Entries tagged with “River Trips” from Lee's Journal
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It has been a week since Joe and I got home from a river trip we took down the Colorado River through Cataract Canyon. I have put off writing about it because we have been very busy getting caught up on fall chores around our place and also because I am still trying to get up to speed on how to build a blog entry on the new program we are using. If I were only 10 years old it would be a lot easier for me!
Back to the wonderful river trip.... Yes, it was wonderful. I think it was one of the best river trips I have ever been on The glorious fall weather was a big factor. Utah blue skies during the day, temps in the upper 70's or low 80's. No rain to speak of (just about a dozen drops fell one night). The night sky was amazing. We saw the last of a rising, waning moon the night we slept at the put in at Potash and then for the rest of the week there was no moon as it was in the dark phase and then we were in a deep canyon and missed the crescent new moon its first few nights. The stars at night were fantastic, and since it wasn't too cold in the evenings, I would stay up looking for constellations I used to know. I found quite a few by the end of the trip: The Summer Triangle, Delphinius the Dolphin, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, The Great Square of Pegasus, Orion, Lyre, Aquila the Eagle, Deneb the Swan, Andromeda, The Twins Castor and Pollux. To name a few. The best book for learning the Stars is by the Curious George Books author, H.A. Rey. It is called The Stars A New Way to See Them. It has lots of good science and technical stuff, but is written for the layman and very accessible and the charts/maps are great! I highly recommend it.
The best thing about the trip though was that it was just Joe and I. We took our first river trip in 1992 and it has taken us this long to ever do a trip with just the two of us! The closest we got to that was the Lodore trip we did in late October in 2004 with just Christa Sadler. I was very sick then with Cushing's and was waiting for surgery in December, but going on that trip was good medicine for me. Going on a river trip with a group of friends and family is a wonderful thing, but it requires a lot more effort and work to organize. Every time a plan is made or changed it requires more effort the larger the group is. Not so with just two people. We kept it very simple. We cooked and slept on the boat. We took our 18' boat so we had plenty of room.
We got to the put in late Sunday evening the 7th and barely got the boat
rigged and in the water by the time we had no light to see by. We slept there at the boat ramp on our boat until 6:30 am, when Joe got up and untied the boat and we cast off. It was still very dark, but just light enough to see shapes. We just lay in our sleeping bag (we have a nice big heavy 0 degree bag that we got for our 30 day winter Grand Canyon trip a few years ago) and waited for the frost and dew to burn off (several hours) before we crawled out and started the stove up for some cocoa and mush water. Joe had to do a few strokes on the oars now and then to avoid a few snags and sandbars. We made 30 miles that day, just floating and rowing, stopping to see a few sites along the way.
On our third day out we hiked up the Green River from the Confluence about a mile to a side canyon that Powell and his men hiked up on their second
trip to get a look at the confluence. This little canyon rarely gets hiked, but there was a clearly cairned trail up it to the rim, where it connects with a trail that came over from the Spanish Bottom campsite and up the Spanish Staircase to the rim. We had the delightful pleasure of encountering 
two other people who had hiked over from that campsite. It was Mike Braden and Ron Smith who had been on our 2002-03 winter Grand Canyon 
trip with us! We hadn't seen them since then, so it was a sweet reunion. Mike hails from Seattle and Ron from Steamboat Springs, CO. We hiked back down to our boat at the mouth of the confluence and then rowed down to Spanish Bottom to share a campsite with them that evening.
The rapids are never my favorite part of any river trip- I could really live without them. Cataract Canyon in the spring high water runoff is probably scarier that most rapids in the Grand Canyon, but in the summer, fall or winter at this water level, it isn't bad at all. There are rocks to watch for and both Joe and I were very alert as we went through them. We ran through rapid 10 on our 4th day, after hiking up to the rim again from Spanish Bottom and then ran the rest of the rapids the morning of the 5th day. We were all alone, but I knew that if we had problems that Mike and Ron were
going to be coming down the pike within a few hours. We had very clean sweet runs. Thanks Joe!
We saw our friends later in the afternoon as we were stopped so Joe could explore/hike at Clearwater Canyon. They were floating down to Bowdie Canyon where they tied up for the night. We went down to join them and spent the evening visiting until 8 when we all went to bed. Joe and I said our good-byes as we planned to untie our boat when we woke up to pee for the first time, probably around 11 pm.
