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 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!)