The Last 10 Days

By this time we had really settled into a routine.  We all kind of knew how to set up and take down everything and could do it quite quickly and without even discussing it.  This caused us to put in quite a few miles on the river on those days that we spent the whole day out.  This enabled us to have some incredible layover days as well, which took on the feel of a weekend for the most part.  These layover days were especially nice for me because they usually meant being warm for the majority of the day!!

Highlights of the final 10 days- The last 120 miles or so...

We inflated both pack rafts for many of the days on the river, which meant that all 4 of us were on our own boat.  This meant a lot of fun time on the pack rafts for Kate and I and also keeping warm because we were all rowing!

The Staircase Hike:  This hike ended up being a really fun one that we all did... ending up at a rock climb that only Kate was comfortable free-climbing out of (she is kind of a badass rock climber).  So we then turned around at that point because we had not brought along harnesses or ropes, but it was still a very pretty hike.




Playing more games, including Munchkin, Settlers of Catan, and a couple more Cranium Games (which we finally gave up because Aaron and I, green boat, just couldn't win).  Luckily the spread was a little better with the other 2 games!

We were treated to a gorgeous sunset
that night at camp!!

LAVA DAY:  This was one of the more intense days on the river for me.  We had about 8 miles before reaching Lava Falls, the only rapid to earn a 9 out of 10 rating on the river.  We went and scouted it, Kate set up to take video, we both watched Aaron run it, then I went back to attempt it in a pack raft.  There was  a cheat route but I decided to try to go through the big part. Long story short, I failed!!  I ended up getting worked pretty good, rode pretty much the whole rapid under water.  Realistically it was probably about 12 seconds that I spent under, but I was completely out of control and glad that I had got a good breath in.  Thankfully, I was the only one to screw up the rapid, both of the gear boats made it through beautifully and after watching me Kate took the cheat route, which I do not blame her for at all, even though she did get flipped by the little riffle afterwards which was just funny.  After making it through we were all quite relieved and had quite an enjoyable rest of the day!

Getting rained on:  I am sure this is only a highlight because we only got a couple of hours of rain the entire trip but it was pretty fun when we were all in our drysuits just cruising along the river with everything nice and water proof!

Creative Meals:  As we neared the end of the trip we began to mix and match things in an interesting way.  One night we made falafel-sausage burgers, which I know sounds sacrilege to any vegetarian, but for us, it was amazing!!  I think one of the group favorites was actually the dinner that we made on lava day, we named it Thaiwanese chicken, this was chicken fried up with a crust of peanuts and Hoisin sauce.  It does blend two different cuisines... but it does it beautifully!  There was another night that we made 'enchilada burrito's', which turned into cooking every perishable item that we had left, adding enchilada sauce, and putting it in a tortilla, this one probably won't be repeated, but it fed us:)

For the four of us, our river trip lasted 25 days and left all of us looking forward to the next time that we could make it happen!  I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to have spent such a significant amount of time in such a beautiful place with seriously fun people!!  Although rafting is much different than most of my activities it is now something that I long to do more of and I will take every opportunity that comes along for me to tag along on a rafting or kayaking trip in my future!!

Week Two... Down to Four

After the first week, 88 miles in, Gary, Dan, and Torrey hiked out at Phantom Ranch.  We had a little parting drink, saw some other people (quite a few actually), sent our families post cards, then said goodbye and continued on for another 200 miles with just four of us!

January 19th to 25th highlights

Fan Island Hike:  We were able to slow down a bit after the push to Phantom Ranch, so we took a rest day at Bass camp where we decided to go for a hike up to a place called Fan Island.  It took the majority of the day to do this hike, which included a little bit of scrambling but no serious rock climbing.  At the top of the island we were treated to amazing views down and we managed to get a lot of sun this day which was a great break from the cold.

Elves Chasm:  This was a short hike, but we overshot it a little so had to hike up the river to get back to it.  Totally worth it, the pictures don't even do this justice!  As an added bonus we got to float back down to our boats afterwards through a little riffle which was tons of fun!

Simply being on the river... It cannot be said enough that either on the big rafts or in a pack raft, the rafting is peaceful at times, then an adrenaline rush through the rapids, always accompanied by the impressive beauty of the canyon itself!  Many times during this trip I would catch myself with a silly smile on my face just thinking about how lucky I was to be able to do something like this!

Camping at 'the ledges':  Most of our campsites were sat up on nice sprawling beaches, but this night we were running out of daylight and forced to set up camp on a rock ledge.  It was pretty funny, we were all a little more cramped than we were used to, I managed to lose the lid to one of the pots we had (thankfully Aaron was able to perform a recovery dive in the morning), and we had to do a minor rock climb any time we wanted to use the bathroom...  

Hike up Havasu Creek:  Even though I messed up here and didn't wear my dry suit for the hike like everyone else, it was one of the more impressive hikes of the trip!  I did end up on Aaron's shoulders for one crossing, then just with a wet lower body after awhile...  It was an awesome hike up to Beaver Falls, where I eventually made it even though not as soon as the other 3 because I was trying to stay dry.  Havasu Creek had that same amazing blue color that the Little Colorado did, and it had the added bonus of leading to an awesome waterfall, and there was another if we were to keep going (or approach it from above).  Another place that I hope to be visiting in the future!!

