Grand Canyon River Expedition

Prelude

In our past journeys through the Grand Canyon we've seen the raft trips rolling down the river, most recently on our October Hermit/Boucher hike. Nancy has been saying for years that she wants to raft the Canyon. With other planned trips canceled this summer due to Covid-19, and due to a semi related chain of events, we found ourselves signed up for a trip down the bottom half of the Grand Canyon with Canyon Explorations / Expeditions (Can-X). There are many companies that will guide you down the river in various ways. Can-X actually lives by their name. The trip we selected was an expedition. While the guides did row the big boats and cook for us, we were involved loading and unloading the boats as well as setting up our camping gear - this was no luxury trip where you sit around and do nothing the whole time. As for the exploration, you'll see.

Some details

There were a total of 25 people on the trip, 6 were guides. This was a hybrid trip which meant there were a variety of boats (all human powered, no motors). There were 6 main boats - 4 oar boats, 1 dory, and 1 paddle boat. The oar boats carried the bulk of the gear and food an were piloted by Kelsey (the trip leader), Laura, Dave N. and Winfrey. The paddle boat was captained by Justin and had a max crew of 6 of us providing the bulk of the paddling power. The dory was piloted by Dave D. There were also two inflatable kayaks (which were referred to as the duckies, since they tended to follow the paddle boat like a mother duck). These were swapped out between the various folks that wanted to paddle them. I can't say enough good about the crew. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and breadth of their knowledge on so many subjects - but definitely on the canyon itself. And the stories - these folks have done some cool stuff. 

Day 0

Everyone met in Flagstaff at noon for a pre-trip briefing, after which we were bussed to the Grand Canyon. We spend the night at Bright Angel Lodge within the Grand Canyon Rim Village. This set us up for the 4:30am start to next day's hike down the Bright Angel trail to Pipe Springs Beach. This is where we were to meet the boats. There were a group of people (including all of the crew) who  had started the journey 5 days earlier at Lee's Ferry and had explored the top half of the Grand Canyon. Some of those folks would hike out while we hiked in and others would remain with the boats to do the "whole enchilada". 

 Briefing in the time of Covid-19

Get pumped

Sunset on the south rim

Day 1

The hike down into the GC is no joke. For those not used to it, the experience can be very hard on the toes and knees. Fortunately Nancy and I had done a bunch of hiking this spring in preparation for a backpacking trip in another part of GC (which was canceled due to Covid), so we were ready for this. However, as we descended I started to realize exactly how warm it was going to be. Usually this time of year we would recreate in the mountains where mornings are cool. But down at the bottom of GC, the weather in June is very similar to back home - which means hot. Really hot. 

4:30 AM early morning meeting

first light

seriously, don't

Sadly, the big cottonwood is gone. Replaced by shade structures

Old telephone line

made it to the bottom

Once we got to the river we met up with Dave N at the beach. He instructed us how to stow our gear in the dry bags and we hung out in the hot sand waiting for everyone to arrive. 

As we waited we met up with local (Tusayan) guy in a kilt who was doing an out and back that day. This was an interesting coincidence because one of our guides (Winfrey), also rocked a kilt. 

Finally, after some introductions and initial info we hit the water. Right off the bat we had some pretty stout rapids to get us into the spirit. Horn Creek , Granite and Hermit were all pretty big, We got good and wet - which was a welcome relief from the heat. I didn't get a lot of good action pics the first day since Nancy and I opted for the paddle boat. We were usually paddling through the rapids so I couldn't take pictures. I'd get pics (and video) on days when we were in the oar boats or the dory. 

The water in the Colorado was unusually clear due to the lack of rain in the last few months. It has been very dry in AZ this spring so there was not a bunch of runoff turning the water brown - which was pretty nice. 

One important item of note. The Colorado river is dammed (Glen Canyon Dam) to form Lake Powell Reservoir. That means that the water flowing through the GC is from below the dam, which means it comes from low down in Lake Powell, which means it is consistently very cold - about 50 degrees at the start. Falling into water that cold is very...invigorating. One of the side benefits is that the oar boats had coolers that they carried down low - so the water would help to keep them cool. 

