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Grand Canyon Raft Trip in 2008

In March and April of 2008 I participated in a fantastic trip. Sixteen years before, Ron Thomas had joined the waiting list for a private river trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. About two years before, he was given a launch date of March 15, 2008. He recruited me as designated alternate leader and we set about assembling a crew and dealing with all the logistical details involved in a 21 day trip without access to civilization and through the legendary whitewater of the Canyon. The first and most difficult problem was finding oarsmen for the rafts. Ron was the only one with experience with rafts. My experience included extended wilderness boat trips, but in canoes rather than rafts. I bought a raft and trained by going on lesser trips. I recruited one of my wilderness canoeing friends, Kerry Luttrell, and he also started to learn to deal with a raft. One other kayaking friend also started, but was ultimately unable to go. We ran Desolation and Gray Canyons of the Green in Utah, the lower Stikine in British Columbia and Alaska, the Chama and Rio Grande (Taos Box and Racecourse) in New Mexico, and, most importantly for training as far as I was concerned, the Upper Salt River Canyon in Arizona.

The rest of the raft crews included Janet Brook, Sharon Luttrell, Lamar Baggett, Mary Nutt and Tim Hankins. Gill Luttrell and Joe Box came with their kayaks. It was good to have a couple of good kayakers along. It added considerable flexibility to the party as the kayaks are much faster and more maneuverable than the rafts, although the rafts did have to carry their gear.

We had three rafts, an 18' cataraft, a 16' cataraft, and a 16' self-bailer. Ron and I own and rowed the catarafts. The self-bailer was rented and rowed by Kerry. When I say "rowed" here, I mean rowed in the major rapids and maybe half of the rest. But the passengers did much of the rowing in the calmer sections.

This was my first trip through the canyon, but I can hardly imagine a better time of year. It was the end of winter at the start. We had a bit of snow on our second day. Over the next 3 weeks both because of the time and because we were losing altitude, spring was breaking out all around us. It got warmer, but not hot, the days got longer, and flowers were coming out all over the place. The commercial and motor trips don't start until April, so all of the boating groups we met were private oar parties which are basically silent.

There are very few photos of our boats in the rapids. With only 3 rafts, we all wanted to go through together for safety. That meant I was rowing rather than taking photographs.

I made a web show shortly after the trip, before I had much opportunity to do any post processing. Now, 2 years later, I am finally replacing that show with one based on the processed images.

Most of the photos were taken with my Pentax K10D DSLR using the DA 12-24mm f4, FA 28-70mm f4, FA 50mm f1.7, and F 80-200mm 4.7-5.6mm lenses. The latter three lenses are left over from when I had a Pentax film camera years ago. The post processing was done in the Gimp. The captions to the photos show the camera, lens, focal length, and exposure information as extracted from the exif data. For many photos, the lens information did not transfer through the postprocessing (especially if starting from a raw photo), but you can generally tell from the focal length and the above list of lenses that I had on the trip.
 
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The early morning of launch day at Lee's Ferry.


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North Canyon.


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North Canyon.


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The two catarafts at South Canyon.


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The view upriver at South Canyon.


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In Redwall Cavern


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In Marble Gorge


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A beach with patterns from the highest waves as the water retreated.


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Sharon, Kerry, and Tim in Marble Canyon


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The kayakers and Kerry's raft in Marble Canyon


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Boat parking at a lunch stop.


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The view downriver from the Nankoweap Granaries


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The Nankoweap Granaries.


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The view across the river from the Nankoweap Granaries.


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Evening bath time at the main Nankoweap Camp


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Along the river near Mile 66 with the South Rim visible.


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A waterfall along Clear Creek


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The canyon wall along Clear Creek


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Dinner


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Sharon Luttrell in the campfire smoke.


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Tim Hankins


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A raft from another party in Granite Rapid


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Evening at 94 Mile Camp.


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Joe Box playing in the Crystal hole.


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A group picture at the Ross Wheeler. The people are Joe Box, Janet Brook, Gill Luttrell, Sharon Luttrell, and Mary Nutt.


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Polished rocks along the river's edge.


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Lamar Baggett


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Mary Nutt rowing Ron's cataraft.


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Elves Chasm


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Joe Box preparing to make the Elves Chasm jump with Gill Luttrell watching from behind the falls.


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A California Redbud (I think) at Elves Chasm


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Beyond Elves Chasm


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Mary Nutt and Tim Hankins in Blacktail Canyon


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Lower Blacktail Camp


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Lower Blacktail Camp


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Gill and Joe's tent in the morning at Lower Blacktail Camp


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Deer Creek above the falls.


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Gill Luttrell and Joe Box swimming below Deer Creek Falls.


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Creek in Matkatamiba Canyon.


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Havasu Creek near the Colorado.


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Gill Luttrell looking very small in a very big canyon.


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An Occotillo


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Deposits at a seep area along our layover day hike.


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Lava Falls, the whitewater climax of the trip.


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One of many glacier-like lava flows falling into the canyon.


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Settling in for the night at 185.5 Mile Camp.


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The flowers of spring.


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Ben Zuckerman, one of three friends who hiked down Whitmore Wash, rode with us a few miles, and hiked back out Parashant Wash.


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Looking downstream over our Parashant Wash camp


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Ron, Lamar, and Kerry in Parashant Wash


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Ron breaking camp at Parashant Wash.


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A camp visitor


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Pumpkin Spring, with the saturation cranked way up. It's colorful in real life, but not that colorful.


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Eroded rocks near Pumpkin Spring.


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Gill Luttrell and Joe Box. They had become engaged at 94 Mile Camp and were married in July 2009.


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The Grand Canyon from the South Rim late on take-out day.