Grand Canyon Rafting 2017

**Photo credits to Stephen Liles "the chub guy"

On the night before we "put in" we stayed at the Marble Canyon Lodge.  It was exactly what you would think a lodge in the middle of nowhere would be like.  The man at the front desk informed us that thy do not have WiFi, but they do have a computer with dial up if we needed it. He then gave us our key and we drove around the dirt driveway to our room.  The room was comfortable and the A/C worked well.  I rested while Mike and Rylie visited the laundry mat, the outpost store and filled up with a tank of gas.  We were told at check in that our outfitter, Outdoors Unlimited, will be meeting at 8pm behind the gas station.  We had dinner at the restaurant at the lodge.  Our clocks on our phones would randomly jump up or back an hour and the waitress informed us that Marble Canyon is on the edge of the Navajo County and they do no observe daylights savings time, so satellite based clocks are often off in the area. So we got to dinner an hour early and were able to take our time.  Thank goodness because the waitstaff were in NO HURRY! :)  At 8:00, we headed over to the "room behind the gas station" and we met our 8 crew member and the rest of the group. There were a total of 24 guests and 8 guides.  Our guides included Heather (trip leader), Mandela, Lynn, Jon and Jeff.  We also had Kelsey, Steve and Saul on the cargo boats. We all sat in a circle and went around introducing ourselves.  There were people from all over the US and even another couples named "Mike and Julie" and their son (who was also on the trip), was now living in Baton Rouge.  After everyone was introduced, they handed out our dry bags and Heather went over our "how to pack" guides and answered any and all questions. Luckily, there was an outpost at the lodge so we could stock up on any items we forgot or that were suggested during our meeting. 

View from our room

We packed our bags and loaded our rental car with everything we were not bringing, then got a good nights sleep.  We woke up early for a big breakfast before we needed to meet in front of the lodge. We were still pretty clueless as to where to put our bags/hiking shoes/water bottles/empty backpacks for hiking out the canyon/etc.  It wasn't too long until the guides showed up and helped us out.  You can tell they have done this a time or two! Most people loaded into the shuttle bus, but we drove our rental car since we were having it shuttled from Lee's Ferry to our hotel at the South Rim. After only a five minute drive we met everyone at Lee's Ferry, grabbed our live vests and sat under the pavilion for Lynn to give us her safety talk.  We then headed to the boats to load up and ship out.  Boy, was that water cold!  About 49 degrees they said. We got in Heather's boat day one.  We were with Tom and Alice and their son Guthrie from Washington.  We headed out on a very quiet Colorado River.  The water was so clear... you could see pretty far down and there were lots of fish. 

We stopped for lunch around and the crew quickly put up a table and within minutes had all of the fixings set out for sandwiches.  They had several different types of cold cuts, cheeses, vegetables, peanut butter, nutella, dried nuts, cookies, etc. We all ate well and they continued to urge us to make sure we were drinking enough water. We then got back in the boats... a while later we stopped at Brown's riffle.  (On July 9, 1889, the President of the Denver, Colorado Canyon and Pacific Railroad, Frank Mason Brown, drowned at this point when the boat he was in capsized. He was not wearing a life jacket). We hiked a ways over large rocks to a petroglyph that Jon pointed out and then made our way to see a memorial for Frank Brown etched in the rock.

Frank Brown's memorial dated 7/9/1889

By the end of the evening we had paddled around 20 miles and went through about 8 rapids and a couple riffles before we got to our first camp.  I wish I remembered what the camp names were...When we docked the boats our first chore was to form an assembly line to unload the dry bags for our personal items, our dry bags for our sleeping gear, mats and all of the other supplies (kitchen, chairs, etc.).  We then all went out to find our own campsites. I let Mike take on that chore.  The first night every one spread out a lot, so we each had our "personal" rooms between big rocks.  We put our stuff down, changed our clothes (after taking a very cold bath in the river) and headed back to set up our circle of chairs and chat while our guides whipped up our awesome appetizers and dinner. Dinner was steak, potatoes and salad and for dessert a warm cookie cake.

View from our camp

Our night one campsite.  We had sleeping bags, a small sheet and tarps (not pictured)

Views from dinner as the sun went down.