Getting gear ready

These are the first rapids we'll do

not too late to call it off...

everything needs to fit into 2 dry bags

more boats arrived

Load-'em up

Justin giving instructions for the first rapid

somebody is excited

and here we go

Kelsey filling us in on how things work at lunch

and more splashing around

After some super fun rapids action we camped below Hermit rapids at a camp called Schist (as in the igneous rock that dominates the camping area). 

Arrival at camp started with everyone working together to unload all of  our personal gear as well as all of the camp gear from the boats. Then we would disperse to find a place to call home for the night. One of the first orders of business was to choose your beverage for the night, which would go into bags that hung off the boats in the water (drag bags). That way your drink would be cooled down by dinner time. While the crew worked on dinner, we would play or talk or read or sleep or explore or whatever. 

Camps were usually on sandy beaches -  with one night being on rock ledges (nicknamed Bloody Knees or Bloody Ledges). 

first night's stop

crew meeting

there were games

and more games

Impacting the canyon

Given the number of people who raft down the Colorado each year (I believe it is over 20,000), it is crucial that we do our best to not adversely impact the beaches - else they would become unpleasant places to be. As it is, I saw very little evidence that anyone else had ever been there. A key part of is trash control (especially bits of mirco-trash - candy wrappers and other small bits). We made super sure to pack out everything we packed in. Part of Covid-19 and just general food handling protocol involved a lot of hand washing. You don't want the soapy water from that dumped in the sand so this ingenious little hand washing station was set up. Clean water from the bottom bucket is pumped up to the tube at that top and dirty water is collected in the top bucket. At the end of the day the dirty water is dumped into the river.

Additionally, there is the issue of human waste products. We were instructed to always pee in the river - or in a container to be dumped in the river. Everyone pretty much got over being bashful about this by the second day or so. Solid waste was captured and hauled with us to the end of the trip. Each day that we camped our "restroom" (referred to as the groover) was set up in a discrete location with it's own handwashing station.

Covid-19

Yeah, it was a thing - and it impacted the trip in a couple of ways. First, this trip was the first one that Can-X had been able to do that season - because of Covid-19. Also, there were fewer total trips on the river. In fact, it seemed like we had the entire river to ourselves most of the time. We had our pick of campsites and ran across VERY few other raft trips. I'm told that is pretty much unprecedented. So that was super cool. On the flip side there were protocols that were required of the few trips that were out there. For instance, before offloading equipment we had to wash our hands. Before doing meals we had to wash our hands and masks were required while getting food. Additionally we had daily temperature checks. While some groused about these minor inconveniences, I had no problem with them - it was small stuff. My hands have never been so clean. 

Day 2

Next day we started off with Boucher, then Crystal rapids - which was a big bad. Before running the rapid, the guides stopped and scouted the rapid. We went along to maybe learn a thing or two. We were on Laura's oar boat in the morning so I got some good pics in the rapids. Laura expressed her relief of being ABC - Alive Below Crystal. After Crystal, the guides pulled out the kayaks and Nancy and I volunteered to start off on them - running a series of rapids know as the "Gems." I went for a swim (in other words fell off the kayak) for the first two rapids I did and got the third one clean. Nancy ran the first one clean then took a long swim in Sapphire, the second one, losing her boat for a good while. She ran the third one clean and then we decided to hand off to someone else. There were more splashy rapids and more folks enjoying the kayaks. 

breakfast time

Splashy time

So much cool geology down here

This is what is looks like when you go "swimming"

Laura keeping us off the rocks

Nancy on the paddle boat after taking a long swim

Spot the bighorn sheep

We stopped for lunch before Bass rapid. While the crew fixed us lunch Kelsey took us up on the rocks to the "Ross Wheeler" to hear the story of how it ended up there. It was scorching hot the first few days and that metal boat was definitely something you didn't want to be in with that sort of weather. 

lunch

The Ross Wheeler

Kelsey telling us the story of this boat

After lunch we floated down the river a bit more and pulled in to Shinumo Creek where we played around in a little water fall and pool. It felt great to be in the water. The way these creek had been blocked you could go around the back of the lower rock and through the bottom of the waterfall. And of course there was jumping from the top of the rock into the pool. 

climbing up to the rock over the waterfall

behind the bottom of the waterfall

also behind the waterfall

The llama wanted to float too

don't hit that rock

We did see a couple of the motorized trips

We ended the day at Garnet Canyon

More bighorn - checking us out

This campsite was a bit "constrained"

so much grand in this canyon

Day 3

After another hot night we were up and ready to go the next morning.

packing up camp

Load em up

Justin gave us some background of the entire Colorado river. Rad.

