Day 6, here come the rapids

So five days done, lots of great hikes and scenery, and some fun rapids too.  The emphasis of the hike was about to change, and quickly.  The rapids in the Twenties were fun, but that was 4 days ago, and we really had not run anything of note, save maybe Kwagunt Rapid at mile 56.  But today was to be full of great rapids.  Unkar, Nevills, Hance, Sockdolager, Grapevine.  And that was just the morning. We had lunch right before Zoroaster, and took that rapid, along with Horn Creek, Granite, and Hermit in the afternoon.  All those rapids are rated at 8 or higher on a scale of 1-10.  The whole day was running rapids, with a lunch stop.  It was super fun, especially the afternoon.  Margeaux was our guide again, and she led us through the teeth of all those rapids.  And we had a super fun and silly afternoon through it all.  Unfortunately, I didn't get pics in the rapids.  I will just add that at Horn Creek we got slammed by a wave on the right side (where I was), and at Hermit, we nailed the line through the biggest waves all the way through.  Tommy told us we held the best line of all the boats.  Our boat completely disappeared behind the waves from view down stream.  The boat is 18' long.  Not sure how big that makes the waves, but it was BIG, maybe the biggest of the trip.

Tommy must have had some funny things to say this morning by the looks on the faces of the group. 

And a few more pics from the day, South Rim of the Grand Canyon off in the distance

Our fearless and funny guide Margeaux

Stefanie keeping everyone cool

That night we camped at mile 99.  One day of running lots of fun rapids, and we covered 33 miles.  Without endless paddling, just taking what the river was giving.  

At the end of the day we camped above the most feared rapid of the trip thus far, Crystal.  We all walked over to look at the rapid after camp was set up.  Tommy described the reasons the rapid was tricky, and wanted to be sure that we all knew that we had our work cut out for first thing in the morning.  We returned to camp for our evening routine.  The trip had been especially bad on Pepper's footwear.  His flip flops and Keen type sandals were both broken and he was basically with no footwear.  Fortunately, Curtis had a Speedy Stitcher on his boat.  And also fortunately, I knew how to use it.  We were able to repair his sandals in a jiffy and they lasted for the rest of the trip.  During the repair session, off in the distance a ghoulish sounding voice yelled out, "Don't swim Crystal".  This was rather odd and a bit unnerving.  After a couple of more weird sounding yells, there was hysterical laughter.  Now this was getting really weird.  But I was in the middle of shoe repair so I just kept about my business.   A few minutes later, the story behind the weird yelling was revealed.  One of the items on the dinner menu was a delicious quinoa salad.  One of the cooks and put the salad at the edge of the river to cool down.  This was a common method of cooling everything from beers to bodies.  But in this case, the river decided to take the quinoa salad.  Someone realized the salad was floating down the river in its metal bowl.  Margeaux was yelling at the salad to not swim the rapid.  Fortunately for all eating that night (did I mention yet I gained 5 pounds during the trip?), Michael was bathing just above the rapid and saw the bowl floating down the river.  He braved the river and Crystal to save our quinoa salad.  Whenever we shared a boat the rest of the trip, I made sure he knew he didn't need to paddle, as he had literally saved our dinner that night.  Wish I had a picture of that.
Link to Day 7