Some larger cave were explored by some of the Kayakers on river left at 26 0r 26.5 mile. Tiger Wash Rapid (27 mile)was straight forward at the beginning, with huge waves, but the hydraulics below on river right are tremendous. I had a tube of the raft sucked almost under, and tried to wave the kayakers behind to go left, but it was too late. Dan M., Erin, and David all had long scary swims. It took awhile to sort out all the boats, boaters, and paddles.

From Grand Canyon Day 3

29-mile rapid was easy. We camped at Shinumo Wash, a large camp with the kitchen area on a ledge of sand just below a cliff of Redwall Limestone. While writing in my journal a golf-ball sized chunk of limestone bounced off of an un-occupied chair next to Sam, and hit my headlamp and head, knocking off my glasses, and kind of surprising me! Initially I had though that Sam had tossed a rock at me to look at without warning, but then after recovering from our shock we figured out what had happened. It was a good thing that the chair had been unoccupied!

Time and distance are starting to make our exchange at Phantom Ranch look tight.

Grand Canyon -- Day 2, House Rock Rapid

September 26

Jackass Camp to 18-1/2 mile ledges.

Soap Creek Rapid was a little more challenging, yet there was no excitement (carnage) here. We stopped for lunch just above Shearwall Rapid on ledges of the Supai Group. There were shadowed overhangs, clear deep water for swimming, and lots of trout. Scott caught three and some of the rest of us had a lot of sport. We all kept cool in the water and shade. The kayakers started the seal-launch tradition. The canyon here was deep, and required lots of active rowing and paddling all day; it was little tiring with the hot weather.

Near the end of the day we arrived at House Rock Rapid, the first of the "big" rapids. We had all understood that this rapid of all, would be most difficult at the lower water that we had at the steady 8Kcfs discharge from the Glen Canyon Dam. Once we saw the rapid, we all understood what the difficulty was about. All the water was getting shoved by the debris fan on river right into a curving and broken rock-fall and cliff on the left. Guidebooks and advice from professional guides were not helpful, some said "scout right" some said "scout left" however, all emphasized moving from left to right to break through the lateral waves on the right to avoid getting shoved into the ledge hole and then the second hole on the left in the bend. That was all well and good, but the right side was really bony, with lots of rocks at this water level. These rafts were loaded more heavy than any thing I had ever tried to maneuver in any moving water.

The suggested strategy for us neophyte oarsmen was to start on the left side of the tongue and to row or pull (facing upstream)in a down stream ferry (meaning crossing the current at an angle) to hit the laterals below the worst of the shallow rocks, and then spin to face the holes head on, which we were going to inevitably go through. That was the plan, I had my landmarks selected, and committed the plan to my head. So the kayakers went, with not much problem; Michael and Tim as the probes did fine, Jim paddled through fine, but flipped and swam in the tailwaves, Erin did a 360 but stayed upright in the hole, Dan flipped but pulled off a roll. I followed Sam, I didn't see his run. I started in on the line that I had picked. However, everything accelerated. Suddenly I knew that I was not making the ferry, nor was I going to be able to spin the boat to face the hole, so I did my best to line up on the hole backwards...I think that I did okay, but as soon as I hit that hole the raft stopped, tilted upstream and spun counterclockwise all in one sharp movement. Before you read that last sentence I was ejected (according to eyewitnesses I did a great forward flip) almost taking the left oar with me, I tried to grab the lifelines and missed but grabbed the blade of the right oar as I hit the water, and so hung on to the raft through the two holes. Once out of the worst of the rapid I tried to climb back in the raft and couldn't; after some moments of frantic effort, Michael appeared with his kayak and lent his bow as a platform to to allow me to re-board. After watching Sam and I try the recommended maneuver, Dan Solie and Max opted for taking the whole thing on straight away, and made it through without any further drama. Dan M. and Andy have excellent accounts of the House Rock "experience(carnage)". House Rock was a humbling experience, knowing full well that there were at least 10 more rapids with this difficulty or grater, and lots of miles to row, I hoped that I had learned something.

We camped at 18-1/2 mile ledges in a busy eddy with a line that is hard to make in a heavy raft, if you plan to camp here, be prepared to hit the eddy line high. There is an interesting interplay between the cool downstream breeze and the warm side-canyon wind; one moment you are chilly and putting on clothes the next you are HOT!. Very nice camp.

