Grand Canyon -- Day 6

September 30 -- Into the Precambrian
Little Colorado River to Rattlesnake, into the muddy water. It's getting to be a long time between posts, but read more here.

Day 6 - by Dan

Thursday 30th September 2010 by Dan –

We packed up camp and crossed the river to explore the mouth of Little Colorado River. All the mud and silt in the LCR water made it a chocolate brown color, a sharp contrast to the crystal clear water that we had become accustomed too. It also felt mildly warmer. Andy noticed from the rocks alongside the river, that it looked like the water level had recently been much higher, an indication that a storm had passed further upstream in the river’s watershed. Where the two rivers joined there was a clean line between muddy water and the clean water. We crossed the line and continued downstream where the newly colored water was a novelty.

 Not long after setting off downstream, Andy and Wendy caught us off guard when they casually flipped the Grabner in a riffle. Fortunately they swam to a rock face on river left and were able to recover themselves and their gear with the assistance of a raft. Andy did lose his hat in the excitement, but I spotted it floating downstream and was able to pluck from the brown water and return it to its rightful owner.

It was another good day for me. I did not swim, nor did I need to execute my combat roll. My roll, however, did stop working in practice, which was frustrating. It was probably due to trying to improve it and changing things.

After lunch we took some time away from the river and hiked to the top of a butte where we were greeted with amazing 360 degree views of the canyon and river around us.

Here's a map showing our hike on Day 6. It's best viewed in Google Earth or directly in Google Maps by clicking the link below:

View Larger Map

The hike led to the top of a steep cliff overlooking Unkar Rapid which was around the next bend of the river. The cliff was high, and according to my GPS it was about a 350 foot (100 meter) sheer drop down to the river below. Even I, who am not usually afraid of heights, was feeling a bit queasy near the edge of this one. The rapid and waves below looked surprisingly small from the top.

After our hike we paddled the short distance around the bend and stopped to scout Unkar Rapid (rated 4-7) from river right. Looking upwards we could clearly see where we had hiked to earlier, however now all the attention was focused on the river itself. The waves looked bigger now and it was surprising how deceiving it had looked from above. The rapid was increasingly fiercer towards the cliff wall on river left. It looked like most of the water was pulling towards the wall and there were several holes that needed to be avoided. It looked dangerous! For this reason the kayaks chose to take a sneak route on river right that would hopefully mean we could avoid the places we didn’t want to be. The trick would be lining up the approach and avoiding the submerged rocks in the shallower water on the right.

Michael went first, followed by Tim, myself and then Erin, and then Jim. The sneak worked out well and the rapid passed without incident. We paddled on several miles further until we reached a suitable campsite for the night. The sun-shower was rigged and provided a refreshing rinse off. It was surprising how good a small dribble of clean water felt after almost a week without washing.

We are only one day away from Phantom Ranch now. There are big rapids coming up tomorrow. Erin and I plan to take a break and sit them out on the rafts.

We had soup for dinner and margaritas prepared by Sam. I like my margaritas strong.

Day 6 Journal-Andy: Hilltop Ruins/Unkar rapid

Thursday, September 30, 2010, Day 6
Above LCR (mi. 61) to Upper Rattlesnake camp (mi 74)-13 miles
I approached this day feeling a bit apprehensive about the upcoming stretch since we had such fierce winds here in Oct. of 98, but the day dawned sunny, warm and calm. And it only got better from there. We got off by 9:30 and stopped briefly at the mouth of the Little Colorado R. which is flowing about 2-300 cfs? I notice from the recent high water line and drying clay/mud that the LCR had been nearly 4 feet higher at that last storm, just before we put-in, and consider the implication of that for our future water levels. Just because we are in a dam controlled flow of 8000 cfs now, we can't count on that in future... I made a mental note to double check our raft tie-ups, and make sure small boats get put high up every night.The drying mud along the banks and in the pools has drying cracks and curls up as the top surface dries, which tells me there is a very high clay content in the sediments coming from the "Little C". And at high water this is no creek, it must really rip when it's at flood stage.
We picked up a bit of tailwind, and W. and I took an unexpected swim in a riffle a couple miles below the LCR, probably Crash Canyon riffle. The LCR water makes the whole river turbid, so no more trout fishing is likely to happen. The wind picked up and continued to be a tailwind, which combined with lots of riffles but few rapids of note made for really fast progress. We breezed through Tanner and Basalt rapids and stopped at Cardenas camp, at mi.71.6 for lunch at about 1 PM. The canyon is quite open here, with the river running through rolling hills of shaly rock and most of the cliffs set back up to 1/2 mile from the riverbanks, so the views are expansive and spectacular. It was hot but breezy, and partial cloud cover made for pretty nice conditions, and most of us took a hike from the campsite to the "Hilltop Ruins" and the Unkar rapid overlook, which was a great hike with some very panoramic views of the canyon and a birdseye view of much of Unkar rapid.I had intended to stop for lunch at Basalt Canyon, where a good hike was described in the hiking guidebook, but Max was out front and went through the rapid before we could signal for him to stop. That turned out to be OK though, because the hilltop hike was great.
Unkar is the first big rapid we have faced for several days, and can be pretty rough, so in spite of scouting it from above, we still had to scout it from the right side bar before running it. The small boat fleet took a sneak down the right and the rafts took the line down the main tongue and everyone had a good run. This was one case where the rapid was easier than it looked from above, and from the bar alongside. We then headed on down just a few more miles to a camp called Rattlesnake, which I hope proves inaccurate, arriving about 5. I was on cooking crew duty, along with Martie and Scott, and I had the luxury of a quick sunshower before joining the dinner crew to make split pea soup, and pound cake for dessert, and we broke out the tequila and mixer and Sam made some powerful Margaritas for a very appreciative crowd.At mile 74 here, we have only 14 mi. to get to our exchange point, which is very doable in the day+ we have to get there, so we are in good shape.