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Open Canoeing the Grand Canyon

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The most out of control I've ever been in a canoe is when I was solo paddling an interconnected lake in Maine in a highly rockered whitewater canoe (Millbrook ME). The wind was blowing in my direction of travel, thankfully, but I could not keep the canoe straight. I ended up being blown sideways down the length of the lake while balancing on a brace in the whitecapping waves.

Also, on the longer trips in my life, I have always preferred river trips to lake trips for a variety of reasons—one of them being the relative lack of wind problems.
My first run in the Grand Canyon was in 1990 paddling a Mad River Kevlar ME. The wind (of course, upriver) was so strong in some sections that, like Glenn upthread, I was sideways on a low brace to the downstream water side, which was "upstream" on the wind side! I was often being blown slowly upstream in the reasonably fast downstream current for longer stretches than I liked. The bad gust would eventually slow enough that I could get the boat turned 90 degrees and start paddling again, but never seemed to last for long. Flows that year fluctuated between about 6K and 36K cfs. We had raft support so my canoe was pretty much empty otherwise -- very light and blew around easily. The worst sections I remember were the long 10-mile straight stretch below Hance Rapids, river mile 77 through mile 87, and if I remember right also in Conquistador Aisle, which is approximately river mile 117 through mile 123. Not sure about those as memories are fading. The downstream end of that stretch below Hance is I think the part that can be seen looking upstream from Desert View Watchtower in the South Rim complex. My last run of the Big Ditch was 2002, over 20 years ago now.

So getting blown around happens in rivers, too. Mainly big rivers, of course. I've been blown around on the Columbia near home, too, but then it's waaaaay bigger than the Colorado. A couple hundred thousand or more cfs. Not as big as the lower Mississippi. Maybe not even as big as the middle Mississippi? I've not had any problems on the Yukon up in BC or Yukon, but haven't spent much time on it, just done a couple very short sections. I like small, steep, tight, technical ones (like Glenn), even if I can't do that stuff any longer. Arthritis and other maladies preclude much paddling these days.
 
Not too many open canoes were running the Grand Canyon then. Just curious, Nick, were there other open canoes on your trip and who was leading it?
Glenn,

I was the only open boater on that run, a private permit, 18 days in the Canyon. Two other kayakers and I were the "scouts" for the rafters along. It was a local Portland, Oregon rafter who had the permit. He'd done the run at least one other time earlier, though I don't think it was on his own permit. Not sure of that, and he's deceased now, can't ask him.

Others in the local open canoe club had done the run before on a trip with Nolan Whitesell, don't remember the year, but mid or later '80s if I remember right (many weren't comfortable on that run, labeled something like "the first all-canoe run of the Canyon"). I couldn't go on that run as I'd just changed jobs and didn't have the needed time off. I don't know if any of those paddlers ever returned for another try. It had been run before that, back into the later '70s if I remember right, can't think of the guy's name now, though I did an upper Gauley trip with him a couple times (I was decked C-1 back then). Could likely look it up but won't bother. Nolan must have run it once before, too?

Anyway, I also did a run in 1994, another 18-day private permit on a cancellation that we picked up. I had a permit and was trip leader on a trip in 2001, and another friend had a permit for 2002, which is the last run I did. All were 18-day trips and all were out at Diamond Creek, so I've never done the Separation Canyon portion into Lake Mead. I've had several other invites to go, can think of at least four or five, but I turned them down. As I said before, I prefer the steep, tight, technical little stuff. Big water is fine once in a while for a change, but those long trips on the same river section can get old, too, especially with the mileage that has to be covered all the time and given the competition for the campsites. The back-to-back 2001-2002 trips were overkill, but I'd promised to go and help.
***********
Edited to add that I think the first guy down the Canyon in an open canoe was named Robert Harrison. I didn't search to find out for sure, just remembered it later and don't yet know when it was. Pretty sure he was in a Royalex Mad River Explorer of some sort or another.
 