We had a short float to another side canyon to visit Elves Chasm in Royal Arch Creek. This another amazing little water fall and pool that we were all happy to play in. And of course there was jumping off the falls into the water. 

beautiful

and then we showed up

we can't seem to resist jumping off of stuff

climbing up the backside to jump

it was cool back there

and getting ready to jump. Kelsey making sure everyone was safe

downstream of the chasm

Lunch was at Blacktail Canyon. Here we did a silent walk up the canyon. Justin played some mellow guitar (yeah, be brought a guitar - and played a number of times). This was a good chance for us to mellow out and maybe catch a few zzzzs while lunch was being prepared.

quality down time

From there is was more river time with the occasional fun rapids to help keep us cool. I was in the paddle boat that day, so no more pictures until camp that night. 

one of only 2 nights that we used the tent

Day 4

This was a pack lunch day as we'd be spending some time in a special place for lunch, but it would require a bit of hiking. After breakfast, Nancy and I hopped on Winfrey's boat for some more river fun. Duebendorff, the first rapid of the day proved wild! We hit a "hole" and were tossed sideways. Winfrey expertly kept  the yellow side up and we all came through laughing at the grand splashing.

The first stop of the day was at Stone Creek to cool off in another waterfall. It was kind of amazing to see so much water in the middle of the desert. 

Back on the boats we hit some more rapids and went through the narrowest part of the river - 76 feet across. 

more play/cooling off time

Soon after, we docked at Deer Creek, where we would be doing a bit of hiking to "The Patio." Next, for those who wanted to brave the very hot day, there was additional climbing up to "The Throne Room". The journey to the Patio was a bit of a climb and included some ledges with a good bit of "downside". Not for the faint of heart - but totally worth it. We dropped our gear on the ledges and went to play in the creek. It was great fun.

 

up we go

...and up...

pretty high above the river

deer creek is in that chasm to the right

you don't want to fall down there

an oasis in the desert

this ledge was in the shade. great napping spot for those so inclined

meanwhile some of us played in the water

chill time

 After some messing around in the creek and a little napping, Justin led some of us up another bit of climbing out in the hot sun to the throne room. Apparently, there used to be a nice little waterfall here but it has stopped at some point a couple of years ago. Anyway, someone had gone through the trouble of arranging the rocks in there into chairs ("thrones" if you will). There were a bunch of them. It was in the shade and was a nice peaceful place to catch a few zzzs. With the hot nights I don't think many of us slept well, so these afternoon nap opportunities were well used. 

The patio is down there where the green ends

almost there

the throne room

Nancy and I headed back down to jump back in the creek. Along the way we found a nice campsite with it's own "throne". This trail is part of a loop from the North Rim that I've been looking at for a while. It is definitely on our list to do now. 

the reeds grew tall in this section of the trail

lower throne room

Back to the patio for some more chill time, then we were reluctantly on our way back to the river. 

Winfrey taking some well earned down time

view from the top

such a beautiful spot

easy does it

Our expedition vehicles

At the bottom, where we parked the boats was a very big waterfall that we had passed by on the way up. We visited it when we got back to the bottom. Our science whiz, Winfrey, said that water exerts about 7.41 psi per foot as it falls. If you estimate that fall about about 100 feet that is over 700 psi. That's a lot of pressure. In fact, it was difficult to get under the actual waterfall since the falling water created a strong wind blowing away from it. It actually took your breath away. A few folks forced their way to it, but the water hit pretty hard so that wasn't too fun. At any rate, it was pretty extraordinary. 

Down the river a bit we saw a rock formation way up on top called "chicken pulling wagon train". If you squint you can see it.

