So what is daily life like on a rafting trip? Kitchen crew starts at 7:00, coffee at 7:30, breakfast at 8:00, then cleaning up, breaking down of camp, dragging the rafts out into the river, loading tables, chairs, propane, stove, fire pit, food, water, wine and numerous bulky heavy personal bags onto the rafts. With everything securely attached, we shove off. Today we achieved this in record time and were off the beach slightly before 10:00! Two hours later, we arrived at our camp and reversed the whole process. We had an easy run today of about eight miles from Eminence to Nankoweap. Boats were freely swapped again today to give an opportunity for everyone to try out the replica boats. I was back at the helm of my 700 pound long haul trucker. This was our last day of Mauv Limestone for a while. This section of the river is quite calm. The shore has plenty of sand banks and vegetation (versus sheer cliff) providing habitat for ducks, woodpeckers, kinglets, sparrow and coyotes. We are camped on a large delta that has been previously inhabited over the years by numerous first nations. After lunch our tribe of sixteen split into several factions for photo ops, canyon hikes or runs or just hanging out at camp. I hiked up with three other tribe members to the Anasazi granary for a photo match. After dinner at 6:00, our evening ended with siting around the fire as the new moon and Jupiter come up over the rim and Tom reads us river journals from trips taken in the 1950’s.
With all my love – Cindy

We awoke on day 5 to a remarkably warm-feeling 37 degrees.  In retrospect that sounds quite chilly, but after three consecutive sub-freezing nights, it was quite a relief.

Our first stop was Vasey’s Paradise – a large spring that gushes out of the redwall hundreds of feet above the river – where we replenished our water jugs.

Then it was down to Redwall Cavern – a large cave in the redwall cliff at river level that has a large sandy floor and is large enough to hold several thousand people.

The rest of the day was spent rowing down a beautifully calm and magnificent stretch of river where enormous amphitheaters and giant caves in the redwall cliff towered hundreds of feet above us.  By now the Canyon was a couple of thousand feet deep and looking very impressive.

Up to now I had been rowing the “Piedra” – an 18 foot inflateable boat that had to weigh at least a ton when fully loaded.  While it coasted nicely over the rapids, it was very hard to control due to its size.  When I would strike the oars, nothing when happen.  It usually took several strokes to see any results.  But after lunch I had the opportunity to row the Susie R.  What a difference!  This boat actually turns when you want it to!  And when you row forward, it MOVES forward!  What a concept.  I rowed over two small rapids and several riffles, and it handled like a dream!

After 10 enjoyable miles we arrived at our day’s destination to a glorious 59 degrees.  Everyone removed several layers of clothes, and Leif dove into the river for the first bath of the week.  He also through Yoshie in for good measure.

It was a great day.

Arnie Richards

Another cold morning gave way to a “warm” sunny afternoon.  Ahhh the sun!  Temps were only in the 40’s but compared to the previous days’ cold and wind, today felt almost balmy.

We left North Canyon camp after a delicious breakfast of eggs, ham and muffins to boat what they call “The Roaring Twenties.”  This section of the river gets its name from the large number of moderate sized rapids from river miles 20 to 30.  Along the way near river mile 25.7 we parked the boats and hiked up the river bank to search for the spot where P.T. Reilly and crew had stopped to repair his Susie R in 1957.  After only a little searching we were able to find the exact spot and replicate many of the pictures taken there on that trip.

All of the replica boats performed impressively well through this tricky section of river, and their passengers were kept busy bailing, especially after 24.5 mile rapid.  The Gem, rowed by Tom Martin and carrying our trip leader, Dave Mortenson, was filled to the oarlocks giving him a good workout with the bailing bucket.  Unfortunately the Susie R suffered the first replica boat injury of the trip just before pulling into camp at South Canyon.  It collided with a sharp rock on her starboard chine creating a 3 to 4 inch splintering hole causing her to take on a little water.  The damage is nothing that its builder Ian Elliot can’t patch though.  Interestingly, the 1957 trip suffered a similar mishap at the same location when the Flavell, rowed by Brick Mortenson, struck a rock and had to be repaired on the very beach on which we are now camped.

As I write this the group is chatting around a glorious fire waiting for another delicious, hearty meal to fill our bellies.  And just downstream we can see Vasey’s Paradise flowing out of the redwall.  Not a bad place to spend the night, if you ask me.  I do miss my lovely wife, Angie and sweet little boy, Leo though.  I can’t wait to see you both in just a few days!

Signing off on Day 4,
Jason Wesley

We started in the shade at camp an amazing breakfast of pancakes, blueberries and bacon (thank you Pam and Cece).  Boats loaded and we are head down to scout “House Narrows”.  It is so interesting to be around so many experienced people and to hear them talk about the water, to see the water and then to actually to run the rapids.   A nice leisurely launch in the sun where we rocked ‘House Narrows’ and then off to the next portion of the river where some people took photo’s at the ‘Rock Boulder Narrows’.  It is totally unbelievable to think that only a small portion of that rock was sticking out in 1957 and to see the drift wood that has been there since.  We got to camp at North Canyon – the best by far.  The temperature has risen and there is next to no wind.  A group of us hiked up the canyon – it was so nice to move the legs at a fast pace and the scenery was so beautiful (right out of a book).  The graduation of rocks and the slot canyons coupled with the ice and green grass is a sight.  My first night off – so nice to leisurely set up camp, take a wash and change the clothes.  The mood is good .  We had ‘Mexican’ food for dinner and we are all sitting around the camp waiting for the brownies to cook and taking small sips of the wonderful wine and tequila brought on the trip.

