Zion Narrows Packraft (Jun 2011)

First day of summer, and the Virgin River through the Narrows is still high enough to kayak down. Guy, JJ, and I hiked in to a spot on Deep Creek, and floated 5 miles down to the confluence with the Virgin. Then it was another 7 miles down through the Narrows--such a beautiful canyon to the Temple of Sinawava. There were no other kaykers or hikers that we saw all day. There were several portages in Deep Creek, and we had to stay on our toes constantly, since it drops about 170' per mile. The Narrows was a little more relaxed, but still moved pretty quickly.




Guy and JJ at put-in . Guy has his new Alpacka.

150 Matkat Olo (Apr '11)

Rich invited some of us back to the middle of the Grand Canyon where some of the most spectacular canyons stay tucked and hidden away from hikers and river runners. We first had to descend down 150 to the river. This was a beautiful, narrow route, with a a handful of short rappels. Once to the river we crossed on packrafts and walked up river to Matkat Hotel, where I have now slept 5 nights in the past year. The next day we hiked all the way up Matkat to the Esplanade, then over to Olo and down Olo. We slept another night in Olo, which is probably my favorite canyon, then we finished it the next day to the river, where we got back in our packrafts and floated 5 miles back down to 150. We climbed most of the way out of 150 to the top of the Redwall by dark, where we camped our last night.




Double rainbow at the top of 150

30 Canyons in 30 Days (Feb/Mar '11)

This might be the trip of the lifetime, and it definitely was. 17 of us rowed and floated 280 miles down the Grand Canyon in 30 days. Along the way we hiked, climbed, and rappelled through 30 side canyons. A handful of these canyons were first descents, meaning nobody has ever been down them. We had an incredible time with a fantastic group.



























North Canyon







Silver Grotto













Eminence Break














Hilltop Ruin







Blacktail












Conquistador Aisle



























Deer Creek Falls

Click to see full album

Winter Zion Land (Jan '11)

Sasha and I enjoyed hiking in Zion on MLK Day. There was still some snow and ice and waterfalls coming down, leftover from a few weeks ago when we had all the storms.





















































Great White Throne all lit up.

Happy New Year! (1/1/11) !

From the top of the Red Mountain, where there is a half foot of snow!

Merry Christmas! (12/25/2010)

A break in the storm at sunrise, gave us a 10 minute double rainbow out our back windows.

Kolob Creek Halloween Adventure (Nov '10)

No KOoks or spooks on this KOld Halloween day, when we decided to do Bo's favorite canyon in Zion--KOlob Creek--and what a KOol canyon it is! Using my new KOlob backpack made things easy, and my new KOkatat drysuit kept me very warm and dry, despite the frigid air and water temp. Bo, Dave, and Guy and I descended Kolob Creek with its dozen or so rappels--some of them almost 200' down through beautifully fluted and narrow slots with clean water showering on us as we descended, and deep, cold swims at the bottom of most raps. Sunrise to sunset, we spent pretty much the whole day down there. After finishing the raps, there is a couple of miles of stunningly beautiful river walking--the best of the Narrows. Then we climbed nearly straight up and out a couple of thousand feet to the MIA exit and road-walk back to the vehicle.







First big long rap.





















Many swimming holes at the bottom of each rap like this one.



















The second big long rap. See Guy at the top?



















During the walk down canyon, this spring pours over the wall from the rim up above.























Miles of this beautiful stuff!















Wide angle picture of Kolob Narrows.

Cataract Canyon (Oct '10)

After getting off the Grand, I drove straight from Flag to Hite, where I met Bo and Rich at the takeout for setting up our shuttle to do Cataract. Back-to-back river trips without a break! Oh well, at least I'm already wet from my first trip. This trip was more relaxing though, and had picture perfect sunny weather without a wisp of a breeze all week. We drove up the next morning to Moab and met Mike and Rocky at Potash, where we loaded up coolers and gear in canoes and in Rich's cataraft. After five days of easy paddling the Colorado River through a beautiful meandering canyon, we got to the confluence with the Green, and camped across from Spanish Bottom. We spent most of a day hiking up to the Doll House in the Maze, all the way out to a nice overlook above the confluence. The next day we said goodbye to Rocky and Mike (since they were getting a jet boat ride upriver to Moab), and the three of us continued down through the rapids of Cataract. Bo and I rode our little packrafts, with Rich rowing the cataraft. We had a blast spending two days running 28 rapids (class 3s and 4s), and portaged around the three Big Drops. Rich nearly flipped in Big Drop 3 (a class 5), and Bo and I both swam a couple of rapids in the packrafts, but all was well. Once the current died, Rich broke out his little motor and it took us about 9 hours to cruise out to Hite.



First night camp





Bowknot overlook








Doll House hike










Near the Confluence Overlook








Cataract Canyon






Big Drop 3









No current here as we motor out









Helmet cam video of the packraft going through one of the longer rapids

Phantom to Diamond Grand Canyon Row Trip (Oct '10)

Boat Beach near Phantom Ranch


At the last minute, Bev calls me from the AZRA warehouse and says they need an assistant on a lower half trip she was doing. I almost declined, because it meant I would need to drive straight from Flag to Moab at the end of the trip for my next Cataract trip with the guys, but I decided it would be worth it to do both trips back to back. I scrambled to get a reservation at a Phantom Ranch dorm, then drove to Flag, left my truck at the Radisson, caught a shuttle to the South Rim, then hiked down to Phantom in the dark, where come to find out they gave away my bunk. The Phantom people were nice, and they found a generous guy from Colorado who had a cabin all to himself, and he let me and a guy from Germany bunk with him. The next morning the AZRA group came by, picked me up, and I was in the paddle boat for Horn, Granite, and Hermit. We had a great group of guides and clients, most who really enjoyed paddling, so for the rest of the week I rotated around oar boats and rowed for the guides, giving them a break. I think I rowed over 100 miles, which was great.

The highlight of the trip was several days of extreme rain, which caused hundreds of waterfalls, flash floods in side canyons, rainbows, and an epic hike up Tapeats, over Surprise, and down Deer Creek--all of which were flashing and flooding. Luckily we got the group across and the creek and around the patio with ropes, and made it back to camp just before dark. The next day clear waterfalls continued to pour thousands of feet off the top of the redwall in the Muav Gorge, even with sunny skies, so the Esplanade must have been a river. I tested a new Sony waterproof camera, which has some neat panorama stitching, as can be seen by many of the photos below. For some reason the larger panorama photos mess up photo labeling. Most of them are obvious, such as South Rim, Granite Rapids lunch, Shinumo Creek waterfall, heavy rain rowing, Blacktail flashing, rainbow at camp below Blacktail, then the Deer Creek patio flooding and hand line use, and the bottom photo is at Spring Canyon (mile 204).











































































































































Muav Gorge waterfalls