Camp that night was at Pancho's Kitchen. "Pancho" is a nickname for a Ringtail Cat. The camp is notorious for these clever food thieves.  

the green pails are for water that would be filtered for us to drink

dinner was festive tonight

Day 5

Another sunny day begins. Breakfast, then some yoga/stretching with Justin to get the crew limbered up. 

packing up camp

This is one of the drag bags that we used to cool our beverages

Kelsey and Justin cleaning up. We all pitched in for dishwashing duty.

loading up

and some stretching

We stopped at Matkatamiba Canyon for some more exploring. There was some fun rock scrambling to get up the creek to an area with ledges and a little trickle of water in the creek. Nancy and I tried a little sliding on the rock in the creek, but that wasn't too inspiring. Then someone had the brilliant idea of creating a "butt dam" to see how much water we could collect upstream. The idea was to build little rock villages downstream to see what happened  when the dam water was released - as if we didn't know. I could say it was a science experiment, but we all know we were just messing around. Anyhow, we got the water dammed up pretty good and it made an impressive wave when we released it. Needless to say, our downstream village was washed far downstream. The power of water is real. We headed back to the boat on ledges, which were (as always) a little tricky in parts. 

Kelsey making sure we all make it OK

butt dam

release the flood

more sketchy climbing

After this was a pretty flat stretch of water with wonderful headwinds. Luckily we were in the paddle boat so we actually had to work to get the boat down the river. Next stop was Havasu Creek. Nancy and I had visited Havasu Falls some years ago with our friends Chad and Kendall. That was an amazing trip, details on that journey are here. The water in this creek is an impossible blue green and the upper falls are truly a sight to see. So, we were pretty excited to visit the creek again. It did not disappoint. 

There were shenanigans with a blow up llama and general splashing around in the beautiful waters. 

the current here was pretty strong

a little tunnel to get upstream

Also, we got the opportunity to float through a rapid with just our life vests. That was lots of fun. I have no pics since I didn't want to lose my camera in the river. 

That night we stopped on the only campsite that wasn't on sand - it was on rock ledges. There was lots of room and the weather had started to moderate. It was actually a rather pleasant evening. 

it wasn't practical to cool our drinks in the river here, so we cooled them in buckets of water

This was actually a pretty cool place to camp. No sand. 

Day 6

We were on Dave N's boat this day - with his wife Dorothy. Dave has done a ton of hikes and canyoneering in the canyon. He even created a map of the various routes in the canyon. After talking with him we are inspired to try out some of these routes. 

This day had a high level of anticipation. It was announced at breakfast that we would be shooting for Lava Falls Rapids that day. Lava Falls is the rapids that all others in the canyon are measured against. In the canyon the various rapids are measured on a 10 point scale, with 10 being the hardest, most dangerous, gnarliest. Lava is the 10. The kayaks would NOT be going on that one since, as Justin liked to say, there were "consequences" if you didn't hit it right. 

As the day went on we started seeing some very different types of rocks. Apparently there were once a bunch of little volcanoes on the north rim that oozed lava down into the canyon and caused huge blockages of the river. Those blockages eventually gave way and (like our butt dam) caused huge waves to roll down the river. There was plenty of evidence of the volcanic activity and Lava Falls was obviously part of that. 

another great day begins

Dave N, our captain for the day

lunch time

splash time

We started to get into the section of the canyon that had seen a bunch of volcanic activity at one time. Apparently some small volcanoes had dumped a bunch of lava into the canyon, blocking the river. The river eventually broke the damn - that must have created and amazing wave down the canyon. So we started seeing a lot more igneous type rocks in this area. Some of those, like Vulcan's Anvil, were free standing columns - some in the middle of the river.

Vulcan's Anvil

lots of igneous rocks starting to show up

The biggest rapids in the Grand Canyon is Lava Falls. Any guess how that was formed?
Anyhow, this is the rapids that all of the others in the Grand Canyon are measured against - so there was much discussion about it. When we got above Lava Falls we beached the boats and scouted out the rapids. There was a definite line to get through it in one piece. I did get a video of us going down the rapid. After all the build up and drama it was kind of anticlimactic. While there were some nice big waves, everyone did a good job of hitting the line through this - no one flipped and no casualties. But that's a good thing and it speaks to the skill of the folks piloting the boats. 

heading to the lookout

doesn't look like much

the dory making it through

We called it a day and camped at Lower Lava Falls - also  know as Tequila Beach. Making it through Lava Falls called for celebratory tequila. 

yes, please

tequila toast

Day 7

Next day we hit some ripples (junior rapids) and minor rapids. 

