[Pictures link at bottom of report...] Attendees: Ben Armer, Bob Buhrman, Ben Fleming, Burt Gettling, Janet Gettling, Dave Huizingh, Patty Huizingh, Erin Huizingh, Chuck Kunz, George Osborne, Larry Walker, and Chuck Wright. General Introduction: Colorado River - Grand Canyon Raft Trip: Private party raft trip, 225-plus miles down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park! Outfitted by PRO mostly, plus one private boat and lots of private gear.  L. Walker’s Log: Happy Cinco de Mayo! Arrived yesterday. Packed most of items on boats. Stayed at Marble Canyon Lodge (room 106). Shared room with Bob Buhrman. Got on river around 1100, after indoc talk with Brian from PRO and Ranger Jeff Carpenetti from NPS. Easy 11 miles down to Soap Creek camp site (not even on my National Park map). Hiked up and found GC Park boundary. Caught several trout, three real nice ones. Too many to count – wow! Chicken enchiladas for dinner – awesome! Good company. Learning about folks. Two (George and Ben A.) are hiking out at Phantom Ranch (Bright Angel Trail). Four boats, three per boat. No condors around Navajo Bridge. Saw an osprey. Cool to finally go under those bridges. Chuck W.’s from Canada, now living in Idaho. Ben A. is a deputy sheriff in Maricopa County. George is a retired teacher, as is Janet, and lives in Pismo Beach. Forgot my pipe – crud – cigars work. All looks good. Flew Southwest Airline over yesterday. Arrived around 0815. Drove straight up. Stopped at Cameron, of course, I’m with Bob. Mechanics of river running always interesting. Sitting here listening to the rapids. In the tent tonight because of insects – some kind of beetle maybe, not the tamarisk Kazakhstan beetle. Date/Day: May 6, 2011 / Day 2 Soap, House Rock, Roaring 20’s rapids today – lots of fun! 18.5 miles today. Lots of food on trip – too much. Good time. Still on raft with Chuck and Chuck – they haven’t killed me yet. Good company and conversation. Cold breakfast, chicken enchilada leftovers, et al for breakfast. Patty brought quiche. Cereal, coffee, and juice supplement. Learning the PRO stuff system with the “decoder ring” notebook. Tuna pitas for lunch – nice. Spaghetti for dinner. I’ll probably gain five to ten pounds on this trip if I don’t watch it. Caught a huge trout – had to be two to three pounds, 15 to 18 inches I think – came off when the line broke on shore right at my feet – gold spinner lure - get name and get another! Then a small one, then another 12 to 14 inches. Good fishing as always. Fun times. Everyone is safe and cautious. Lots of beetles, ravens, and ground squirrels. No other major critters. Hands drying out from so much water (wet and dry transition) and hand washing. Making sure to do my part with the cream. Stayed at N36° 31.844’, W111° 50.057’: Shinumo Wash Camp. Good spot. Stars, bats, crescent moon. Miss the pipe. In the tent though don’t know why: no rain. Date/Day: May 7, 2011 / Day 3 We were at Shinumo Wash camp. On river by 0915. Awesome sights all day: saw original Glen Canyon Dam site and Red Wall Cavern. Ran my first whitewater – no spillage – almost though! Need practice. Oh yeah, visited Vasey’s Paradise and the wall spring – a mini Thunder River, and South Canyon. The large beach was gone from last backpacking visit. Caught two nice trout there and four at our camp – caught a nice 12 incher at camp – nice fighter; little ones fight hard. Stopped at roughly mile 41.5 at Lower Buck Farm Camp – windy here most of evening and night: brief respites. Boats weren’t tied up real good; so when I got up to check the clanging in the kitchen, Dave H. and I re-secured them – almost lost Erin’s boat. Good time and food and chat by all. Talked to Ben A. quite a bit about his deputy sheriff job. Saw the local deer gang – five total seen, nice sized muleys. Plans for tomorrow still unfolding: may stop at Nankoweap granaries, but may go on to get to Unkar – flexible crowd. Each person adds some interesting ingredients