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Brief 4/26-5/18 GC TR

1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  2tomcat2 
#1 ·
It's been 10 days since we got off the river and I'm still thinking about what a great trip it was. Also thinking about the next one. :)

We had a small group permit and difference between a 8 person trip and a 16 person trip was incredible. Food was certainly easier to plan for and prep. We knew everyone on the trip either from past trips or rep. Everyone could handle the food spice level, which in this case was very high. Everyone had great boating skills. Not that it precluded a couple of flips and swims.

This was a foodie group. Just about anything that could be was prepped before hand, frozen, vac sealed and frozen in our coolers at a local grocery store. We ate very well. Salmon on cedar planks, Filet Mignon, Tri-tip, Chicken & Elk Satay skewers, mountain man DO breakfast, etc.

We had really good mostly sunny weather through out the trip, although it seemed a bit cooler than past Spring trips for me. I should have brought a heavier sleeping bag, but Pam, my wife says she should have brought a lighter one. We had a few sprinkles and about a day and a half of drizzley rain at Pancho's Kitchen. Couldn't have asked for a better place to hang out. For the first 10 or so days we had mostly downstream winds. Unheard of. The wind made up for it the last 4 or 5 days. Strong upstream winds with a wind of biblical proportions our last night at Mile 279 camp.

We had green water the whole trip. Always a big plus in my book. We did a muddy trip last Fall. Ugh!!! We launched on the 26th of April to perfect weather. One of our oarsman flipped in Badger. :-? We got the boat up right after moving flip lines a round and getting them warmed up. Even a 3 minute swim in 50 degree water is damn cold. The same oarsman flipped in Upset, but had the most stellar run through Lava I've ever seen. One of the other oarsman got washed off his raft at Hance and Lava. He also had a nail biter of a run at Bedrock and Killer Fang. I blew a couple of runs myself. Nothing major. Somehow, Just cruising along on the Hermit wave train, I slipped off into the hole("It's not a hole, it's just a breaking wave.") on river left at the bottom. Pam wasn't too pleased to be soaking wet 2 minutes into start of the day. Cats can be a pretty wet ride for the passenger. She oared quite a bit of the trip up to class 7 rapids. The youngest, (29) most inexperienced oarsman (1st trip oaring the GC. Second trip oaring anything) had great runs through everything. Must have been our tips at the scouts.:rolleyes: We love Deubendorff left. What a hoot! Had a good run at Lava, but got pushed right after the V-Wave. I thought we "smeared" Cheese Grader, but Pam says we weren't that close.

Had good camps for the most part. Did most of the traditional hikes. North, Saddle, Clear Creek, Tapeats, Elves, Matkat, Havasu. Saddle Canyon flashed last Fall and is totally gone. The green Eden like growth is now a 30' wide gravel path. Not sure I'd hike it again. We climbed Elves Canyon all the way to the wall. One of our favorite hikes/scrambles. The youngster kept saying "this is dicey" and asked when we were going to be too old to do this. I hope many years down the river.;):grin: Tapeats is a pretty tough hike. It didn't seem that bad 10 years ago. Those of us who had done it, thought the Deer Creek, across Surprise Valley route to Thunder River was easier. Some hikers had been swept away in Tapeats Creek about 2-3 weeks before we hiked it and after looking at the creek, there's no way we would have tried to cross where they did. It was a slight challenge crossing down at the mouth of the creek. Matkat is always a blast. We hiked up further than we had in the past and there's some cool stuff way back there. We hiked up to the "Mystery Move" spot at Havasu and had bunch idiotic kid's age fun there. We had done 4 layover days at this point and kind of had to boogy after that. Then the upstream winds kicked in and we had to oar our collective asses off.

I had PRO bring our 5 hp propane outboard into us at Diamond Creek on the 16th. We camped at Bridge Canyon that night. Our first time. It's a nice camp. Much better that Separation, 143, or Surprise. We barged the rafts together just below Separation at about 240.5. I had no experience with pushing multiple rafts. Particularly a 50' craft. It worked great! Pam and I had done the Diamond down to Pierce cruise last Fall with just our cat and it was a hoot. We lashed the rafts together in diamond pattern with our cat strapped on at the back. It's was ton of fun to motor out to 279 camp. I have a tiller extension that Mogli turned me onto and could stand on our rear drybox and navigate the sand bars that started around 248. It took about about 6 hours to go 38.5 miles. 6 MPH was pretty sweet IMO. We did stop at Columbine Falls for a quick look. I'm glad we bushwacked in there in '09 before the flash that filled the bottom of falls up with rock and gravel. What a change!

Other notes. Best barter item for ice with the commercials.....jerky. Specially, home made moose jerky. One thing Pam and I learned about on last fall's trip were coffee schlongs. Ya' put the requisite coffee grounds in a knee high stocking, tie it off, vac seal it and at camp you throw it in the boiling water and boil for 10-15 minutes. Toss it in the garbage when done. Easy,peasy. Most used words on the trip...."this is dicey" "do I have to mansplain it again?" :rolleyes: We hardly saw anyone for the first week + other than motor trips. Pretty cool! Saw tons of commercial dory trips. They are some cool boats. Had great interactions with most of the trips. One private group sort of hogged Matkat as far as signaling other trips to wait to enter, but it wasn't a huge deal.

Can't wait to go back!!
 
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