Grand Canyon Rafting May 2004

GC Rafting
May 2004

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Day 5: Monday, May 17 2004
Little Colorado River, Carbon Canyon
Click on pictures to see larger images

At Pat's "plan for tomorrow" talk the night before, he'd said the next day would be a "sleep in" day. (This statement actually was something more like, "Well you know, you guys, we were thinking that we'd let you guys sleep in tomorrow...but you guys, we still have a bunch of river miles to cover, so we still need you guys to get packed up and on the boats as early as possible..." which gave an amusingly contradictory impression of how relaxed the next morning would be.) In any case, we did get an precious extra half hour or so of sleep before the conch was blown, which I definitely appreciated!

Starting out on the river

Breakfast was coffee cake, fruit, and potato pancakes. It was a cool and cloudy morning, which disappointed me because Pat had told us that today we would visit the Little Colorado river. I knew from reading trip reports that when the Little Colorado is running clear, it is a beautiful sky blue in color from the minerals in the water; but if rain upstream has washed silt into the water, it runs muddy and red. I really wanted to see it running clear and blue, since it had looked so improbably tropical in pictures that I'd seen. The gray clouds and cool weather seemed an ominous sign! As we finished our breakfast, Pat came over and told us that he'd intended for us to spend a couple hours at the Little Colorado, but since it was chilly and not good weather for swimming, we'd probably shorten our visit, especially if the stream was muddy. He assured us that it just meant we'd get to do a longer hike at our next campsite. I still prayed for a clear Little Colorado!

Today Robert and I rode in Pat's boat, along with Kristin and Phil. We started off with a interesting conversation about water politics. Pat, like most of the other boatmen, takes this subject to heart and discusses it intelligently and passionately. I had read "Cadillac West" so I was familiar with some of the major issues, but it was great to get new information and a new perspective from someone whose livelihood is directly affected by how Glen Canyon dam is managed.


Matt continues pointing out things of interest even as his crew heads into a rapid	Still pointing!

We came to Kwagunt rapid, and Pat explained to us that it had one really nice big wave. He asked if we wanted to stay dry, or to go for some adventure. We voted for adventure, so Pat headed directly for the wave. I was prepared and looking fully dorky with my goggles on (protecting my contacts)! We hit the wave head on and got extremely wet and had a very fun ride. Below the rapids, we waited for the other boats, watching to see how they handled the rapid. Riding with Pat was interesting because as trip leader, he almost always went through rapids first, then pulled into an eddy below and watched all the other boats go through. While watching, he would offer commentary on the rapid, the possible runs through, and what decisions the other boatmen were making and how they were handling the rapid. I really enjoyed getting a little insight into the technique needed and the task of running the rapid.

The Tapeats formation emerges from the river

Jason, Geoff, and Sharon were braving the duckies that morning. All three of them made it through Kwagunt with no problems, but then when we hit a little riffle just past 60-mile rapid, suddenly Jason and Geoff tipped over in quick succession, caught by some sort of weird eddy. The guides thought it was hilarious - one of them said that it looked like there'd been some kind of machine gunner on shore, taking them out. I just thought it looked like the water was really cold, since the air temp wasn't very warm!

Mouth of the Little Colorado

We reached the confluence of the Little Colorado around mid-morning, and to my delight the water was running clear and blue. Yay! When we arrived, a motor trip was tied up at the confluence, but they were in the process of leaving, so we got the Little Colorado to ourselves for a while. It was still partially cloudy and not too warm, but Pat decided we should do the traditional "life jacket rapid ride" anyway. We walked upstream to a spot with some nice little rapids, and put our life jackets on with our legs through the arm holes so that the jackets looked like big diapers. That way they protected our butts from the rocks in the little rapids, and we surfed down through feet-first on our backs. It was really fun! I did it twice, once alone and once in a chain with Kelly and some others. After that I was shivering pretty hard so I had to get out and warm up. (The water in the Little Colorado was considerably warmer than that of the main Colorado, but it was still chilly enough to suck the warmth out of me in a fairly short time.)


