Blog

Up with the sun

The luxury of sleeping two nights in the same spot and not having to break down our tents and pack up our gear was over.  When dawn broke, we packed up the non-painting stuff and hauled it over to the boats, grabbed a quick (but very tasty meal) and headed off to paint.

I decided to head off in the same direction as I had when I bathed, but where Mary had been painting.  (I forgot that she had seen a snake the previous day.)   After a while, Mary drifted back to finish a painting she was working on from the day before.  I painted a little 10x8.

Return to the river

After we all packed up and got the gear stowed on the boat we headed out around 10:00.  There is so much to see on the canyon.  The various layers of rock are ever changing and fascinating.  We often saw big horned sheep -- sometimes ewes with babies hopping across precarious piles of rock such as those in the photo and sometimes rams.   There were often beautiful waterfowl such as herons and egrets and ducks.

And of course there are the rapids.  (That splash you see in the photo is water that has passed over and drenched three people who were closer to the front of the boat than I was.)   There are rapids all of the time.  The categories vary depending upon the amount of water flowing ... what is released from the Glen Canyon Dam.  Surprisingly, sometimes less water flowing means more difficult rapids.

Almost a tragedy

Complacency can kill but none of us shared any such thoughts.  We had become accustomed to the excitement and thrills of the rapids.  We made jokes originated by Hai-Ou with her funny English.. (She had originally called the rapids "rabbits".   So after we all laughed with her, we began to jokingly differentiate between "rabbits" and the smaller "bunnies".)

Even after being told that the upcoming Hance Rapid was one of the "big ones", none of us grabbed ahold of the ropes as tightly as we had during our first rapid four days earlier.   Our raft, piloted by Steiner and Simone was followed by the other raft piloted by Bruce and Owen.  Steiner was our leader.  We went down first on our thrilling ride and, as always after a safe trip through, turned to watch the other raft go through.

As we watched, one by one, we realized that there was somebody in the water!  We saw a head floating and bumping down the river behind the raft!  Thongs floated past.  The second raft made it through the rapids, but someone on the boat was still fighting his way down the rough waters so we all anxiously watched as Bruce turned at the bottom of the first rapids (yes, it was a double rapid!) and waited to rescue the fallen River Rat.

It was Owen!  People tried to grab him as he came past the raft, but Owen is a large guy and all the people on that side were women.  Nobody could pull him out.  Owen grabbed one of the ropes that runs along the side of the raft and tried to hang on as the raft began its run through the second of the Hance Rapids.  

Remember that the water temperatures of the river are below 50 degrees and after time in the water, the muscles begin to lose function and things begin to shut down.  Owen was desperately hanging on but losing strength quickly.  

Happily after going all the way through the second rapid, Bruce was able to steer the raft to a slow moving section and he and several of the guys pulled Owen out.   As his floating thongs passed by, we grabbed those, but the hat and a few other things were lost.   It took Owen a while to get back to normal...  It wasn't an experience that you take lightly.  He was pretty frightened, bruised up and way, way, way too cold, but happily he was alive!   We all figured that if ANYONE was to fall in, Owen was by far the best suited for the "experience" being the youngest and probably the biggest of us all.

Phantom Ranch

We stopped at Phantom Ranch to replenish our water.  This is where many hikers from the South Rim can cross over the bridge on their way to the North Rim (which is 1,000 feet HIGHER than the South Rim).  Most of us were asked not to hike up to the "store" because of time, so we waded in the calm waters and hiked up to see the kiva structures in the ruins of early civilizations at what is called the Bright Angel site and to cross the bridge that the donkeys use when they bring supplies to the "ranch" area.  

In the afternoon we lunched at Grapevine camp and on we went through the canyon to our evening camp at mile 97.   Again we had a chance to paint before dinner.    Kevin had earlier suggested we try painting using a limited palette of either red, black and ochre OR of thalo green, purple (alizarin and blue) and orange.   I had never tried that palette and at first thought it was too garish.   But later managed to tame it a bit.  This is my "evening painting"":

Boucher Creek Shadows

I hope you're enjoying this adventure tale.  Each of us "River Rats" has a different perspective of course, but I am enjoying sharing mine.     I always love to hear what you're thinking as you read this, so feel free to leave a comment.