 

Week One

January 10th,

Our launch day is not until tomorrow so today was spent getting everything finalized and getting in place to take off in the morning.  We went out to breakfast in Flagstaff, dropped one car off at Moenkopi, then the 5 of us piled in Spencer's jeep and headed up to Lee's Ferry where we would be leaving from.  Upon arrival at Lee's Ferry we met up with the last 2 people to join our group (making us 7 strong), Dan and Torrey.  Until yesterday, Kate and I had been under the impression that Torrey was a girl, luckily it came up before actually meeting him that Torrey was a guy... Dan is a friend of Aaron's whom I had met a couple of times before and Torrey is a friend of Dan's from high school.  I can tell right away that Torrey is going to be quite entertaining, he is from the bay area and so excited to be out on this adventure with his old buddy Dan and this rag-tag bunch of firefighters (that is the common bond that the other 5 of us share).  We spend the rest of the day getting the rafts completely outfitted, which turns out to be quite the process.  Spencer and Aaron seem to have the set up down and the rest of us are running around trying to find a way to help and figuring out the set-up.  I feel like staying out of the way would have been a bit more helpful at this point, but I felt the need to figure out where things went so that I could help with camp set up and break down throughout the trip  (I have a sneaking suspicion that Dan, Torrey, Gary, and Kate felt the same way).  After getting the rafts outfitted we went through an inspection with Peggy, the Ranger on duty.  She basically came, made fun of our life jackets, signed off that we had what we needed, then told us to meet her for orientation the next morning.  After this we floated the rafts about 30 feet down the river and set up our first camp.  This is a whole lot different than what I am used to... There is a full kitchen with a cast iron dutch oven and pan, plates, bowls, mugs, and silverware for everyone!  My mind is blown at the setup for this trip, this is going to be luxury camping for sure!!

Left: Peggy hassling Spencer...
Right:  The 7 of us all outfitted for our first day on the river.






January 11th through January 18th

During this first week, we had all 7 people.  We started off with the orientation from Peggy, one of the first questions was if everyone watched 'the video'...  I had definitely not watched any video, however I was not going to admit to this, figuring that I would just have the boys catch me up later.  However, Torrey had no problem saying that he had not seen it.  Later on, I confessed to Torrey that I hadn't actually watched 'the video' either, then Kate and Gary admitted that they had not watched it... pretty funny that only one of us was willing to admit this to Peggy.

After orientation, we finally got on the river!!  It really is impossible to explain how incredible rafting the Grand Canyon is.  We were all blessed enough to spend every hour of every day among one of the wonders of the world!  Not only that, but since it was winter, during this first week (and actually for the entire 25 days) we only saw 2 other groups that were out on the river, one was a group doing scientific research, and the other was an international group.

Highlights of the first week for me were:

Pack-rafting the roaring 20's (from mile 20-30 there are a lot of rapids).  I did end up swimming a lot of the rapids but I had a lot of fun in the pack raft and started to figure out how to use it.

Silver Grotto:  I am pretty sure every one of us would consider this a highlight.  Silver Grotto was a side hike out of one of our first camps.  This hike included rock climbing and swimming through some awesome little pools, and basically just playing around jumping from rocks, sliding down them, all while wearing our dry suits.

Torrey telling Sheila stories:  This is not really something that I can explain, but we would sit around the fire and each read a page about John Powell's first trip down the Colorado.  When the book would get to Torrey, he would just jump into a ridiculous story about a woman named Sheila, an impressive skill to say the least, and he would do all this while looking at the page of the rather dry book that we were reading.

Listening to music as we floated along calm sections.

Aaron's menu:  The food for the entire trip was simply amazing, Aaron put a lot of work into prepping the meals!  One of my favorites during the first week had to be the cornbread made in the dutch oven with homemade chili.

The Little Colorado River:  This river was a crazy shade of blue, we spent a couple hours hiking up it one day and just enjoying the scenery... I will probably go back and hike down this river someday!

Cranium Games:  A couple nights in we decided to play cranium "green boat vs. black boat".  For some reason black boat managed to beat green boat every single time, which led to my conclusion that cranium is an incredibly stupid game!  Can you guess which boat I was on:)

Getting There

While in the hotel winding down after finishing my 4 and a half month journey on the Appalachian trail, I got a message from my friend Aaron inviting me on a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon in January!  At first it seemed a little overwhelming to make that big of a decision simply because I just got off of an epic adventure and signing up for another the day after I completed it seemed a bit rash... So I waited about 3 hours, talked to my parents, who told me that I was right and this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up.  I then messaged Aaron back telling him that I was in.  I now had 3 months to prepare for this next amazing trip that I had somehow been invited to join in on.

One major thing that I had going for me on this was that Aaron and Spencer, who had drawn the permit, were doing all of the logistical planning for this one, all I had to do was get my gear and get myself to Flagstaff on January 9th.  This may seem like a simple thing to do, but there is one thing about the rafting the Grand Canyon in January... its cold!!  So the gear that I needed included lots of base layers, a dry suit and a life jacket.  Luckily, I had an old friend, Rush Sturges, who helped me acquire all of these things!

So by Thanksgiving I had almost everything that I needed and was able to focus on saving up by working 2 jobs, around 70 hours a week until it was time to go... It was an exhausting couple of months but it was so worth it in the end!

I worked my last shift at the coffee shop on January 8th, then got a ride down to the Seattle airport the morning of the 9th, and had a quick flight down to Flagstaff.  In Flagstaff I was met by Aaron at the airport and taken back to the hotel where we met up with 3 of the others, Spencer, Gary, and Kate.  This was my first time meeting Spencer, second time meeting Kate, and first time seeing Gary in around 3 years.  It was a great night getting reacquainted with old friends and getting to know Spencer, whom I would be spending the next month with!