Grand Canyon Rafting – Woo Hoo!

188 miles, at least three class 10 rapids, total of more than 17 rapids, 7 days, 6 nights luxury wilderness camping, several hikes to fantastic waterfalls and oases. No Internet, no traffic, no worries. That about sums it up. It was fantastic.

We’d been wanting to do this trip for almost forever. It can’t be done spur of the moment; we made reservations last fall. We made some good choices and got lucky, too, making for a stellar trip! The boat, called a J-rig, is specially crafted for Grand Canyon river runs. It carries all of our food and gear and offers three types of seating – rubber pontoons up front, which guarantee a wet and personal relationship with the river, the “buckboard”, much more stable and drier, and “the princess seats”, where you could be comfy and dry even through the most serious rapids. We chose to spend most of the trip up front – my favorite seat was 3rd row – still plenty of excitement, but not quite such violent face slaps from the waves. And there were a few times I was happy to lounge on the princess seat and watch the scenery.

It was amazingly quiet on the river. Before the trip, I had an image of us vying for camping spots with other boats, maybe having to wait while another group ran the rapids, but there was very little interaction. Other than a small section of river near the Phantom Ranch, where sightseers in planes and helicopters hovered, we had no sign of such modern objects for days. After a day or two, we got into the rhythm of rising at daybreak, eating a great breakfast, loading up, cruising, and various breaks to stretch our legs, eat snacks or lunch, more cruising and then finding our campsite and setting up camp.

The Canyon: It’s very hard to describe the scale. It was actually pretty hard to grasp even being there. Without a reference, you can’t even begin to grok the size of the canyon walls, or whether the formation that you see is part of the Rim or not. We were lucky to have guides Evan And Joey who know the river and the canyon well, and could answer most of our questions.

Now that I’ve brought up our guides, I have to say a few words. These guys have a diverse job – Job 1 is to keep us safe and in the boat and not floating down the river to an uncertain end. Plus navigating the rapids, entertaining us and (I’m sure with some groups) providing adult supervision. As well as cooking for us and answering our many questions. Evan and Joey were great – couldn’t ask for better guides. Being the last trip of the season, Evan was able to bring his wife, Nash, along. She was a great addition.

Our group was interesting and fun. 11 of the 18 were a family group that have a tradition of taking rafting trips in Montana every year. They were lively company and we felt welcome to their company. A few other couples, some folks our age, and some as young as 30 were part of the group, too. The family group included a few members in the oil industry – and a surprising coincidence – a couple of the other folks were also in that industry. Everyone got along well and we had a lot of interesting conversations.

In the interest of getting this published before Christmas, I’ll end here.

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