Our first night was unforgettable to say the least... We honestly had no idea what to expect. In our sleep kit dry bag was a tarp, a sleeping bag and a sheet.  We also picked up a thin yellow mat (pictured) that we put over our tarp.  We were close enough to a small riffle in the river that we were put to sleep by the sounds, it also became our restroom.  However, the bugs were horrible.  It was pretty warm, so we were not in our sleeping bags or under our sheets.  And were in minimal clothes.  The bugs landed on us one after the other.  At one point I thought... "how am I going to do this for three more nights?"  Not long after I finally got to sleep, Rylie woke me up screaming.  She was yelling "there is a bug in my ear" over and over again in hysterics. I grabbed the head light and pointed it towards here ear.  I was helpless... I just had to pray that it would make its way out.  She was in pain... Luckily a couple minutes later (which felt like hours), the bug made its way out.  By that time Rylie was too freaked out and demanded that there was still something in her ear and that she could not hear.  She cried and cried (and kept saying she wanted to go home... good luck with that) while I comforted her (and Mike slept). She was freaking out so I made my way in the dark over all the rocks to the blue tarp, where the first aid kit was kept.  I was looking for some cotton balls to put in our ears so this didn't happen again.  Because at this time I was freaked out a bit too. When I stumbled my way over the large rocks back to our camp, Rylie was crawled up wanting to cuddle on my very small and narrow mat.  So while I was sweating and swatting the bugs off of me, she was crawled up next to me still crying.  I can say the silver lining was being able to see EVERY star in the sky and the beautiful Milky Way. I have never seen a more beautiful sky.  After only a couple of hours of sleep, I hear the conch shell (5:00 am) which meant that coffee was ready and breakfast would be ready soon. We got up and packed up our bags and headed to breakfast.  We had french toast and bacon. When we told our guides about our crazy night with the bugs, they all said that in all the years they have been in the canyon, they had never had a night with that many bugs. Just our luck! :) After breakfast a couple of the guides took us on a side hike. It was a beautiful (and long) hike that ended at a small pool of water where Heather read us a story about the Ravens in the canyon and Mandela played her didgeridoo. Today happened to be the 4th of July. 

Charlie

Mandela on the didgeridoo

After the hike we loaded up our dry bags and hopped in a boat.  Today we teamed up with Maya (a New Yorker, originally from Israel), Iliza (a young lady from Toronto), and Bob (Rylie's BFF from California), with Mandela as our guide.  Today we were hitting the famous "Roaring 20's" which meant it would be an exciting day. We had some great rapids and some great company.  We stopped for lunch at Redwall Cavern which was a beautiful spot for a shady lunch.  Lunch were Mediterranean wraps, homemade guacamole, dried fruits, nuts, sandwich spreads and cookies. Thanks to Bob for grabbing some cute family photos of us!

We got back on the water and found a campsite later on that day.  We unloaded the cargo boats and then Mike took off to find our campsite.  Rylie opted for a tent.  She said she would rather be a bit warmer than to take the chance of getting attacked by bugs again. Mike and Rylie set up her tent then Mike and I went to take a very cold river bath.  After hor d'oeuvres, dinner was served.  We had fish (I had a special plate with chicken)with a mango chutney sauce, salad and roasted vegetables. We sat in our chair circle, enjoying our beer (that was pulled behind a boat, in the river to stay cold).  With it being the 4th of July, Mandela put someone's American flag swim trunks on a stick and we all sang the National Anthem and we had chocolate cake to celebrate. lol We usually went to bed pretty early because 1) we were exhausted and 2) we know that conch shell blew early. Rylie headed to her tent and Mike and I slept on our mats right outside her tent.  We had a wonderful night and I didn't feel a single bug the entire night!  And it even cooled down enough to be under my sheet. 

our camp

setting up camp

The bathroom

Dinner chefs Mandela and Lynn

Yoga lead by Mandela the next morning.

The next day we got an early start and teamed up with the other "Mike and Julie" (from California) we of course had Rylie and the other Mike and Julie's son Charlie that just so happens to live in Baton Rouge. We were in the boat with our guide, Jon. Later that day we got the the Little Colorado River. We had to take a short hike, but it was well worth it.  The Little Colorado in a pretty blue color due to the limestone and travertine that lines the river. We also had a chance to body surf down a small rapid and hang out for a while. We did have to wear our life vests like a diaper to protect your bottom from the big rocks. :)

Where the Little Colorado meets the Colorado

We stopped for a quick and sunny lunch before we were back on the river a making our way to camp for the night. Lunch was tuna fish sandwiches (they had turkey for me), dried fruits, spreads, cookies and nuts.

Jon

Mandela at lunch

Lunch

We made our way to camp and decided to stay close to the main camp.  It was so much easier lugging all our our bags when we were closer and we weren't concerned with privacy at this point. We had chips and bean dip for appetizers, then our main course was my favorite meal of the trip... cornitas, then pineapple upside down cake for dessert.  Dinner was great and we had enough cornitas left over for lunch wraps the next day! We hung out a bit later chatting in our chair circle or dangling our feet off the boats while enjoying our cold beers before hitting the sack (or mat, in our case). 