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I made a run from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead in a Whitesell Descender.
When was your run Johnny5? I borrowed a friend's Whitesell Pyranha a couple times for local river trips back in the '80s and, though it was a well-behaved hull, I didn't purchase one. I ended up with the ME instead. I don't know what differences the Descender might have had.

I don't know anyone who's run the Canyon since my own last trip in 2002, so I don't actually know what changes have taken place, especially in the application, permitting, and allowances for trips. That's mainly because I've just not had any interest in going myself. I'd done it more than enough, make room for others. I've heard that trip durations are shorter, like the 18-day runs we used to do are now limited to I think 16 days, for instance. I would expect that dam release flows are likely reduced, also.

The lower lake levels means the Lake Mead takeout is no longer Pearce Ferry, but boaters have to use other downstream ramps now. At least there's more river and less stillwater lake travel? When I ran, there was only about 15 miles of rapids down to Separation Canyon where the lake essentially started, and about 40 miles of lake to Pearce Ferry that required canoe and kayak paddling and raft rowing. And I can't believe that the wind doesn't blow on the lake. And it, of course, blows upstream.

Thanks for your response.
 
I don't know anyone who's run the Canyon since my own last trip in 2002, so I don't actually know what changes have taken place, especially in the application, permitting, and allowances for trips.

It's a bit of thread drift but here's a link to an interesting trip report on this forum from a few years back from a member who soloed it, unsupported, in an open canoe.


An interesting lead up to the trip report was that his boat was stolen maybe 8 months before the trip. He had bought a replacement but didn't like it as much as his old canoe. Then, just a few days before the trip, the police found his canoe in some ravine and he was able to use it on the trip.

An interesting addendum to that trip is that his lost helmet and gopro were found downstream weeks later and were returned to him, complete with footage.

Alan
 
When was your run Johnny5? I borrowed a friend's Whitesell Pyranha a couple times for local river trips back in the '80s and, though it was a well-behaved hull, I didn't purchase one. I ended up with the ME instead. I don't know what differences the Descender might have had.

Thanks for your response.
I apologize for the thread topic drift.

Nick, the best I can recall is that it was in January or February of 1988 or 1989. A park ranger and his brother were planning an off-season environmental study trip through the canyon and I was invited to join them.

Other than a short orientation trip on a small river the Colorado river trip was the first and last white water trip I have made. A friend that used a kayak on the trip wanted me to go. I told him that I was not interested in riding on the big inflatable boats or crewing on one of the small inflatable boats and that I knew nothing about kayaking. I mentioned that I had paddled a canoe once in the boundary waters with some friends. I was invited to a planning get together and while there I was shown a video of Whitesell canoes negotiating the rapids on the Colorado river. That gave me the bug and so I bought a Whitesell Descender and went with them. The trip was mostly on the job training for me.

I don't have any photos of the Colorado river trip but my wife took a few of the white water orientation run a few of us took prior to the trip.

101_0144.JPG101_0145.JPG
 
It's a bit of thread drift

I apologize for the thread topic drift.

Don't worry about thread topic drift. If the drift is prolonged and interesting, I'll just create a new thread and put the drifting posts into it. That's what I'll do with these Grand Canyon posts. I'm going to split them off into a separate thread called "Open Canoeing the Grand Canyon", which I will put in the Whitewater forum.

Thanks to @Nick Pending and @Johnny 5 for their interesting tales of canoeing the Big Ditch in the '90's. In fact, Johnny's report of paddling the Grand Canyon in essentially his first whitewater run is beyond impressive.
 
Johnny5,

Okay, your trip was just before mine a year or maybe two as I went I think July of '90. I was hoping for some info on later rules changes, but someone of our vintage would have to have done a trip within our time frame (I think things changed about 2006, so before then) and then again after to actually know what they were. As you weren't involved in setting the trip up, it's not like you'd be able to provide info like that, anyway. Not a big deal.

I agree with Glenn that your run is impressive given the essentially no whitewater experience, and even limited canoeing experience, and then to top it off, it was a winter trip, so you couldn't get indoors to warm up every evening after a cold day on the water. Some friends of mine have done winter trips, which back then were good for 30 days on the water, and it's a shorter time now from what I remember seeing in other trip reports (often not much detail). Any other info you feel up to sharing would be welcome.