to the group. Photographed a shell fossil and lots of interesting seam/rock formations. Hands drying out pretty quickly. All’s good. Camped at N36° 24.218’, W111° 52.762’. In the tent because of wind: prefer to be out. Date/Day: May 8, 2011 / Day 4 Happy Mothers’ Day! N36° 17.779’, W111° 51.632’ Nankoweap camp. Short day with lots of wind. NPS visited us – they were with food inspectors and water quality testers. Food testing and inspection for commercial outfitters - who knew. Great food again: chicken and fruit burros for lunch; leftovers for dinner. Hiked to granaries. Couldn’t see them from the river when arriving. Caught five or six trout here. Panthers and Rooster tails work good – two fairly good sized ones. Globalstar satellite phone is not working well – at all. Met a solo hiker going from Nankoweap to Kwagunt then out – he’s from Telluride. Some sprinkles. Erin, Ben, and Ben hiked to granaries as well. Makeshift rainfly works well so far. Having a good time. Eating too much. Good rapids – better to come. I shot President Harding Rapids – not much, but something! In the tent because of rain. Date/Day: May 9, 2011 / Day 5 Seems cold all day. Cloudy. “Spitty” rain. Windy. Good day after adding clothes. River splash shirt and pants working well. Stopped for lunch at Little Colorado River. Beautiful place as always. Beamer and Tanner area easily recognizable. Satellite phone still not working here. No fishing today. Just cold. Expect rain again tonight: light rains. Windy. Good company this group (I keep noting this to keep track if it changes! It never did!) Pulled pork, slaw, mashed potatoes for dinner – and merlot of course. Hands continue drying out. Fun talks around the camp at night. Saw some satellites after sunset. All tired. Exciting rapids at Tanner. Saw Indian ruins on hill above Unkar and the overlook where Rex almost walked off above Unkar. In the tent again expecting rain. Date/Day: May 10, 2011 / Day 6 N32° 06.019’, W112° 05.020’, 2,440 ft. elevation. Started off with Unkar rapids – good stuff. Hance was pretty cool too. Had to stop and scout there. Hikers from New Hance (Red Canyon) trail at site. They were planning to go to S. Kaibab but one hiker is pretty knee sore. Probably go out Grandview now. They wanted to watch us run Hance. Good day today: 15 miles-ish. All getting along well in group: some a bit pushy, no big deal. Ben Armer and George walk out Bright Angel tomorrow. We will stop for water and stuff and Phantom Ranch. Nothing too exciting today. I shot more rapids, but still Chuck W. does the real ones. I get the 2’s and some 3’s. Bagels for breakfast. “Must goes” for lunch – still good. Fish tacos for dinner – too much, too complicated, but way good! Great groover site here – super view! Caught a couple nice trout – trying all configurations to optimize and hone in on bigger fish. All’s good. Rocks and formations in Granite Gorge spectacular. Saw a little rain-created water falls off to river left. Lots of rock seams and maybe one or two faults noted. Dozens of swifts dominate the sky frequently. Learning a lot on this trip. Good company. On river about 0830 today. To site by 1400 easy. Sleep at 2100. Saw dory boats go through Hance. It was impressive and fun to watch. That group is just upstream from us camping tonight – no issues other than some noise. The dory groups walk people around the bigger rapids. In tent again - habit now. Date/Day: May 11, 2011 / Day 7 Losing track of days, time, and events: I must be relaxing. Just around the corner (literally) to Phantom Ranch. Called the wife to let her know all was well. All doing great. Enjoyed the Phantom Ranch lemonade – in moderation of course. Loaded up on water. I think we’ve stopped at Travertine Canyon tonight: N36° 06.472’, W112° 13.517, 2,336 ft. elevation. Noisy helicopters aplenty. We shot Granite rapids today – a good one! Big one today was Hermit rapids. Stopped to scout that one. Very exciting! Dave H. got tossed out