And A River Runs Through Us

We're a few days behind in documenting our many adventures out West for friends and family.  Besides long, full days that leave little time for posting, the primary reason has been an utter lack of interconnect connectivity.  It was nice in many ways.  Now that we have arrived in Las Vegas, we have a solid connection.   So, expect a flurry of updates!

Dateline: Page, Arizona.  Day 9 of our tour of the American West!

After Bryce, we traveled to the Grand Canyon area.  And it was there that we had what was -- for me (Kevin) at least -- what I feel will be one of the most enduring memories: a rafting trip down the Colorado River.

Now, this was a flat water trip.  No whitewater; just nice and smooth, since we have pretty young kids.  In fact I believe the most turbulence we experienced on the raft was a wave that crested to, maybe, 6-8 inches... from a passing boat. In fact, before we departed, Justin's anticipation-laden question/comment was "So.  It's basically just sitting.  On a boat.  In the water?"

So, in the sense of a full-on whitewater Colorado rafting experience... well, this was not that.  But, what it was was still fantastic.

The kids are ready to go!

We arrived in Page, Arizona an hour earlier than anticipated, oblivious to the fact that Arizona doesn't have daylight savings.  Well, we weren't oblivious. But you tend to forget things like that when you're traveling with kids, handling so many details, etc.  So we killed some time having an early lunch, hitting the grocery store, and playing in a local park. We were looking for an ice cream shop too, but none could be found.  Page, Arizona... well, let's just say it's lacking in some ways.  Then we prepped for our trip (swim suits, sunscreen, water, etc.) at the Colorado River Discovery welcome center.

The Glen Canyon Dam and bridge

Once we hopped on the bus -- this particular trip would accomodate some 40-50 people total on 4 large rafts -- we headed for the base of Glen Canyon Dam to begin our trip.  The bus ride included traveling through a 2-mile long tunnel (carved through the canyon-wall rock) in "can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face" darkness.  The kids were not fans.

Hard hats on!  (And me doing the unnecessary lean-in for the picture)

Daniel & Justin wanted to ride on the left pantoon.

Then we got into the rafts and set off on our 15-mile journey down the Colorado River!  Now these are big rafts -- pontoon-boat-ish -- and can seat 20 people or so.  Fortunately, ours had half that amount of souls on board, which gave us plenty of room.  And these rafts are motored.  So parts of our trip consisted of floating silently down the river (which itself moves gently along at 3-4 mph) while other parts were us moving along at quite a clip under motor power.  One cool thing was that we could ride straddling one of the pontoons!

Our guide, Mr. ....

We had a great guide commanding our raft. His name was... uh... um... well... ok, none of us can remember. He was a young guy, out of college, but had been guiding tours down the river for 5 years or so.  He was very knowledgeable about the history of the river and told some great tales about John Wesley Powell (who first explored the Colorado on multiple expeditions), the creation of the dam and it's reservoir (beautiful Lake Powell), and the ecosystem:  it's one of the finest rainbow trout streams in the world; and big horn sheep reside here.  But one of our guide's best qualities was his willingness to blow past the other 3 rafts early in our trip so that we could be largely alone on the river for most of our trip.

Alone, drifting down the Colorado River through Canyon country. Awesome. It's a tremendous trip with amazing beauty.  At the dam, the deep-red canyon walls rise up from the river to a height of 600 feet.  As you travel down the Colorado towards the Grand Canyon (a scant 3 miles away from where we ended!) the walls tower over you at double that - 1200 feet.  Marvelous.






Glen Canyon is a National Recreation Area, so people often put in fishing boats at Lee's Ferry (where our rafting trip ended) and hoof it up-canyon to fish.  Lee's Ferry is also where most Colorado whitewater rafting trips put in for multi-day excursions downstream through the Grand Canyon.  I enjoyed watching people fly fishing along the banks.






At several points in the canyon, our guide had us scream "ECHO" in unison.  One of our attempts yielded an echo that lasted for 7 seconds.  Think about that:  Seven.  Seconds.  That's an incredibly long time.  The kids loved it.  Kelly and I did too!  I was giddy.

Let's go boys!

About half way through our trip, we stopped at place where people often camp.  There, the boys and I took a quick dip in the cold Colorado: 37 degrees cold!  Obviously, we didn't stay in too long and got out to warm up (quickly) in the 95 degree heat of the canyon.

COLD!  (Ignore the momentary double chin)

Invigorating!

The kids playing in the sand along the river shore

The kids loved playing on a sandbar while Kelly and I explored and enjoyed the beauty.

Beautiful woman, beautiful land

We drifted, we stopped and played in the water, we listened to the silence, we motored down the river cooled by the mist thrown up over the bow of the boat, we watched fisherman ply the waters for trout, we gaped open-mouthed at the sometimes-smooth and sometimes-ragged red rock canyon walls.  We had a blast.








After the trip we were bused back to the car - tired but happy.  We had intended to grab some dinner in Page and head out to nearby Antelope Canyon, which rests on Navajo Lands.  We weren't able to fit that in because... well... someone forgot to do adequate investigation and planning and didn't realize that the 2-hour visit to Antelope requires a guide arranged in advance.  Bah.  I won't say who was responsible for this misstep, but his name rhymes with "Mevin."  Sigh. Next time, next time.

Looking strait up the canyon wall from the river

Although I threaten to repeat myself from my earlier post on Yellowstone, but there is something about a river...  I've have long wanted to raft through a canyon, the walls reaching up above me to the blue sky overhead.  The quiet murmuring of smaller rapids, the curiosity of what lies beyond the next bend in the river.  I still struggle to summon a language that can communicate what a river (like the Firehole in Yellowstone or the Colorado here) means to me, how it invigorates my imagination, how it runs through me.  But it does.  Not everyone understands that.  But I know some of you do.



Ok... time to rent "A River Runs Through It" again.

We leave you with a few more pictures of our time on the Colorado:

Daniel & Justin straddle a pontoon; notice the reflection of the canyon on the surface of the river