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"The Canyon Trip Promised to Matthew Huggins" |
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Thursday, August 7, 1997We were wide awake and up at 6:00 a.m. to finish our last minute packing. With two waterproof bags provided, rather than just one that we had received from OARS on our last trip, we had no trouble getting all of our gear stowed, including the bulky, pile, water resistant outfit that Peggy had given me many years ago for use in winter time sailing. It had kept me nice and warm on my three previous Canyon river trips. You may wonder why we consider the possibility of hypothermia in the bottom of the Grand Canyon in August. Well, consider this. The water coming out through the turbines of the Glenn Canyon Dam from the depths of Lake Powell is only 48 degrees at Lees Ferry. Pretty cold for swimming. It warms up at the rate of 1 degree every ten miles down the river, so that by the time it gets down to Bright Angel Creek - nearly 90 miles away - it is still a chilly 56 degrees. To give you an idea of just how chilly that is, remember that the water from the freezing cold fresh water springs around South Georgia and North Florida which require exploring SCUBA divers to wear wet suits is 55 degrees. Also consider the fact that in small, oar powered craft your feet are always in cold water, and that every 20 to 30 minutes you ride through rapids rough enough to either spray you or dunk you. And you are being sprayed and soaked with what soon feels like freezing water. Sunny days are fun. The rapids cool you down, but if it's a rainy day you may never completely thaw out from your last dunking when it's time for another. If you are unprepared you can be in for a very miserable ride. After we had finished a hearty breakfast our bags were loaded on separate vans, each van pulling a dory. With OARS we had all piled into a single bus that took us the hundred and sixteen or so miles from Flagstaff up to Lees Ferry just 15 miles downstream from the Glenn Canyon Dam and the town of Page, AZ. But OARS had used collapsible rafts, while Dories uses rigid, double ended row boats. Each dory must have its own towing vehicle. That's the reason that we were transported in 4 separate vans. On the way north on US 89 our trip leader, Factor, pointed out Sunset Crater and the Painted Desert on our right, and gave us a pretty good discussion of the geological history of both. After a brief pit stop at Cameron, 51 miles up along the way, we rode on another 14 miles past the turn off to Moenkopi, the oldest continuously occupied town in the US, and on up 47 more miles to the fork at Bitter Springs. The right fork, US 89, here goes up over the pass through the Echo Cliffs to Page. We took the left fork, Alternate 89, to the new Navajo Bridge across the Marble Canyon, (the old one - a few dozen yards to the north - is now strictly for sight seeing and pedestrian traffic only) drove past Marble Canyon Lodge, with the Vermilion Cliffs on our left, and then turned left onto the narrow black top for the last 5 miles to the boat ramp at Lees Ferry. (That's not a typo. There are no apostrophes used in the names of places in the Grand Canyon Country.)
It was from the top of the Vermilion Cliffs just 10 miles west of Lees Ferry that the first 6 California Condors were released last December. Unfortunately, one of them has been struck and killed by a car. Apparently it was feeding on road kill at the time. A lady has spotted one of these not far from Phantom Ranch. The ranger initially thought that she had been describing a buzzard when she had told him about seeing a "really big bird." But when she said that it was a REALLY big bird, and asked "Do you put numbers on all of your birds?" and had told him that the number on the wing was 24 he realized that she was talking about one of the condors. (The most recent - September - issue of "Arizona Highways" has an article on these huge birds, by Rick Heffernon and Marty Cordano, beginning on page 16.) In spite of all of the complicated preparations we were on our way down the river by 10:30 a.m.. Bill, Matthew, and I happened to get our first ride in Factor's beautiful "Grand Canyon." He spent the better part of a year designing, lofting and building this dory by himself, and it is a beauty.
En route to our lunch stop a few miles down stream Factor pointed out the remains of the old wagon road that snakes its way up the low lying cliffs, (Lee's Backbone) on the south side of the Colorado. It was in use until the first Navajo Bridge was completed in 1929, ending the need for the ferry. The ferry, originally started by John D. Lee, had always been a pretty dangerous thing to use, and after a tragic accident in June of 1928 that drowned 3 men it was never re-opened. The Navajo Bridge was already under construction, and it was clear that the risk was too great to justify it. We used that bridge back in 1994, and it seemed adequate at the time, but it now looks awfully narrow compared to the new one. On the way down the river we took pictures of the two cross canyon bridges, observed the gentle rise of the Kaibab Limestone layer almost at the beginning of the run, the underlying Toroweap layer 2 miles along, and the Coconino Sandstone which appeared at around mile 4. An interesting thing to me was how reddish brown the Coconino looks up here compared to how white it looks down at the Grand Canyon Village. I guess prehistoric sand could have as many different colors as modern sand does. Another interesting thing about the trip along this area as you sweep along into Marble Canyon is that you get the peculiar feeling that you're going downhill a little faster than you actually are. The Colorado River drops an average of 8 feet per mile, with most of that being in the relatively rapid drops through the rapids, but in Marble Canyon - and on down to Bright Angel Creek in the Grand Canyon proper - the walls rise an average of 75 feet per mile. So, you get deep into the abyss a lot more quickly than you would expect. There are a lot of theories as to why the Colorado River seems to have cut its way through a low lying mountain, none of which satisfy me, so I'm not going to get into that controversial discussion here. We took a lunch break on the west side of the river on a pleasant sandy beach with plenty of Junipers and Tamarisks to provide shade. We needed shade by this time, because it was really a hot mid-day. Matthew was sick with the heat. He couldn't eat, but we were able to get a little water, juice and mineral drink down him. What really cured him was a water cannon fight that we had after lunch. Factor pulled out his big water cannon, and began spraying any dory within range. About 20 minutes later a big, 18 passenger Arizona Raft Adventures raft came powering down, and we let them have it as they roared by. They took up the challenge, did a U turn below us, and charged back using cannons, buckets, paddles and anything else available. The dories united, and fought back. Then the AZRA's sister ship charged down from upstream, and joined the battle. By the end of the fight we were all laughing hysterically, cool, and feeling fine. Matthew's sickness had completely cleared. Then we discovered that his return trip airline tickets were thoroughly soaked. The remainder of the afternoon on the river was spent in getting them dried out. With the sun as hot as it was, and the air as dry as it was, that was not a problem. By the time we had gotten down below Soap Creek Rapids where we camped at Hot Na Na Wash the tickets were dry. I put them in a water proof zip-lock bag with mine, and sealed them in my ammo can. As we were waiting for our pretty little country gal, Dennise Gackstetter, of Logan, UT along with her equally pretty assistant Nichol Corbo, to prepare our evening dinner Matthew and I had a nice, long talk with Tim Chizak, a CPA from Manhattan who is a graduate of Rutgers. The Patriot League was well represented in our group. Tim was a Rutgers man, I graduated from Lafayette, and the father-son tandem of Pete and Scott Smith, had both graduated from Lehigh.
After dinner it had already become dark, and being pretty well exhausted from our exciting day all of us turned in early, - some of us in tents, and some of us under the stars. This would be the only night that any of us would have the opportunity to sleep out in the open. Factor's prediction came true on Friday. Oh how true! |
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