We were on Lake Powell now, but with the lake levels dropping as they have the last few years, there is current on the lake all the way to the take out for us at Hite. So we cast off into the current under another star-studded night. It was really confusing to try and keep an eye on the constellations as the boat kept spinning around and the canyon walls were constantly changing as well as the stars them selves moving. I finally drifted off back to sleep around 1 am. Joe tied the boat up to some tamarisk trees on shore about 5 am, as he was worried that we might float past our take out at Hite. We untied and started floating around 7 am and lay in our snug bed and watched
the fantastic light show as the morning light played on the canyon walls. We arrived at the take out about 9:30 am and were on the road home by 11 am. We stopped to take a look from the overlook just above the take out.
The only bad thing about the trip was the mammoth sized blisters I incurred on both my heels. I have been diagnosed with Morton's neuromas in my feet (benign tumors that encase a major nerve between the 3rd and 4th toes) and have been using a prescription orthotic for most of this year. It helps, but I haven't been able to walk every day or seriously hike or backpack as those levels of activity keep the nerve too inflamed for comfort, even with the orthotic. It feels like you are stepping on a marble. I investigated surgery, but was scared off by the reviews I read from folks who have had it done and started looking for alternative approaches.
A Dr. in SLC area, Brent A. Jarrett DPM of Theta-Orthotics makes a more aggressive orthotic to treat these neuromas, almost double the average correction and claims great results. I didn't have time to get a pair from him before the trip, so I just combined a Birkenstock type foot bed with my prescription orthotic I have been using to give myself the kind of correction offers. I tried this on some walks around town before we left and it felt great, so I used this combo on all our hikes. I never felt any pain from my neuromas with all the hiking we did- truly impressive! The snag was that with two foot beds or devices in my boots, my heel wasn't in the place it usually is in my boot, hence the blisters.
I felt hot spots the first day and put bandages on them and just kept going. It wasn't until the third day of climbing up to the canyon rim that they blew wide open and I limped down the trail back to the boat. I was in a lot of pain for a few days, but they are healing up nicely. I have kept them smothered in Mom's Stuff and bandaged. Now, a week later, I can put on my chore boots for a while and I think I will be able to don regular shoes sometime this week. I am hoping that my new orthotics will arrive this coming week!
The hikes were worth it. The views from the top of the canyon were spectacular 360 degrees. It looked like a combination of Coyote Gulch and Goblin Valley mixed together and on steroids! We were floating through the heart of Canyon Lands National Park. I rarely get the urge to want to travel much farther that Utah, Wyoming, Idaho or Arizona as there is so much to see here that I know I will never be able to take it all in. Trips like this one recharges my batteries and feeds my soul.
It has been a week since Joe and I got home from a river trip we took down the Colorado River through Cataract Canyon. I have put off writing about it because we have been very busy getting caught up on fall chores around our place and also because I am still trying to get up to speed on how to build a blog entry on the new program we are using. If I were only 10 years old it would be a lot easier for me!
Back to the wonderful river trip.... Yes, it was wonderful. I think it was one of the best river trips I have ever been on The glorious fall weather was a big factor. Utah blue skies during the day, temps in the upper 70's or low 80's. No rain to speak of (just about a dozen drops fell one night). The night sky was amazing. We saw the last of a rising, waning moon the night we slept at the put in at Potash and then for the rest of the week there was no moon as it was in the dark phase and then we were in a deep canyon and missed the crescent new moon its first few nights. The stars at night were fantastic, and since it wasn't too cold in the evenings, I would stay up looking for constellations I used to know. I found quite a few by the end of the trip: The Summer Triangle, Delphinius the Dolphin, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, The Great Square of Pegasus, Orion, Lyre, Aquila the Eagle, Deneb the Swan, Andromeda, The Twins Castor and Pollux. To name a few. The best book for learning the Stars is by the Curious George Books author, H.A. Rey. It is called The Stars A New Way to See Them. It has lots of good science and technical stuff, but is written for the layman and very accessible and the charts/maps are great! I highly recommend it.The best thing about the trip though was that it was just Joe and I. We took our first river trip in 1992 and it has taken us this long to ever do a trip with just the two of us! The closest we got to that was the Lodore trip we did in late October in 2004 with just Christa Sadler. I was very sick then with Cushing's and was waiting for surgery in December, but going on that trip was good medicine for me. Going on a river trip with a group of friends and family is a wonderful thing, but it requires a lot more effort and work to organize. Every time a plan is made or changed it requires more effort the larger the group is. Not so with just two people. We kept it very simple. We cooked and slept on the boat. We took our 18' boat so we had plenty of room. We got to the put in late Sunday evening the 7th and barely got the boat
