Meet Tommy, our trip leader. He had the task of figuring out how to navigate COVID while cramming 7 people into 18' long inflatable raft full of gear. As with all situations encountered during our trip, he managed the situation with concern for all and with a mixture of seriousness and humor. It became clear early on that we had no germaphobes on the trip, and we were relieved to find out we would not be required to wear masks while rafting down the Colorado River. But Tommy was always ready.
For the entire trip, masks were required by the crew preparing our food, and by the guest when being served. Else we were free to wear or not wear our masks as we saw fit. You'll get a feel for our response as you view pictures going forward. And after double digit days, the rigor of which masks were used slipped a bit. In reality, having folks keep their faces covered during food prep and receiving food makes a lot of sense. Unless you enjoy someone coughing or sneezing in your salad.
Our trip on the river begins at Lees Ferry, and will end 225 or so river miles later at Diamond Creek.
I believe we set off between 10:30 and 11am that Sunday morning. The country was not exactly what I was expecting, but here we were, the Grand Canyon. I pictured higher walls around the river, but those were certainly to come.
After an hour or so of paddling we got to our lunch spot. This is a good place to note that paddling was our only means of moving at a different rate than the current of the river. But, the river moves along at 3 or 4 mph on average, so tons of paddling is not necessarily required. In general, paddling was never for more than a few minutes at a time, or perhaps longer but these times were "travel paddling". In this mode, a pair of people would paddle for a set number of strokes, then the another pair would repeat, then finally the third pair, and then back to the first. In this mode we could make our way down the river but not be paddling constantly. A typical day was 3 - 6 or 7 hours on the river, but the time spent paddling was so much less than that. Much of it was just looking around at the beauty of the creation around us.
So, back to day 1 lunch. This was another time for learning from Tommy, exactly what I don't recall. After he finished, we had a bit of time before lunch was ready. I had brought a disc on the trip (aka Frisbee) and Steve Pepper (aka Pepper or Pep) asked me if I wanted to play catch. I noted Pepper could really throw well, better than most 50 something year olds for sure. It was going to be good to have a friend who wanted to play catch during the trip. Then Mike Jahn asked if he could join us. While Pepper was good, Mike was definitely next level. I could tell he had thrown much before this trip. He was happy to share with me when he saw my disc (post trip picture of disc, story to come), that he had been a collegiate and club ultimate player for about 10 years, and as he put it, grown up watching I Bleed Black. The beginning of another friendship.
This disc was to become my lunch plate, my middle of the night sarong soak basin, a shield for my head during night time showers, shade for others, a small sail when we had wind at our back, as well as a few other uses that slip my mind presently. I recall asking Stefanie for permission to use my disc as my lunch plate on day 1. She didn't giggle outwardly, but must have been thinking, "what a kook".
I recall the rest of the day being rather uneventful, other than a decent amount of wind in the afternoon as we continued paddling toward camp. That's one thing about wind, it definitely affects the boat's speed down the river. So when faced with a wind, more paddling is called for. We travelled about 14 miles down the river that day, I believe we stopped just above Sheer Wall Rapid. The most notable rapid of the day was Badger Creek. We saw a bighorn sheep, several herons, and also Peregrine falcons during the day. We finally made it to our camp of ledges. Tommy was pretty excited we would get to camp at this spot, as he said we wouldn't see another spot like this during our trip. In this case, his enthusiasm didn't win me over. Sleeping on hot rocks didn't seem all that great.
I recall waking up hot in the middle of the night and thinking thus far the trip had been a bit underwhelming.
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