of his boat the ride was so wild. They almost flipped. Pretty funny that Bob and Patty didn’t realize he was gone until after they were through – all ended well. “Dave? Dave’s not here,” was the running joke for a while. Having trouble remembering the days – poor documentation on my part. We’re about mile 96.5 at Schist Camp actually. Cereal and coffee for breakfast. Burt, Janet, Ben, and George start off early to get Ben and George on up the Bright Angel trail. Stopped about 1330 today. Hopefully pictures will fill in details of log (fat chance now!). Great pasta alfredo and Greek salad with garlic bread for supper! Cookies for desert. Accompanied by a fine wine. No fish caught here. Baloney boats stopped to repair/replace an engine. Things getting organized somewhat for us. All is good! Everyone in pretty good mood. Finally slept under the stars tonight! Date/Day: May 12, 2011 / Day 8 Another great day on the river. We were camped at Schist Camp last night officially, near Travertine Canyon. We made many miles today, ~20. Some great white water, Crystal rapids being the best, 9 rated (4.5 on normal scale). Ben has been “cowboy riding” (standing on the front of the raft holding the rope) them all! We stopped at Shinumo Creek. Water flowing strong. Got as close as possible to falls – Ben and Erin made it all the way up behind. We stopped briefly at Elves Chasm. Still gorgeous as ever. Stopped for the night at N36° 14.276’, W112° 28.041’, 2,137 ft. elevation. Breakfast was eggs and sausage and leftover alfredo and salad – surprisingly good and completely eaten. Cold cut sandwiches for lunch. Some snacks. Burgers and beans for dinner – a big hit, yum! We’re in Conquistador Aisle best guess, don’t know the campsite name yet (120 Mile Camp). Only Ben, Erin, Bob, and I visited Shinumo (Patty and Janet gave it a try) and Elves today: really a challenge for the others to do. Bob almost lost his pants in Shinumo current – too dang funny! We left about 0850 this morning and pulled in around 1730 or so tonight – plenty of miles for sure. No fish caught today – hardly even tried. Group personality dynamics doing well: lots of laughter and low on the aggravation/anger scale. I managed to “cowboy ride” a few rapids myself today – smokin’ a stogy at the same time – wahoo! Chuck did most of the oaring today. Motorized boats (baloney boats) arrived just as we were leaving Elves Chasm. Bob had a funny scene exaggerating his piss in the river and not knowing some of the commercial passengers were sitting there watching – entertaining! Couldn’t see Royal Arch or the rock stack marker above us at all. Plucking out items from the river as we go along: beers, stumps, wood, oranges, etc. Bob was videoing when Dave got pitched out at Hermits yesterday – the audio was the funniest part! Weather sunny and warm all day. We’re roughly at mile 120 and started at 96.5-ish. Date/Day: May 13, 2011 / Day 9 Busy day. Two “spinouts” left (stuck in side pockets) on rapids today at Bedrock and 135 Mile (I think) rapids. Expertly handled by the crew – actually could have been dangerously disastrous. We were able to escape without incident – nice job all! We were fortunate for sure. Lost my camera – really unhappy about that. We were working over to Deer Creek and had some issues trying to “land.” We were in Erin’s boat and couldn’t get beached. Erin ended up breaking an oar trying. I lost a throw bag/rope through stupidity. And then in the hustle of getting ashore, I dropped my camera out of my life vest. Aggravating for sure – stupid really. Oh, well; move on. Just hate losing the pics and memory cards. The camera was on its last legs, but was like an old friend. Cereal for breakfast, snacks for lunch, carnitas (wow!) for supper. Commercial group brought over their excess chicken hot wings - mighty nice; mighty good! Hands doing ok as far as drying out is concerned, but got heat blisters from sun – guess the sun block keeps getting washed off. No pain much, just ugly. We’re just below Deer Creek at Panchos Kitchen Camp. All’s good. Bummed about camera. Looked like rain at bed time, so slept out under the overhang – no rain.   