Map for day 6
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Day 5
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Day 7
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Everyone was up early to see the Germans off this morning. At 5:30 Robby ferried them over to Phantom Ranch so that they could begin their hike back out to the rim while it would still be cool. Most of their gear had been packed into sacks and would be carried out by mule, leaving them only with small daypacks and water to carry.
We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast and then packed up the site and headed over to the Phantom area ourselves. We would be travelling with Chris again today. The boat beach at Bright Angel Creek was less than a half a mile away from out campsite and we were there at just a little after 8 a.m. The walk from the boat beach to Phantom Ranch is just under a mile in length and it was a beautiful morning for it.
At the ranch cantina I bought some T-shirts and postcards and wrote out and mailed the postcards. There were a number of other people from our river party there, as well as people from other groups, hanging out in the cantina. Most of the people here were also busy writing out postcards. The stop-over at Phantom Ranch is not very long and there isn't much time for anything else. Some people mailed postcards and others queued up at the one pay-telephone at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
At 9:30 we headed down-river to Pipe Creek and the terminus of the Bright Angel trail to pick up the new passengers. They were supposed to be there when we arrived but when we did they were nowhere to be seen. We hung out on the beach and in the creek and waited for them to arrive and they finally did around 10:45 or so. The new passengers were a family from Andover, MA - the O'Donells: Bud, Marcia, Kathryn (Katie) and Mark. Andover is about the same distance away from Boston as Weymouth, where Robin and I live, but it is on the north side of the city and we are on the south side. It was good to see someone from back home joining the party. Apparently Marcia had run into a slight problem shortly down the trail which is why they had been delayed.
Robby gave the newcomers a quick lesson in how to pack their river bags and a quick talk on river safety and at around 11 a.m. we finally left Pipe Creek and ran Horn Creek Rapid. Horn Creek Rapid was a very nice ride and was a great introduction to the Canyon's whitewater for the O'Donnells. When we started the trip at Lee's Ferry the rapids on the upper river were relatively small compared to what we were encountering during the past couple of days. We pulled over for lunch just below Horn Creek. Lunch was cold-cut sandwiches again today.
After lunch we ran a number of very, very nice rapids: Granite, Hermit and Boucher. All of these were fantastic rides and through all of them there were people hanging out on the beaches watching us make our runs. We were still in the main corridor of the Canyon's most popular hiking trails and there were almost always people down here. I myself had frequently camped on these beaches and wished that I could be riding a raft through the rapids and now, finally, I was.
We stopped just above Crystal to scout it out but Robby decided not to run Crystal today and we made camp just above it. Crystal Rapid would have to wait for tomorrow morning. After setting up camp I set off for a short day-hike up Crystal Creek. It was a very pleasant walk and I spent most of the time sloshing in the water right up the creek bed. After about half mile up the creek I came across Fabry squatting down next to the creek and pulling cactus spines from his hand. Apparently he had had a run-in with a small cactus and also had of the spines on his backside. Ouch! This would be a major topic of talk for a number of days and the episode was even remembered in song. After a short talk with Fabry I continued on up the creek.
There were a number of very nice little waterfalls along the way and about a mile or so up the creek I came to a very nice and much larger waterfall. After climbing to the top of this I realized that it was getting late and that I should probably head back to camp for dinner. They had broken out the grill for dinner tonight and we had hamburgers, hot dogs, beans and sauerkraut.
Day 5
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Day 7
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