Signing off Sabette – hello to all my friends and family in beautiful ‘British Columbia’  Canada.

12 year reunion

Today looked stormy most of the day, with some clearing late in the afternoon…little did we know what was ahead. But, we loaded up the boats at OC’s. Chris Forsyth from Rich and Todd’s trip came over with his life jacket, and he rowed the GEM to Back-eddy, then hiked back to his camp. Our float into the Muave Gorge was quite. We stopped at 145 Mile on the left in the sun for lunch. Zach’s trip passed us heading for Matcat. After lunch we headed on to Upset. At this water level “Upset” is not too Upsetting, and we all had good runs with LoL Q filming and Dave taking photos from the shore. The hard hulled boats all stopped at “Ledges Camp”, also called “Reilly’s Roost”. It was here in 1999 that Dave first told Tom about Brick, Pat and Moulty, and of their river trips in the 1950’s. Twelve years later, here we were, running replicas of the three 1950’s dory’s through the Canyon. Who would have thought it even possible!

We then headed to “Last Chance” camp, where overhangs provided some shelter we would very soon need. On our arrival late in the day, the sky was clear, and the downstream view to Havasu Canyon, stunning as ever. What will happen tomorrow? Well, tomorrow is another day…

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Day Off At Deer Creek

A Warm Hello and Thank You to Joe Szep and Priss Becker. Joe, thank you for the photos you took in ’57, ’58 and ’59. Priss, thank you for lending us your life jacket from the 1957 river trip. We have used Joe’s photos and your jacket at a number of locations while re-matching Joe’s photos.

Today, some of our group hiked the river trial to Tapeats, then to Thunder River, over to Deer Spring, down Surprise Valley and down to the base of Deer Creek Falls, The raft we left at Across From Deer Creek serves well for our cross river shuttling. The group camped at Across From Deer Creek left about 11:30 AM, and not 30 minutes later, another group arrived from upriver and set up camp. This is Rich and Todd’s Slot Canyon exploring trip. Almost as soon as we had just said hello, about half their group took off with packs for the Cranberry Canyon Route, planning to overnight on the Esplanade and rappelling the upper Deer Creek Redwall Narrows tomorrow.

Feb 16, 2011
Aced Out At Across From Der Creek

After our Galloway Layover, today would be a short five mile run from Galloway Camp to Across From Deer Creek. First thing of course is to pack up our layover camp. This involves packing up the kitchen, closing down the fire pan and all the chairs around the fire, packing up the toilet and all our tents scattered at many tent sights. All this stuff is loaded on the boats. The boat rowers take extra care in the rigging today as we are right on top of a large rapid.

Everyone in our group is very health-concious, and in addition to exercise and staying active we are also very careful about even the medicine we take. We know in some cases there are some side-effects that may make taking the medication not a good idea. Some of the medication we have found to be safer is herbal. We don’t get sick very often but when we do this form of alternative medicine has worked wonders for us. Here you can find a good resource if you want to know about herbal medicine.

Once camp is all packed away on the boats, we run Deubendorff Rapid first thing. Brynn tries her hand at fish-eyeing on the GEM stern deck. The fisheye technique involves laying down on the boat’s stern deck and holding onto the side deck lines tight. The boat is rowed stern first with the boat rower facing downstream. The fisheye person is looking downstream. In between the waves of cold water, Brynn would look back at Tom with a look intended to kill. It was a very wet ride. Surprisingly, Brynn enjoyed the ride and there was some jesting of trying this at Lava.

We moved on to Tapeats Creek and re-matched photos from 1958 there. Were today’s pull-in is at the mouth of Tapeats, in 1958 the creek ran right through today’s boat landing area. Next up was re-matching photos at Granite Narrows, the narrowest point in the river. Called “Impingement Wall” by Pat Reilly, the 1958 river runners scouted the Narrows. Reilly spent 5 harrowing minutes pinned on the river right wall with the river at a flow of about 80,000cfs. Our runs here are much more uneventful. While scouting the Wall, we discovered a very high and very old driftwood pile, possibly from the 1884 270,000cfs flood.

On our arrival at Deer Creek, we found that the trip that had passed us the day before had decided to layover at the camp we had hoped to camp at. This camp is just across the river from Deer Creek Falls. We decided to leave a raft tied to the river left bank across from the Falls, and go to the next Camp downriver, called OC’s. It’s only a 1/3 mile downriver, also on river left. This way we can walk back upriver and use our boat to get across the river to access Deer Creek and the hiking on the north side of the river.