River Chronicles #7

After two days off from my last cat trip, I headed down again to Moab. For guess what?? ANOTHER SCOUT TRIP!!!This time it was a little more mellow. We had fifteen people and it was me and Joe as guides with two j-rigs. The weather was great, and the boys had fun and were safe.I think the only major thing that happened was that Joe caught a cold and was down for the count for a couple days. He worked through it though and we got everything done and the people had a good trip. We got off the river and headed down to Fredonia to rig another trip in the Grand Canyon!!

River Chronicles #6

Another cat trip!! But this time with THIRTY SCOUTS! The trip was huge! There were seven crew, four row boats, a paddle boat, and two J-rigs. The trip went great and the food was pretty good. It was cooked by the scouts so things in the kitchen got a little crazy. We got through the rapids okay. We did have a interesting time in big drop two when the paddle boat went into the claw and everyone in the whole boat got washed out. We picked them all up without any real problems except the one boy who bit through his bottom lip. We got to camp shortly after and patched him up and he was back messing around a little later. And that's pretty much it. A fun trip, mellow and a great time to hang with a bunch of great crew and scouts.

River Chronicles #5

Well, I came off the Grand and went straight from there to Cataract Canyon. Nate and I headed down to Moab to meet Jake who had been rigging the trip by himself. We drove all freaking night and got to Moab at 4:30 am.....We walked in the room and found all the lights on with Jake fully clothed passed out on the bed. We slept for an hour and a half, woke up and cruised to the warehouse. After throwing all the stuff on the boat we headed for the river. We put in at a place called Gold Bar and wouldn't you know it, we got stuck in the mud. The end of the boat was five feet from the water and the trailer was pushing mud.....We had no shovel....We had no way to dig.... So what do we do?? We use salad bowls and our bare hands!!!!!!  We dug enough to get the trailer out and we got the boat in to the river! The trip was great. We had a lot of time to float because of the high water so that meant getting to camp early, and some good time to chill. The last night we got a special treat. We got to see our oldest guide, Dave Stratton, do his Chuck Norris look alike roundhouse kick on a loaf of bread. I don't think that I have ever laughed so hard in my life! Here's a few pictures of what happened on the trip.

Killer wave!

 

Jake attempting the Chuck Norris roundhouse

Obi Dave Kanobi Jedi master making contact with a loaf of bread!!

 After all the crazy, the trip went great and we had huge water! The river was still flowing 65.000 cfs and the rapids were massive! We saw a flash flood and "Chuck Norris" in action. The trip ended and I went home for a week to be with my beautiful wife.

Rock art

Ancestral Puebloan pictograph 800-1000 years old

Group who hiked to the doll house! Super fun hike!

River Chronicles #4

Well I gotta say....I had more fun on this trip then I've had in awhile. It was over the fourth of july and it was really cool to be in the canyon with people from all over the country. We didn't even miss the fireworks. The day was great and I don't think anyone really missed all the noise and smoke that usually comes with the holiday. Nate Haldeman even said, "The stars that night were our fireworks."
     Everyone was great and with a younger crowd I was able to make some good friends. The trip was like almost any other but I was with my dad. It was nice being with him although I realize in my old age I'm just as hard headed and stubborn as he is. We usually got past our differences with little issue though and the trip went on. A few highlights were great scenery, lots of rain, good crew, and 28 really great passengers. If any of them read this, thanks for the great trip! You all made it awesome! Come see us again!
The major highlight for the trip was the massive rain storm that hit us on our fourth day. We had just finished a stop at Havasu and the clouds began to close. We motored for a while and the clouds slowly began to look a little more threatening. I thought, "I'll just get my coat out just in case it rains." I got out my rain coat and no sooner had I put it on a massive gust of wind came up the river and smacked us down. Then came the rain! It began to pour and with the major gusts of wind the drops stung if they hit your bare skin. We pulled over to the side of the river and waited for a bit to let the storm pass. After a while, the rain mellowed and the wind calmed. We went down river only to find waterfalls coming out of every drainage and off of almost every cliff. We passed two canyons that were gushing mud and water out into the river. The spray that came from the massive waterfalls spread all the way across the river. The air smelled like mud and silt. It was an incredible sight to see, and I believe that everyone knew they were getting to see something special. We ran lava falls and came through clean and safe and had a great last night together. The trip ended up without any issue and afterward Nate and I went on to Cataract Canyon to run our next, hopefully just as successful trip!

