226 miles in 16 days. Our group met Sycamore (John) in Flag the night before we drove to the put-in (Lee's Ferry). He gave us all invaluable pointers in canyon craft. Thanks John!
Scenery was, without a doubt, the most spectacular thing I've ever seen. Every where you looked at almost all times was amazing. We slept on the boats most nights. The moon was full a few nights and I remember waking up, looking down canyon and seeing red cliffs in the moonlight.
Got to run my hands along the Vishnu Schist (1.75B YO rocks ) and place my hand across the Great Unconformity (1.2B year gap). Two bucket list things I've wanted to do.
Had some grand thunderstorms the first seven days or so. Cooled things off nicely in the heat of the afternoon.
I've come to understand why the use a 1-10 scale in the canyon vs the normal I-V scale on other rivers. A 5 in the canyon isn't a 2.5 on others. It's more exponential.
The day we ran adrenaline alley (Crystal, Granite, Hermit, Ruby) the river had been stained red from Nankoweap creek getting blown out from a flash flood (we'd layed over there for two days a couple of days earlier). Red rapids are far more intimidating than normal clear water. I tried to make a sneak route around to miss the wave train in Ruby. The water was so opaque that I didn't see a rock in the top that I hit. For a brief second I thought we might flip, But I managed to hit it straight and we came through it fine.
Lava Falls was HUGE. When we were in it I couldn't believe that we were running something that big. Made it upright
Had one boat flip in 209 mile rapid. Complete end-o of a 18 foot raft. Looked like a blue whale breaching. No injuries, just egos bruised. The same boat dumped all passenger going over a ledge in the 4th day (I think). Again no one hurt.
Anyway will try to get pics and a clip of us running Lava up soon.
-Steve
