Grand Canyon Day 5

September 29 -- Nankoweap Granaries

From Grand Canyon Day 5

An early start this morning; 8:30!!! Even with a hearty blueberry pancake, egg & bacon breakfast, what kudos to the breakfast crew!

Read more here!

Gosh, I hope to catch up before boating season starts again!

Day 5 - by Dan

Wednesday 29th September 2010 by Dan –

My alarm went off at 5:45am. I woke to round up the breakfast crew that that I was part of.  It was still twilight, not many other people were up yet and I was still sleepy. On my way down to the beach from my tent I saw the dark shape of something in the sand on the trail in front of me. It was a snake! As I fumbled to find the switch on my headlamp it quickly started moving to the side. It went up the bank to the side of the trail, and then as I managed to turn my light on I saw its dark ringed tail disappear into a small hole in the bank.  I think it was a Gopher snake.

Today was a good day. I was feeling more comfortable in my boat. I ran a couple of rapids without incident. I flipped twice near the end of the day. The first was in swirly water near the eddy line while filming. I was rescued in a joint effort by Erin and Jim. Soon after that swim I flipped again in the next unexpected read-and-run rapid while following Erin. The second flip was my first conscious awareness of lateral waves.

For lunch we stopped at the beach near the Nankoweap Canyon where it is possible to hike to the Puebloan granaries in the rock face high above the river. I left my solar panel out changing our camera batteries and we headed off in the hot sun.

The hike did not take too long. The trail was well established and the upper section was partially in the shade. The granaries themselves were interesting to see, but what was even more impressive was the view of the river and canyon from this level.

After the hike we ate lunch and continued out journey down the river. We paddled almost 9 more miles until we reached the campsite above the Little Colorado River at river mile 62.

The LCR as it’s known was running brown, which we knew was going to change our paddling experience for the days to come.

Day Five Journal Andy: Little Colorado

Wednesday, September 29, 2010, Day 5
Upper Saddle to Above Little C camp-14 miles
We got a pretty good early start, 9:30ish, and arrived at the cove below Nankoweap rapid at about 11, and prepared for the hike up to the granary there. Hot sun made for a hot hike, but the air temp was probably only in the 80s, so no real hardship.
We got back to the huge beach and most of us had some degree of a swim to cool off and wash off the sweat, and had lunch shortly after noon. We swapped some food with the Beckwith group (party that launched the same day we did) who were camped there, since we had no need for clam juice??? and got some granola from them since we had a shortage of both cold and hot cereal. After lunch I got back in a kayak for the remainder of the day. Tim and Marshall got in the Grabner, but W. replaced Marshall after he and Tim took a swim at an unnamed riffle with a mean hydraulic at the bottom, somewhere above Kwagunt rapid.We made it to the camp above LCR at about 5 and had time for a daylight camp and cook scene. I feel nostalgic about the place since this was the site of the repair job on Ira's broken canoe in '88. The circumstances are so different though, it seems like a different place. We are now in a somewhat better position to make our exchange on 10/2 after 2 good mileage days, but cannot yet relax, with almost 30 more miles to go.
We had a nice bath in the river just downstream of camp, and from there we can see that the Little Colorado is still flowing pretty high and muddy, so tomorrow we will bid farewell to the clear water we have enjoyed so far. I'll miss the clear water, no more trout fishing I fear, but it will be a little more like the pre-dam river was, a bit more "real".