Alan's link to the other winter trip was interesting, but little on the river, just seeming mostly stream of conscious thoughts, which do interest a lot of folks. I'm just more of the hard-core river info, even if it changes over time, which it does. Mr Sqwid has some rapids and runs descriptions, but not much. The river levels make things very different sometimes, for instance. No info on any trip regs changes, which if he hadn't done a "before" trip, he likely wouldn't know about them.

I'm sure I have some photos of the trips I was on, but not sure I can find them. Early if not all trips would be film cameras, not digital, and I might have to get some slides scanned, again, if I can even find them.

Is there anyone else in the house who's done a Grand Canyon run or two who can chime in? Any time period, doesn't have to be only after '06. Comparing experiences is always fun.

Thanks again.
 
Prior to my trip I had no interest in the Colorado river or white water travel. Once presented with the opportunity I was drawn by my sense of adventure, my love of camping and my persuasive friends. I don't recall reviewing a map. I never knew or cared much about where we were located along the route I just followed the group and enjoyed myself until I saw Kim, the group leader started donning his spray jacket. I remember negotiated rapids facing forward, backwards, upside down and one time separated from my canoe.

I was in the Navy stationed in Coronado California when Kim Crumbo, a ranger from the Grand Canyon stopped in to visit with some friends. While there he pitched the idea of them joining him and his brother on a Colorado river trip.

Kim was a true professional, prior to the trip he educated everyone on the regulations, water hydraulics, procedures on the water, in camp and in emergencies.

Everyone was assigned a group task. My group task for the entire trip was to set up and tear down the toilet. We were instructed to pee in the river and poop in the hopper. The toilet was one of the first items unloaded and the last item loaded onto the raft.

Memorable events:

The roar of the rushing water was constant.

Early in the trip the water changed from relatively clear with white caps to mocha brown and stayed that way.

While stopped for lunch I heard a thundering sound above the sound of the rushing water. It turned out to be a rock fall from near the top of the canyon. I thought " how cool " until a few nights later when I was in my tent located in a narrow portion of the canyon with steep high walls and I heard a similar sound resonating from above my location.
 
I started out paddling flatwater lakes in Ontario's Quetico Park in the mid 1960s, then got interested in whitewater sometime in the early 1970s after a short stint trying out canoe marathon racing. That training stuff for racing is a lot of work. Whitewater turned out to be more fun for me. I did some slalom racing early in that, but again that word "training" reared its ugly head, and so much for that stuff. Just running rivers was way more interesting. The Quetico and other flat stuff was open canoe, and we still did some of that, but most of the whitewater work was decked C-1 and some decked C-2. I'd occasionally borrow a short 14-foot fiberglass solo open canoe from a friend and do some OC-1 whitewater to make easier runs more interesting. I didn't purchase a solo open canoe of my own until late 1979, a Perception HD-1 in Royalex. A great boat, designwise, but a poor ABS laminate schedule as it turned out as I quickly beat the crap out of it. I replaced it with the aforementioned ME. Also as mentioned, that was the boat I used on my first Canyon run.

I think I ran clean on that run, though I remember I rolled once in Hance, mile 76. We all ran Lava Falls, mile 179, on a left route as the water was high and just huge waves except for that monster hole top center. That trip our water was "green," meaning clear, down to Dubendorf Rapids, mile 131, so we got to enjoy a stop way upstream at the Little Colorado, mile 62, in its bright turquoise coloration. An early monsoon rain while camped at Stone Creek, mile 132, just below Dubendorf Rapids, turned the river a blood red color, which changed to the more commonly seen dirty brown later that day.

We had more rain later that run, with one couple almost getting flashflooded in Matkatamiba Canyon, mile 148. Luckily they were at a spot where they could climb above the floodwaters when the creek started its quick increase in flow. There were waterfalls coming over the edge of the main canyon rim everywhere we looked that day. I do remember some relatively quiet places on the river where there was distance between the big drops. Sometimes the rush of the current could be heard, but no roar from drops, and to me it was quite peaceful in those spots.

