Travelogue

Morning CoffeeToday was the first day waking up on the river and all that it entailed. It was a process that we would repeat every morning for the next 12 days.

• 5:00 - Call for Coffee
• 5:15 - Race for the Groover (our primitive restroom)
• 5:30 - Call for Breakfast
• 6:00 - Eat breakfast and mingle
• 6:30 - Guides would call us together to inform us our the plan for the day (sometimes that included drawing a rapid we would face that day in the sand)
• 7:00 - Take down tent and pack everything into our river bags
• 7:30 - Join the fire line, passing all the bags down the line to be loaded on the boats
• 8:00 - Hit the river for a day of rapids, hikes, etc.

Drawing the plan for House Rock RapidIt was also our first day with some serious rapids, so before leaving camp, Robin gathered us all together, as she would on any day that would include a challenging rapid, to draw the features of the rapid in the sand and explain to us their plan for running it. Not that we able to offer any advice, but rather I think it was a way for her to assure us that they knew what they were doing.

Up until this point in my life, I pretty much thought all rapids were the same and that some just had bigger waves than others.

Through the rapidsApparently that’s not the case. Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Flow velocity, gradient, constriction, and obstacles are four factors that are needed for a rapid to be created.

These factors determine how difficult the rapid is to navigate through. The Grand Canyon has their own system of rating the difficulty of rapids, from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most challenging.

Arriving at Redwall CanyonAnother thing we learned is that there are a whole bunch of different types of “features” in a rapid, caused by the rocks that lay on the bottom. Some examples of these features are “holes” and “eddies.” Those were features we wanted to avoid.

An experienced guide knows how to read the river - what to avoid and what line to take through it.

It was a huge amphitheaterOur first test today would be House Rock, a 9 rapid on the Grand Canyon 1 to 10 scale. It would give us a sense of what was to come the rest of the trip. This particular rapid curves against the left canyon wall and crescendo into a large “hole” on the left at the bottom, necessitating a right turn.

Also known as an hydraulic, holes can form in rapids when water flows over an obstacle, such as a rock or ledge, into deeper water. This causes the water on the surface to be pulled back towards the obstacle, creating a recirculating vortex-like zone. The current at and below the surface of the hole will be recirculating upstream, which can be dangerous for boaters and watercraft who may become stuck in the water or worse yet, flip, or cause one of us to take what they call an "unintentional swim."

Tiny Herb in Redwall CavernFortunately, Kayla our river guide, executed it perfectly, which is great because “holes” can be pretty scary and dangerous.

That was not the end of our running rapids today. As we continued downriver, the river cut deeper into the canyon’s geologic strata, and redwall Limestone began to appear along both shorelines. This limestone represents an ancient deep-sea bed from 350 million years ago.

Due to the hardness of this limestone and its resistance to erosion, the rapids are larger and more frequent in this section, appropriately called the “Roaring Twenties,” a 10 mile stretch of river from Mile 20 to 30 with a fairly good-sized rapid every mile or so.

The Guides setting up lunchThe biggest rapid we ran in the “Roaring Twenties” was Georgie (rated an 8 on the Grand Canyon scale), one of only two rapids named after a woman.

Georgie was quite the adventurous woman. Besides being one of the first people to swim the rapids of the river, wearing only a bathing suit, life jacket, and tennis shoes, she also made history when in 1952 she became the first woman to row a boat through the Grand Canyon.

After that first ride, she realized this was what she wanted to do with her life, so she began configuring war surplus rubber pontoons into inflatable crafts to take paying passengers down the river. She eventually became the most famous commercial river runner of all time.

A little Frisbee playSoon after the “Roaring Twenties,” at Mile 33, we stopped at one of the most beautiful and interesting places along the river - Redwall Canyon, a huge amphitheater carved by high river flows into the canyon’s limestone walls.

It looked impressive from the river, but to really appreciate its grandiosity and enormity you have to walk into its expanse.

Such deep sandWhen John Wesley Powell camped here in 1869, he estimated that the cavern could hold more than 50,000 people, a bit of a hyperbole, but let’s just say that it is pretty impressive.

Upon beaching the rafts, the river guides began setting up the kitchen to make us lunch, while the rest of us ran into the cavern like a bunch of little kids let out at recess.

Not sure if I mentioned yet that eight of our fellow passengers were members of an ultimate frisbee team, so of course the frisbee had to come out to play.

Buck Farm CanyonThe sand was very deep within the cavern as a result of floods in the pre Glen Canyon Dam times, when the cavern would often become completely filled with silty river water. After the water receded, the sand stayed behind, building up with each flood. Since the dam was built, the cavern doesn’t get flooded anymore.

What a great place this would be to camp, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), because of its popularity, camping is not allowed.

From Redwall Canyon, we continued down the river, passing the proposed (but fortunately failed) Marble Canyon Dam Site at Mile 40.

Buck Farm CanyonThe country was pretty much going dam crazy in the 1950s, proposing dozens of dam sights on the rivers in the West. Fortunately, opposition from environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, as well as concerned citizens got the Bureau of Reclamation to agree to halt dam construction at this site and others in the canyon.

Had a dam been built here, we would have been paddling so far on an artificial lake, backing all the way back to Lee’s Ferry.

A mile after that we stopped to camp at Buck Farm Canyon (Mile 41).

From camp, we hiked into Buck Farm Canyon. There was a bit of scrambling over rocks in the beginning for the first quarter mile. From there, we had the choice of either wading through the creek or walking above the creek on an exposed set of ledges. It was a rewarding 2-mile, out-and-back hike.

Then it was back to camp for warm beers, dinner, mingling and laughing, and then to bed.