rigged and in the water by the time we had no light to see by. We slept there at the boat ramp on our boat until 6:30 am, when Joe got up and untied the boat and we cast off. It was still very dark, but just light enough to see shapes. We just lay in our sleeping bag (we have a nice big heavy 0 degree bag that we got for our 30 day winter Grand Canyon trip a few years ago) and waited for the frost and dew to burn off (several hours) before we crawled out and started the stove up for some cocoa and mush water. Joe had to do a few strokes on the oars now and then to avoid a few snags and sandbars. We made 30 miles that day, just floating and rowing, stopping to see a few sites along the way.On our third day out we hiked up the Green River from the Confluence about a mile to a side canyon that Powell and his men hiked up on their second
trip to get a look at the confluence. This little canyon rarely gets hiked, but there was a clearly cairned trail up it to the rim, where it connects with a trail that came over from the Spanish Bottom campsite and up the Spanish Staircase to the rim. We had the delightful pleasure of encountering two other people who had hiked over from that campsite. It was Mike Braden and Ron Smith who had been on our 2002-03 winter Grand Canyon trip with us! We hadn't seen them since then, so it was a sweet reunion. Mike hails from Seattle and Ron from Steamboat Springs, CO. We hiked back down to our boat at the mouth of the confluence and then rowed down to Spanish Bottom to share a campsite with them that evening.The rapids are never my favorite part of any river trip- I could really live without them. Cataract Canyon in the spring high water runoff is probably scarier that most rapids in the Grand Canyon, but in the summer, fall or winter at this water level, it isn't bad at all. There are rocks to watch for and both Joe and I were very alert as we went through them. We ran through rapid 10 on our 4th day, after hiking up to the rim again from Spanish Bottom and then ran the rest of the rapids the morning of the 5th day. We were all alone, but I knew that if we had problems that Mike and Ron were
going to be coming down the pike within a few hours. We had very clean sweet runs. Thanks Joe!We saw our friends later in the afternoon as we were stopped so Joe could explore/hike at Clearwater Canyon. They were floating down to Bowdie Canyon where they tied up for the night. We went down to join them and spent the evening visiting until 8 when we all went to bed. Joe and I said our good-byes as we planned to untie our boat when we woke up to pee for the first time, probably around 11 pm.
We were on Lake Powell now, but with the lake levels dropping as they have the last few years, there is current on the lake all the way to the take out for us at Hite. So we cast off into the current under another star-studded night. It was really confusing to try and keep an eye on the constellations as the boat kept spinning around and the canyon walls were constantly changing as well as the stars them selves moving. I finally drifted off back to sleep around 1 am. Joe tied the boat up to some tamarisk trees on shore about 5 am, as he was worried that we might float past our take out at Hite. We untied and started floating around 7 am and lay in our snug bed and watched
the fantastic light show as the morning light played on the canyon walls. We arrived at the take out about 9:30 am and were on the road home by 11 am. We stopped to take a look from the overlook just above the take out.
The only bad thing about the trip was the mammoth sized blisters I incurred on both my heels. I have been diagnosed with Morton's neuromas in my feet (benign tumors that encase a major nerve between the 3rd and 4th toes) and have been using a prescription orthotic for most of this year. It helps, but I haven't been able to walk every day or seriously hike or backpack as those levels of activity keep the nerve too inflamed for comfort, even with the orthotic. It feels like you are stepping on a marble. I investigated surgery, but was scared off by the reviews I read from folks who have had it done and started looking for alternative approaches.
A Dr. in SLC area, Brent A. Jarrett DPM of Theta-Orthotics makes a more aggressive orthotic to treat these neuromas, almost double the average correction and claims great results. I didn't have time to get a pair from him before the trip, so I just combined a Birkenstock type foot bed with my prescription orthotic I have been using to give myself the kind of correction offers. I tried this on some walks around town before we left and it felt great, so I used this combo on all our hikes. I never felt any pain from my neuromas with all the hiking we did- truly impressive! The snag was that with two foot beds or devices in my boots, my heel wasn't in the place it usually is in my boot, hence the blisters.
I felt hot spots the first day and put bandages on them and just kept going. It wasn't until the third day of climbing up to the canyon rim that they blew wide open and I limped down the trail back to the boat. I was in a lot of pain for a few days, but they are healing up nicely. I have kept them smothered in Mom's Stuff and bandaged. Now, a week later, I can put on my chore boots for a while and I think I will be able to don regular shoes sometime this week. I am hoping that my new orthotics will arrive this coming week! The hikes were worth it. The views from the top of the canyon were spectacular 360 degrees. It looked like a combination of Coyote Gulch and Goblin Valley mixed together and on steroids! We were floating through the heart of Canyon Lands National Park. I rarely get the urge to want to travel much farther that Utah, Wyoming, Idaho or Arizona as there is so much to see here that I know I will never be able to take it all in. Trips like this one recharges my batteries and feeds my soul.
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