As a member of the cooking crew, I woke up early to help start the hot cereal and to get the hot water started for tea and coffee. Despite my best efforts, I am still never the first person up in the morning! While we were packing food for lunch, I found another scorpion in the lunch cooler. It was right on the rim of the cooler. Tim thought he could carefully blow the little bugger off the cooler and into the sand. Unfortunately, when he blew, it looked like the scorpion dropped into the cooler, so Tim and Michael started emptying out the cooler. They had emptied the cooler about halfway when we spotted the scorpion still on the edge. We were a little bit more careful with the scorpion relocation the second time and managed to move him a safe distance away.
We set off down river at around 9:30am. It was Scott and Marshall’s last day on the river, and we were all starting to realize how hard it would be to say goodbye to two members of our group.
We went through three quick rapids on our way to the boat beach at Phantom Ranch. After the rapids I did some roll practice and completely lost it! My roll had been going so well and then kaput it was gone!
The boat beach at Phantom Ranch was packed with four other groups, also doing exchanges, and over twenty rafts! Once we got the rafts parked and the kayaks grounded, we took advantage of the perks offered at Phantom Ranch. There was a water pump located near the boat beach so we were able to top off all of our water containers. This might not seem like a big deal, but 16 people go through a fair amount of water in a day and when you are dependent on filtering all water for drinking and cooking, it can quickly become a time consuming task.
A number of us took advantage of the stop to walk into the small settlement at Phantom Ranch. The National Parks Service maintains a small grouping of stone cabins originally built in the 1920s. These can be reserved by hikers for overnight stays. In addition, there is a small general store where sundry items can be purchased and mail can be picked up and sent, a small canteen, restrooms, and several pay phones. Dan and I had hoped to get some ice cream at the canteen, but unfortunately, ice cream was not on the menu that day. Not surprising given that all supplies must be hauled in by mules or flown in by helicopter!
Phantom Ranch was a happening place! There were numerous hikers coming and going on the trails and large groups of people hanging out throughout the area. It was weird and a little overwhelming to suddenly have so many people around. Dan and I did not spend too much time at the ranch and quickly made our way back to the boat beach after posting the post cards we had prepared.
Back at the boats, other groups were starting to trickle off and there was increasing anxiety about where our new group members were. It had been estimated that the hike down from the South Rim would take about 7 hours. Alison, Brad, and John had planned on leaving at 5:30am, so we expected to see them around 12:30pm. As 12:30pm came and went and it moved on to 1pm then 2pm, we were all starting to get worried. To add to the mood, dark clouds had rolled in and we were getting intermittent bursts of rain and gusty wind. We had lunch. We hiked up to the suspension bridge. We watched for a group of three hikers. And we continued to wait.
In a flash of inspiration, we realized that we could make use of the delay by sending a group back up to Phantom Ranch to purchase fresh ice for our lunch cooler. Wendy produced a huge duffel bag and David, Michael, and Jim set off for the Phantom Ranch canteen.
At around 2:30pm, Tim’s brother John sauntered on to the now empty boat beach. The downhill hike had proven harder than expected and Alison and Brad were still a bit behind. Andy and Dan grabbed some Gatorade and snacks and set off back up the trail to help them with their bags.
Once all of the newbies arrived, we got them fed, set up with gear, and then we packed up and set off down river for the next camp. It was strange to have three new people join the group and interesting how it changed the group dynamics. It also had to have been hard for the new people. They did not have the advantage of having spent the past week learning the ropes of river life together and had to jump right in. They did a great job and within hours were actively participating in all things camp life!
We still had a few rapids to navigate before the end of the day. Bright Angel Rapid was relatively tame, but Pipe Creek Rapid had a few surprises in store for us. Luckily, Andy led the kayaks so we had a chance to see a probe go through and were able to make some adjustments to avoid flipping. We camped at Below Pipe Creek which is fronted by quick moving water and a barely there eddy. It was quite a job to get all of the rafts in and tied up securely. In addition, the camp was perched above a steep, rocky bank so we used a fire line to quickly unload gear.
We had a tasty spaghetti dinner prepared by our new cook crew of Dan, John, and Wendy with the usual suspects pitching in. Although it wasn’t a long day from a mileage perspective, it was still tiring. We did manage to fit in quick game of hearts, but it wasn’t long before everyone found their way to bed.
1 comment:
Thanks for the postcard :)
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