Date/Day: May 14, 2011 / Day 10 We were at Panchos Kitchen last night, just below Deer Creek. Headed out this morning around 0850 or so. Stopped at the Ledges around 1330-ish (guesstimate). Bagels for breakfast, beer, wine, margarita’s, pop, etc. and snacks for lunch. Early dinner, around 1700, of Prime Rib, mashed potatoes, rest of black beans, rolls, cheese/crackers/spiced jelly for supper – great meal even if we were the cooks! We rotate cooking, cleaning, and grooving duty. Upset rapids was pretty fun. No other majors today. Caught two small trout at the Ledges. Cooking duty is over for us, hand off the baton. Just chillin’ and jawin’ the day and afternoon away, holed up in the shade. Good, fun group. Dynamics still not bad at all. Hands feel better – looks like ring worm or something. Lots of rafters with us today. Couldn’t stop at Matkatamiba to hike, too crowded. Should have done Kanab Creek – looked pretty nice. Canyon up from Upset rapid was pretty as well. Ledges are nice. Dripping spring here – could use as is, no problem. Columbines in bloom around spring. N36° 20.725’, W112° 43.502’, 1,830 ft. elevation, 90 ft. accuracy. Good times. Probably one of the longest trips I’ve ever been on continuously in the outdoors. Olo, Kanab, and Matkatamiba look very inviting for backpacking some day for sure. Probably very difficult as I hear about Kanab. Sunny and warm all day. Slept out under the stars. Date/Day: May 15, 2011 / Day 11 Funny, enough time with this group and these folks have started to become like family. Odd. Great people to run the river with. Stopped at Fern Glen Canyon: N36° 15.535’, W112° 55.208’, 1,771 ft. elevation. So, this group floats by with four guys and six fairly attractive females. The chatter from the young guys’ camp increased considerably! Too funny! Great day! No real rapids to speak of. I boated with Burt and Janet today. Got ole Burt up on the “cowboy” – wahoo! Left about 0850. Wow, the water came up two ft. or more over night. Chuck K.’s sleeping site and our kitchen were under water on the Ledges. Upper Ledges got flooded out. That’s where the four guy/six girl crew were – we strained to see the girls bathing – ha! Arrive at Fern Glen Canyon around 1330 or so. Chillin’ on the beach. Arch here is a breakdown from the wall. Buhrman and I walked up the canyon – real nice place. Rested up there until the sun went down behind the cliffs – shade on beach (Ben got the closest guess on the time). Very windy. Wind finally quit around 1900. 3/4 moon tonight. Sunny all day. Yogurt and granola for breakfast; salami sandwiches for lunch; chili, queso-salsa, et al for supper. Eating good for sure. Good wine. Fine cigar. Stopped at Havasupai and walked up a ways. Beautiful turquoise water; creek warmer by far than the Colorado. Indians should charge to stop here and put up some boat tie offs for people. Lots of sand blowing until sundown. Watching bats, buzzards (turkey vultures), etc. Saw more big horn sheep today on cliffs. I oared quite a bit for Burt today. Missing home some. Hands better. No other maladies. Slept under the stars. (Update note: the natural arch is further up canyon than where we got to. Not sure how to get around the waterfall where we stopped.) Date/Day: May 16, 2011 / Day 12 Wow! What a day! (say that every day it seems!) Sunny and overcast today. Warm, not hot. On river around 0900; off about 1530 or so. Stopped at Whitmore Camp. Ok, so the big event today was Lava Falls. Obviously, I made it! So did the rest. We watched a dory and 17 ft. raft do Lava. The raft was “eaten” by the pour off. Single occupant, flipped; straps, d-rings, etc.: pop, pop, pop, crunch. Crap everywhere. Dude, Alex Seppi (?), was ok. So, then it was our turn to go (pucker): Erin first with Ben and Patty aboard; then