Grand Canyon -- Day 1

25 September -- Lee's Ferry to Jackass Camp

12:00 noon start, kind of like a normal Alaska river trip, at the "crack o' noon". But we've got lots of excuses. The ranger briefing show was delayed because of the other private group that was launching, one of their party left their ID at the South Rim. I'm really glad that our trip leaders Andy and Wendy kept reminding us: "Do you have your ID?". Two most important parts of this trip: PFD, forget the food, camera, clothes or anything else just remember your ID&PFD (at least the PFD has real world consequences; if you are not wearing you will sink in the river). The water here is cold, it comes out of the bottom of the spillway Glen Canyon Dam at a less than refreshing 50 degrees F.

Finally we were rigged, and we started down the river, 4 rafts, 6 kayaks, one inflatable canoe and one inflatable kayak and 15 souls. We floated our way down into the Kaibab Limestone, descending into the Permian age.

Click on photo to enlarge	From Grand Canyon Day 1

We lunched at 2 mile (number of river miles below Lee's Ferry), just above Cathedral Wash. Lots of locals were fishing the banks along the first mile or so.

Click on photo to enlarge	From Grand Canyon Day 1

After floating under the Navajo Bridge we crossed the base of the Kaibab Limestone and floated down into the Coconino Sandstone, a red cliff and slope formation ; the upper part was planar bedded with thin beds or red sandstone alternating with shale, perhaps laid by a river near the Permian coast. There were also lenses and beds of thicker cross-bedded sandstone that appear to be fossilized sand dunes.

Click on photo to enlarge	From Grand Canyon Day 1

Badger Rapid culminated our day. Pretty much a straight forward read and run with a rock/hole/pourover on right-center and boulder garden on left. Ran tongue favoring right and downstream ferry right to meet lateral waves head on. Tail waves were surprising. (In retrospect...I give my rowing abilities too much credit here, the river has much in store for us!)

Grand Canyon (Day 14?)

8 October,

River level continuing to drop, but counter-intuitively is it getting muddier?!

Doris, One Hundred Thirty-Eight and a half, and Fishtail rapids all fairly straightforward. Favor the debris fan side of the of the tongue a smoother, dryer run. Lots of morning shade, chilly, we wanted to miss waves to stay dry and warm. We had one kayaker swim in Doris. Group stopped at Kanab Creek for leg stretch and bio break. There was lots of fresh sticky, slimy mud; probably from recent flash floods. River current is fast, maybe making 10 mph?

We stopped for lunch and hike at spot below Matkatambia Canyon. A commercial trip was in the pull-in at MatKat Creek mouth leaving no room for us. Had a nice but challenging spot for lunch and hike start on little ledge just below MatKat Creek. The other private group stopped at our pull-in and tried to hike over us...they were rude in how they walked over the top of our gear and over the top of one of our crew who was feeling very poorly at the time...they ended up not being able to negotiate the cliff and traverse to the canyon. Our group went fairly far up the canyon, Michael took some great photos with my camera. We re-launched at 4:20. A commercial trip was camped at Mat Kat Hotel.

We ended up getting to Upset Rapid at 5:00. Yeesch!!! What a rapid! The big hole(s) were 2/3 of the way down the rapid, each were about 1/2 the river wide. Rocks on the right occupied most of the right side and current across the fan and rocks pushed into the holes. Enormous laterals guarded the the cliff wall on the left. Tyler hit this wall with enough force to break his spare oar in 2009, there was no way in the conditions we had to do that! Michael ran with me in the raft, I tried really hard to punch the first left lateral wave, but surfed back into the tongue, I tried to push into the second left lateral, but had lost too much momentum. So I tried to square up and add down stream power for the inevitable. We hit both holes, clawed to stay straight and moving downstream. The video shows how wet we got and how close we were to making "Upset" literally true to it's name. In the end we easily made the second eddy on the right. The self bailer was not dry until we made the eddy; there was a lot of water in the boat! Everyone else survived the run as well, bit none of the runs were "text-book examples".

Below Upset on the right is a possible camp, there was clear water in pools in the side creek, plenty of room for tents, but active rocky eddy and lots of rapid noise. Tim found a duckie paddle lodged in the rocks in the eddy below the rapid. It turned out to be from the other private group that had proceeded us by just a little bit.

We ended up at Upset Hotel camp for the night. The 2nd pull-in was the better spot, a bit of a climb up the bank, but a really cool ledge camp, with an over hanging cliff of Redwall Limestone and a narrow crack of sky for star gazing. Great acoustics off the canyon wall for a resonating morning call for breakfast!