I spent the summer of 90 at 2 major rivers of the world! In the southern
summer I rafted the BioBio river in Chile and in the north I rafted the
Colorado through the Grand Canyon!! Our lead guide was Randy Porpiglia
(at left). A few of the other guides are seen below him, Mike Borcik (rowing
with his feet), Rocky Pisto and the whole group of guides goofing off. We
started out in Las Vegas
and from the airport went to a small airstrip from which we took small
Cesinas and flew in to the small airstrip at Marble Canyon. Nice views of
Hoover Damn on that flight! After a group
orientation in the evening we enjoyed dinner at the Lodge and packed up our
drybags. The next morning we had breakfast in groups and were ready to be
shuttled down to Lee's Ferry where we put-in to the river! We passed under
the Marble Canyon bridge and began our 12 day journey following the river
floated by John Wesley Powell so many years before. We stopped at Vasey's
Paradise to cool off in the waterfalls, and played volleyball on the beach
at Redwall Cavern. If you
look closely on that picture, you will see the
relative size of the cave by finding the raft which is at the far right side
of the beach just about to hit the shore. We stopped at Phantom ranch and
lost 9 rafters who hiked out of the canyon and we gained 3 people who hiked
down to join us for the last 7 days of the trip. On the 3rd night out we
camped on a beach with some rock cover because we started getting a bit of
rain. It didn't last long but when we got to Phantom ranch we found out that
downstream, Havasupai had been flooded and a few buildings damaged but no
one was killed, there had been only a few minor injuries. After a few days
of some thrilling rapids, we got to Havasu Creek and started hiking up but
many of the travertine dams had been broken and the water was a milky
green-blue color. The path had been littered by so much debris that we had
to stop and turn around. We would not be seeing Havasu Falls on this trip.
I will just have to return in the future to see it and raft through the
canyon again. We hiked up Matkatamiba canyon, Deer Creek canyon, and
National canyon as well as others and hiked up to see indian granneries
in a cliff face. Crystal rapid has a HUGE hole on the left side which
everyone avoided. Many in the group took turns in the paddle raft to
get warm and waste a few calories. I actually took the sticks on a few
of the oared rafts when we were in calm water and even took it through
a few #2 rapids. Rapids are ranked from 1 (flat water) to 6 (waterfall).
Lava Falls was a great rapid and we had the chance to go through it
twice!!! We needed enough ballast in the oared rafts to make it through
the infamous V-wave on the right side. Then a few of us crazies, hiked
back around the rapid (the walking around was the hard part) and we
jumped into the paddle raft and took it through, this time on the left
side of the rapid. In the middle of the rapid we lost our guide and
got jossled around. I fell into the middle of the raft and was rewarded
with the butt of the oar of the person paddling opposite me hitting me
high on my upper arm. It was a bruise that lasted for weeks!!! It was
a great ride though!!! We had a great lunch after surviving Lava!!!
The guides were the only ones thrown into the river by the whitewater.
The lower Deer Creek Falls is seen below with me in the foreground as well
as the Vulcan's Anvil and lava flows down to the river, a wide shot of
everyone relaxing in a beautiful area of Matkatamiba and a few shots from the
walk up to that point, and one of our harder campsites, ledges camp. As the
canyon opens up we come upon Diamond Peak and our last stop, Separation
canyon. Here we met the jet boats which would transport us up to Pierce Ferry
and our awaiting ride back to Las Vegas. If you have never taken this trip
before, JUST DO IT!!!
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