Burt, Janet, and me. All of us went right, unlike the dory and previous raft who went left (everyone else, we heard, went left also). By the way, the dory and other raft tried to go center left, which looked good, but there was no room for error or any escape if you goofed. Erin cleared no problem. Then us. Gulp! We were very close to flipping. Burt was out of the boat in the water hanging on by the oars. I was doing all the counter balancing I could do. And Janet did a fine job keeping our center of gravity as low as possible – she was our low rider. Must have been four or five major, huge waves. We made it! Then we waited below for the Chuck W. and Chuck K. boat, and then for Dave and Bob. The Chucks made it fine. I didn’t get to see their adventure, but good ballast up front sure had to help. Dave and Bob flipped. The laterals were just too big. We were down below and couldn’t see the action. All we saw was Chuck and Chuck show up, start hollering, and then here comes Dave and Bob’s boat upside down with Buhrman still filming and saying “hi” to us from the water. We couldn’t see Dave and got worried, but he was on the other side of the boat. Off we went to the rescue. In the process of chasing them (upside down boats float fast), we picked up Alex from the first flipped raft: no gear or boat in sight. Dave and Bob got picked up by Erin, Ben, and Patty. Then Dave’s boat fortunately grounded on a rock. We got to it right after Chuck and Chuck and got it off the rock. When Erin showed up, we (four of us) flipped Dave’s boat over and surprisingly (not really too surprising – Dave’s a super strapping fool) nothing was missing – excellent prep by Dave! We then tooled down and found Alex’s boat and most of his stuff, and got his boat righted and loaded – major frame damage and some stuff lost. We then went down and found his dad in the dory. Seems his dad tied up the raft but went on down river – odd. His comment when we saw him and told him about his son was a bit odd too. We traveled down to Upper Whitmore with the two of them and gave them some food and beverages for the night. They seemed a bit in shock. We then headed down a bit more to Lower Whitmore and stopped for the night. Exciting day! At mile 188, a helo take out spot is nearby. Eggs and ham and English muffins for breakfast; no lunch; grilled cheese and tomato soup for supper. Not too windy here. Great day and evening! We’re at N36° 08.707’, W113° 12.087’, 1,608 ft. elevation. Slept under the stars. Date/Day: May 17, 2011 / Day 13 Layover day! Stayed at Whitmore Wash by unanimous decision. Sunny, windy all day. Nice day. Climbed local buttes and found pictograph spot along river. Very cool! Eggs and sausage burritos for breakfast. Sausage and mac n’ cheese for supper – yum! Snacks for lunch. No fish caught today. Water is high and muddy. Probably nixes the fishing for the trip. Good day: baths, naps, talk, drink – way too much wine! All doing well. Took some of the group over to see the pictographs. Was a wall marking: “Wilson Austin Surveyors Casa Grande Ariz” on wall which was etched off with something. Good walk up to top where BLM and National Park divide. Helo pad above maybe – looks like it should be. Dirt road into the place. Didn’t see or hear anything. Report of another boat flipped in Lava – a commercial cargo boat for the dory bunch (OARS). Guess the girl was beat up some in the tumble. Lots of bats and swifts – even saw a couple of chuckwallas back at Ledges (forgot to mention). Fun drinking and joking with Ben, Erin, and Bob. They sang me to sleep under the stars. Date/Day: May 18, 2011 / Day 14 Raining most of the day. Sun finally won out. Cold and wet. Packed up in rain (sprinkles). Started at mile 188, ended up at 207 ish. 205 rapids was fun; Erin intimated at a flip hitting the main spillover fairly close to center. Ben was riding “cowboy” and ended up almost taking a dip. Awesome! Two cigars killed, one sustained. Made great time on the