Jim rides through as others walk to the start	Jim submerged in a rapid	I have fun going in a "train"


One of the many lovely pools	Robert and I warm up in the sun	A beautiful view


Jim does a "flip"	Pretty flowers	Travertine formations

We wandered along the banks, looking at the cool rock formations and thousands of little salt deposits, some of which had even formed mini-stalagtites. The sun finally peeked through the clouds, and the little Colorado took on the truly intense blue color for which it is famous! It was really beautiful, I felt like I could have been happy spending days in that spot. The sun really warmed up the rocks and the air, and I could totally see how on a hot day, swimming in the Little Colorado would be an awesome way to cool off. Eventually the guides rounded us up and we headed back to the confluence for lunch (sandwiches and cookies). As we were eating, another motor trip pulled up, ready for their turn in paradise.


Salt on the rocks	Pillar of salt	Boats at the mouth of the little Colorado

Before we left, Pat warned us that those of us who had swum in the Little Colorado should take a dip in the main river so we could wash off the salt and minerals from our skin and keep it from getting irritated. I braved the frigid water of the river and did my best, but I'm not sure I got it all off (in later days many of us did indeed have trouble with rashes). Jason offered me the use of the ducky for the afternoon, but the wind and the cloudiness of the day made me wimp out - I could just picture myself getting extremely cold as had happened to me on the second day, and not being able to warm up until stopping.

Hopi salt mines

The afternoon was windy once again, with yet more amazing scenery. We passed the Hopi salt mines, salt encrusting the cliff walls alongside the river, and Pat told us about how young men would come down seeking salt. We had passed the emergence of the Tapeats sandstone in the morning, a formation I remembered well from my various hikes in the canyon, and the ledges were often eroded into improbable fins with lacy edges that were really cool to look at. (Although bad for climbing! Pat warned us that the Tapeats is dangerously crumbly. It was hard to resist the urge to climb, with so many cool ledges and pockets, but when handholds break off with one touch, we managed to restrain ourselves.)

We stopped at Carbon Creek, again next to another trip that had just finished a hike and was about to leave. We unpacked and then hiked up Carbon Canyon. Broad at first, it soon turned into a neat little slot canyon in the Tapeats and Bright Angel Shale, with way cool wind-blasted holes and formations. We hiked up through the canyon until it broadened out again and ended in a small hill, from which we had a terrific vista. Pat gave us a talk about geology, which was very interesting. Jim and Robert and I meandered back down through the canyon, looking at rocks, taking pictures, and doing a little scrambling.


Rock formation in Carbon canyon	Jim stands for his portrait	Canyon wall perch


Cool colored chunks of rock embedded in the canyon wall	Robert on the hike	Tapeats rock - cool to look at, bad to climb

Camp at Carbon Canyon

When we got back to camp, I was happy to find that Jeanne was finally starting to feel better, and we were able to continue our daily stretch session together. Robert and I washed our clothes and I put on some cotton clothing. My legs already had a little chafing (presumably from the minerals in the Little Colorado, combined with harshness of the splash pants material). We had jambalaya and garlic bread for dinner. I was particularly hungry because on one of the previous days, Pat had announced that we were eating too much gorp ("you know, you guys, we only have so much of it, and it has to last the entire trip..."), so I had tried to seriously reduce my snacking between meals. However, at home I am used to having multiple small meals throughout the day so it was a little hard to adjust back to doing three big meals instead! (The gorp thing ended up being a source of much amusement to everyone - after Pat asked us to stop eating so much of it, everyone tried hard to back off, with the result that we ended up with the guides begging us to eat the leftover gorp at the end of the trip!)

The South Rim (Desert View Watchtower is just barely visible on the rim in the photo)

From our campspot, we could see Desert Watchtower on the South Rim, a small spike silhouetted against the sky. I realized that for the first time on this trip I could see a part of the canyon that I had visited before, and it struck me all over again just how immense the Grand Canyon really is, and how small a part of it can be accessed from the South Rim. That was one of the great things about this river trip, getting to see so much more of a place that I loved.

After dinner we had a chocolate chip brownie cake thing for dessert. This was another large camp with many sites, and Robert and I set up our tent quite far away from everything. Robert really liked being able to get away from everybody, meaning that nobody walked past our tent with their headlamps on during the night, and it was very quiet.