Grand Canyon - Day 6

Thursday 30th September 2010 by Dan –

We packed up camp and crossed the river to explore the mouth of Little Colorado River. All the mud and silt in the LCR water made it a chocolate brown color, a sharp contrast to the crystal clear water that we had become accustomed too. It also felt mildly warmer. Andy noticed from the rocks alongside the river, that it looked like the water level had recently been much higher, an indication that a storm had passed further upstream in the river’s watershed. Where the two rivers joined there was a clean line between muddy water and the clean water. We crossed the line and continued downstream where the newly colored water was a novelty.

 Not long after setting off downstream, Andy and Wendy caught us off guard when they casually flipped the Grabner in a riffle. Fortunately they swam to a rock face on river left and were able to recover themselves and their gear with the assistance of a raft. Andy did lose his hat in the excitement, but I spotted it floating downstream and was able to pluck from the brown water and return it to its rightful owner.

It was another good day for me. I did not swim, nor did I need to execute my combat roll. My roll, however, did stop working in practice, which was frustrating. It was probably due to trying to improve it and changing things.

After lunch we took some time away from the river and hiked to the top of a butte where we were greeted with amazing 360 degree views of the canyon and river around us.

Here's a map showing our hike on Day 6. It's best viewed in Google Earth or directly in Google Maps by clicking the link below:

View Larger Map

The hike led to the top of a steep cliff overlooking Unkar Rapid which was around the next bend of the river. The cliff was high, and according to my GPS it was about a 350 foot (100 meter) sheer drop down to the river below. Even I, who am not usually afraid of heights, was feeling a bit queasy near the edge of this one. The rapid and waves below looked surprisingly small from the top.

After our hike we paddled the short distance around the bend and stopped to scout Unkar Rapid (rated 4-7) from river right. Looking upwards we could clearly see where we had hiked to earlier, however now all the attention was focused on the river itself. The waves looked bigger now and it was surprising how deceiving it had looked from above. The rapid was increasingly fiercer towards the cliff wall on river left. It looked like most of the water was pulling towards the wall and there were several holes that needed to be avoided. It looked dangerous! For this reason the kayaks chose to take a sneak route on river right that would hopefully mean we could avoid the places we didn’t want to be. The trick would be lining up the approach and avoiding the submerged rocks in the shallower water on the right.

Michael went first, followed by Tim, myself and then Erin, and then Jim. The sneak worked out well and the rapid passed without incident. We paddled on several miles further until we reached a suitable campsite for the night. The sun-shower was rigged and provided a refreshing rinse off. It was surprising how good a small dribble of clean water felt after almost a week without washing.

We are only one day away from Phantom Ranch now. There are big rapids coming up tomorrow. Erin and I plan to take a break and sit them out on the rafts.

We had soup for dinner and margaritas prepared by Sam. I like my margaritas strong.