River Chronicles #3

Another Grand Canyon trip and it was great, and relatively mellow. We did the hikes, and saw the waterfalls. The passengers were fun. There was a large family, and a few other couples. The weather was HOT!!!!!!! I don't think that any other trip I've gone on was so hot but we made it. A major highlight from the trip was when an older gentleman had to be evacuated because of previous health issues that had been aggravated during the trip. Last I heard he was stable in the hospital and his family were about to pick him up. The water was high and we had clean runs, no one got hurt and it ended up being a great trip. OH, I forgot to mention that the trip leader Jake proposed to his fiance Cassi on the trip. It was super cool and added a special occasion to the trip. Congrats guys : ) So that's it for this trip but I got a lot more to go : )

River Chronicles #2

So another river trip down. This one was about twice as long, and the primary focus of the trip was to do as many hikes as possible. I enjoyed the trip and it was hard work but rewarding. I was able to do hikes that I would never have been able to on a regular motor trip due to time restraints. But with the extra time to hike came extra time to use up all my energy. By the last few days, I was spent.
The people were great! They woke up at 4:30 and a few would pace the beach until coffee was ready around 5:30. I personally thought it was kinda weird but to each his own I guess. Then they would go to sleep at 8:30 which was actually pretty nice.   : ) All the guests could hike like crazy!! No matter what hike it was and at no matter what pace, they were right on the leaders tail when even he was huffing and puffing. The weather was great with only one night where we put up tents as a safety precaution.
The water was HUGE! It was awesome! The rapids had changed a lot since I had last seen them. Some got smaller, while others got bigger. We had clean runs for the most part, however my dad flipped a row boat in Spector rapid. Everyone came out okay and we only lost a camera and a few loaves of bread. When the trip was over we piled all the rafts high on top of the motor boat. We got it all strapped down with a few things tied on the back of our flat bed truck. Among these things were two of our full groovers and a generator. We went on up the road when we heard a thud and noise coming from behind us.....the toilet cans and generator had fallen off the truck, and the toilets were being drug behind the truck!!!!!!! They split open and one proceeded to get filth on our truck driver, Tank's, bare foot when he picked it up.....it was one of the funniest things ever, but after that we finished the trip like normal : )

River Chronicles #1

As many of my close friends and family know, I work for a river rafting company called Tour West. I have a link to their website on my page, and I would hope that anyone who visits my blog might pass by and check out what this amazing company has to offer. So I just returned from my first trip of the season and it was an amazing start. The weather was cold for the first two days of the trip then gradually got warmer until we left. The cold being mostly from me not wanting to get ALL of my rain gear out so I was a little chilly. The passengers were nice, and we all had a lot of fun. There were a few Crisis' between one woman and her diet coke, and an incident with her running barefoot on the beach and cutting up her big toe. But other than that things went super well. I did break a motor in a rapid named "Grape vine" named for the many rocks throughout the rapid making it look like a bunch of grapes. I hit a notorious rock that I thought I was clear of but I definitely wasn't. The rock is right at the top of the rapid, and it made the rest of the rapid a lot more interesting. The rest of the trip I had good runs, and we had a lot of fun. I leave for another trip tomorrow. It will be a 14 day hiking trip, and I can't wait for the experience. I hope to write a little about each trip here, in order to help me remember them. As well as let others know what an incredible experience it is to take a trip through the Grand Canyon on a raft; especially with Tour West. Anyone who reads this please go to the website Http://www.twriver.com and check out prices and dates to have the adventure of a lifetime!