river today if you’re in a hurry. No fish again. Bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. Snacks for lunch. Spaghetti with meatballs for dinner. Fantastic food and show by Ben and Erin! At location: N35° 59.359’, W113° 20.509’, 1,479 ft. elevation. Indian Canyon Camp (mile 207.5). All are sad yet somewhat glad to be finishing our trip soon. Group dynamics worked out well so far. In the tent due to rain threat from earlier: no rain overnight. Date/Day: May 19, 2011 / Day 15 Last full day on river. What a tremendous experience this has been: beautiful scenery, wild river rides, good folks, good food, a great, relaxing, invigorating time. We are at mile 220 Camp – large beach about 5 miles above Diamond Creek take out point. 225.9 miles on the mighty Colorado. Lots of folks took out today for some reason. Quick breakfast today – “stuff.” On river by 0930, off at 1330-ish. Made amazing time on river. Only a couple 2’s and 3’s rapids. The code of “Code Rock” was upheld: a 20-25 ft. rock ledge jump into the river. What a thrill! Pumpkin Springs was practically underwater and much discolored, but still an impressive arsenic spring. Need to graph water flow for trip from USGS (see graphs). River must be up 4 to 5 ft. (turns out it was 2-1/2 ft.) – kills the fishing for sure. We’re at: N35° 49.970’, W113° 19.658’, 1,391 ft. elevation. We had a nice evening, mostly saying our goodbyes now. Grazed on stuff all day for lunch and supper – no one felt like cooking or cleaning tonight. Sure wish I hadn‘t lost my camera – lots of documentation pics gone; well, Buhrman has pics. Ben gave Erin a “beer shower” (see pics) for Erin's successful piloting without passenger or raft spillage - what a sight! So, animal inventory: osprey, golden eagle (not seen by me), hummingbirds, canyon wrens, swifts, bats, vultures, ravens, kill deer, various ducks, LGBs, bighorn sheep, deer, trout, egrets, herons, collared lizards, skinks, chuckwalla lizards... (I’m sure there are more). Sleeping under the stars our last night. Date/Day: May 20, 2011 / Day 16 We dawdled and piddled around for an hour and a half so we would arrive at exactly 1000 at Diamond Creek. Going to have to detox from this trip – too many beers. Upon arrival, it was a flurry of energy and activity unloading and breaking down the boats and equipment and packing it all in the PRO truck. A truck and van met us to take us to our cars at Empire Storage. We were really the only group disembarking this morning. One commercial group dropped some folks off and packed up a boat, but that was it. We rolled out of the Diamond Creek landing around 1130. What a rough road! That van suspension was shot! For an hour we rattled up a beautiful road, alongside Diamond Creek most of the way through the Hualapai reservation. We stopped for lunch around 1230 and then at 1300 rolled on toward Flagstaff. About 1500 we arrived at Empire Storage to get all five cars. We say our goodbyes and bam it was over – just like that. We all headed off our separate ways. I’m still numb... 
Summary: “White water rafting the Colorado River through Grand Canyon, 225-plus miles of sheer beauty, ruggedness, excitement, isolation, and camaraderie – an expedition of a lifetime.” L. Walker “16 days of IMAX theater.” C. Kunz “The weather wasn’t great, but it certainly was good.” B. Gettling. “Our trip was replete.” D. Huizingh. “This is the truth, not an email.” R. Buhrman. Like Buhrman says, this is more expedition than vacation – lots of work and lots of fun and quality outdoor adventure. What a great time we had! We were truly blessed and it pleased God to give us a tremendous and safe voyage into the back of beyond again, and we thank Him. Pictures of the trip | Link to other trip reports | Back to top Web Page created by Lorenzo Caminante (Larry Walker in Español). Copyright(c) 2010-2015. All rights reserved. Last updated: May 27, 2011. Soli Deo Gloria. 
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