Heather on dinner

Rylie and Mike enjoying the Pineapple Upside down cake

We had another nice and uneventful night and all got a good nights sleep.  We packed up early and we were off again with Heather as our guide again.  This time we were with Charlie (who was making his 15th trip down the canyon) and Chad and Patti, a couple from Hawaii.  We had some decent rapids, then we made a stop to see some ancient artifacts before hitting some pretty big rapids.  We found a nice spot for lunch had left over cornitas and sandwiches with the typical fixings and cookies, etc. Everyone started eating dried pears with nutella as their lunch dessert. At one point we docked the boats and hiked up to "scout" out the Hance rapid.  I honestly had no idea what we were looking at, but the guides tried their best to explain how we were going to hit and in what direction they needed the boat, etc.  I figured I would just listen carefully as we hit the rapid and did what Heather said. Not only is this one of the biggest rapids we would face, but also one of the longest. Steve got some great shots of us going through it. The views as we got closer to the south rim were unreal...

This was our last full day of paddling.  At the end of the evening, right before we pulled up to camp, we formed "floatzilla" where we tied all the boats together and reflected together about our trip and Mandela played her didgeridoo... and had a celebratory beer on the river. 

That night we unpacked again as usual and made camp even closer to the main camp. Our last night we stayed at a camp called "cremation"... I now know why!  The sun beamed right down on it and it was HOT! To cool off we dipped our feet in the river, while Rylie and Mike skipped rocks.  That night we had spaghetti and meatballs with roasted vegetables and fresh salad.  We all talked about our strategies to attack the Bright Angel Trail the next day. Luckily our last night was uneventful and we had another good nights sleep.  We needed to be well rested for the hike.  The next morning we packed up for the last time and put our personal items in our backpacks.  We said our goodbyes to Charlie and Bob (who would be continuing on to the lower canyon, another 9 days), while the other 22 of us hiked out the canyon.  Most of the guides stayed back and waited for the 22 that were replacing us to hike down the Bright Angel Trail. We only had to paddle a couple miles the next morning to get to Phantom Ranch and the start to our Bright Angel Trail hike. 

Rylie with some of our guides: Lynn, Heather, Jeff and Mandela

We got on the trail about 7:30 am.  We filled our water bottles, and dipped our "cool towel" in the cold river put them around our necks and we were off.  Rylie quickly took off and I kept telling her to slow down.  That lasted about 15 minutes and before I knew it, she was out of sight.  I wasn't worried too much because I knew she was hiking with others from our trip.  It got hot quick.  And the water we carried was hot and not very refreshing.  How can I best describe the hike.... hmmmmm, it SUCKED! :)  It was hot and dusty and seemed like it would never end.  The first 4 miles to Indian Garden (lunch stop) was not so bad.  We had decent cloud coverage, so the heat wasn't too much a factor.  We stopped at Indian Garden to eat our sandwiches and snacks we had made and packed the night before.  I wasn't very hungry, but I knew we needed the energy to make it to the trail head.  After lunch it was all downhill (figuratively speaking since we were really going uphill).  He sun came out and heat exhaustion began to set in.  I've done my fare share of hiking and never had any trouble, but this time was different.  I experienced heat exhaustion and became dizzy and eventually nauseous. I took many breaks and continued to drink plenty of water, it wasn't helping much.  We finally got to the next rest house to fill up our water bottles.  This meant we were three miles from the trail head.  Then the 1.5 mile rest house.  I must have looked terrible, because the people we passed that were going down started asking "where are you coming from?" lol  Mike tried to keep me in good spirits telling me that we were almost there, but when I would ask someone coming down, they would tell me that they had been hiking for over an hour.  Generally, it takes double the time to hike up, than it takes to hike down. I took break after break and I hated that I was so weak.  But we pushed on (slowly) and finally made it out after about 7 hours.  We found Rylie sitting on the benches right outside the trail head waiting on us.  She had made it out in 5 hours and thought we would be right behind her, so she waited rather than going eat with the others.  When we finally got out we had to walk to our hotel (the LAST thing I wanted to do was more walking).  We got to the lobby and I told Mike that I would sit on this chair while he checked us in and found the car. Because this was such a popular spot to view the canyon and it was a holiday week, it was PACKED.  Our car was parked in the farthest lot.  Mike went and got the car while we waited on the benches.  He brought the car closer to our room so we could unpack, but was unable to find a parking spot, so had to go park back in the farthest lot.  The first thing I did was got in the shower to rinse off, then took a long bath.  It felt great to actually take a real bath and wash my hair!  After I got out the bath, I crawled in bed and felt terrible... I had the chills and was burning up at the same time.  It took a couple hours before I felt like myself again.  I was so glad we decided to stay the night at the rim.  Several others had to drive back to Vegas that night.  I was in no shape to drive 4 hours. 
We met up with Maya, Chad and Patti for dinner that night.  We enjoyed a couple drinks and a good meal, then It was off to an bed... a REAL bed! :) 

Waiting to check in.

View from the rim.  Our hike stared at the very top of this picture.

We slept in the next morning.  We checked out the hotel and had breakfast and continued on our way to the Vegas airport.  We stopped for lunch on Route 66. We finally got to the airport and on our way back to NOLA.  We landed just after midnight, which happened to be Rylie's 16th birthday.  The crew made a special announcement when we landed wishing her a happy sweet sixteenth birthday.