We stopped off to see some petroglyphs near Whitmore Wash. For those that may not be aware. this canyon was used for a long time by native peoples. The Havasupai and Hualapai reservations still line the western part of the south rim. Justin gave a talk about these petroglyphs. Apparently they were from the Zunis. Apparently, the Zunis trace their origin to Ribbon Falls, right off the main corridor of the North Kaibab trail. That kind of blew my mind since Nancy and I have visited Ribbon Falls a few times. It was also really interesting to learn that native people would farm the land down in the canyon in the summer and hunt on the rim in the winter. So they braved the heat of the summer in the canyon and the cold of winter up on the rim. 

Further down we found a spot for lunch and someone (Laura?) had the brilliant idea to flip the paddle boat over for an impromptu water slide. There was much amusement as people tried different methods of navigating it - with varying degrees of success. In the end, head first seems to have been the best way to go. 

big air 

yeah, that is me

Laura rockin' the mask

this method wasn't as successful

After lunch Nancy and I were back in the kayaks for some mellower and fun rapids. 

Day 8

We had not yet been in the dory, so we rode with Dave D this morning. The wooden boat definitely has a different feel than the rubber boats. It tends to "rock" back and forth pretty dramatically in waves since it doesn't bend like the rubber rafts. Also, the pilot needs to be really careful not to hit any rocks. Where a rubber raft would just bounce off, the wooden dory would be very unhappy about hitting a rock. Nancy rowed for just a little while. 

In one of the open, hot sections of the river a splashing war broke out. No one was really sad to get wet at that point. We stopped at another place that someone had told Dave N about. There were round holes in the rock that were likely made by native peoples for grinding something or other. It was next to an area that could easily have been used for farming. 

Later that day we met up with a boat that had finished their trip and were deadheading to the end. They had a bunch of left over ice, which they kindly gave to Winfrey. Cold drinks that night!

We stopped at Pumpkin Springs to see a big travertine pool with arsenic enriched water. It sorta looks like a big pumpkin. Not something you want to swim in or drink. We jumped off the ledges next to it in the water while the crew made lunch. 

looks kinda like a pumpkin?

cause we love to jump off of stuff

Justin trying to climb the wall. There were no good handholds.

After lunch we floated some more and stopped at another place where we could jump off cliffs into the river. For this one we continued on to "swim" another rapid - good times.

This evening was our last night on the river. We camped at mile 220 at a really nice spot. Lots of room and good camping spaces.

home for the night

Floyd is the only one who shaved

Kelsey giving us the 411 on our last day

We filled these with snacks each day, in case we got hungry

Justin entertaining us

Day 9

The last day was only 5.5 miles to the takeout at Diamond Creek. We did most of that as a "silent" float - a chance for everyone to reflect on the experience. 

We did bag lines to load and unload the boats each day. 

we got pretty good at this

everyone had a specific feature or person on their PFD. Mine was Separation Rapids. I picked this one for Nancy. Hot Na Na is the Navajo name for a hot springs site on the upper canyon.

Diamond peak. That is near our end point.

Once we got to the takeout point it was organized chaos. We unloaded the boats and disassembled them. All of the metal frames and equipment came off and the boats were deflated. Unfortunately the truck that was to haul the dory home broke down on the dirt road down to the river, so it was not coming out of the water soon. There was a scramble to find an alternative, but I'm not sure how that came out.

Power boats heading out for tours

Everything needs to fit in that truck

Pullin' out a cooler

loading up the deck of one boat

once all the hard parts were removed we had to wash off all the sand

one trash bucket for each day

one groover bucket for each day

getting the boats out of the water

and deflating them

emptying our stuff from the drybags

final brunch

on the bus headed back to Flagstaff

of course we stopped for iced cream

Epilogue

 For Nancy and I this was a really excellent chance to see parts of the canyon we had never seen and to get inspired to see even more. For those who had never been in the Big Ditch before, I imagine is was a bigger deal. It was made extra special by the lack of other folks in the canyon and by the excellent crew that escorted us through it. As one of my friends likes to say, it was legit. Highly recommended for anyone with a sense of adventure. And I would definitely recommend Can-X (https://canyonexplorations.com/) if you do decide to take the plunge.