We witnessed rockfalls several times on our trips, but weren't in any danger from them. One memorable one was just in front of us while hiking the trail at Deer Creek Falls (mile 136). Three big Volkswagen Beetle-sized boulders came down from the cliff above, bounced across the trail, and fell into the creek many feet below after a furious rain and hailstorm we'd just had. I may have mentioned in another post somewhere else that a friend on a later trip was in the Canyon during an earthquake at night, and there were rocks falling from the rim and walls all around them, but no one could see anything at 2 a.m. Stand there and hope. A couple of backpackers were killed somewhere on either the South Bright Angel Trail or the South Kaibab Trail, but no river runners were even hurt. One of the big commercial raft trips had their kitchen setup smashed flat by a huge boulder. Think of it as boring old geology finally in action.

Other trips I was on were similar in many respects, but different, also. The river flows were less, as conservation efforts had mandated less fluctuation in dam releases, so the high flows were usually now just double the low flows, where on my first run the daytime releases were sometimes five or six times what was released during night. We went from 6,000 cfs up to 25,000 and 30,000 cfs, and even higher. Pro rafters said the flow at Lava for our run was probably 35-36,000 cfs. After the mandate I think this averaged about 20,000 cfs in the daytime, and 10,000 at night. It could have been less, like 8K and 16K, or even more at times, 12K and 24K.

And, of course, water takes time to get downstream, so the surge 50 or so miles downstream is about 12 hours different than at Lee's Ferry, which is only 15 miles below the Glen Canyon Dam. Somewhere down between Nankoweap at mile 52 and the mouth of the Little Colorado at mile 62, the water starts going up at 8 p.m. instead of 8 a.m., and starts its way down around 5 in the morning, so you're paddling or rowing on low water during that day. It's like tides moving down the river, up, down, up down. With the lesser fluctuation differences it's less of a hassle than it was on my first run but still noticeable. The big flows back then were really fun, and the real lows sometimes a pain. I don't know what's going in dam releases now, haven't kept up with the Canyon politics recently.

Also like Johnny5, I ran drops every which way, forwards, backwards, upside down, and swimming. All my swimming was at Lava Falls, as I wanted to do the "Bubble Line" run on the right there. I did it, but not successfully -- swam three times. I shoulda stayed left. Oops, I remember swimming one time while surfing the big waves at Hermit (mile 95) one year, don't remember now which trip it was. Get back in the boat and back up and do it some more.

Like Johnny5, I volunteered for the pottymeister job (or "head man" or other similar appellations) for the trips I was on as it excused me from cooking duty, which I detest and am no good at. With the river mileages noted above, I'm obviously into the maps, though, unlike Johnny5. I want to know where we are and what there might be to do if we can camp appropriately, which isn't a given. There is a lot of competition for camps in summer, and the good one you want is in sight, but two big motor rigs buzz by you and grab it, forcing you somewhere else downstream.

A lot of the books I read, often fictional trips in the Canyon, emphasize the solitude. It's not always that way. During the late spring, summer, and into fall peak seasons there might be days you see few others, but some days you might see 200-300 people, especially at places like Havasu Creek, mile 157. There are advantages to the winter runs like Johnny5 and Uncle Sqwid did. More days on the water, but they're needed as the days are shorter, too.

It can be colder in the Canyon in winter, but there are usually a lot of warm days, also. Summer temperatures at the bottom can be very hot. I've seen 118 degrees F. (more than 47 C.) displayed on a thermometer in the afternoon heat. People tend to congregate at the water's edge then, as it's cooler there. Water out of the dam is I think about 46 degrees F, and it warms up slowly, but is still only about 65 degrees at Diamond Creek, where I've always taken out at mile 225.

All of my trips were raft supported, I and another couple of kayakers basically along on a raft trip, but paddling our own craft, almost all our gear in the inflatables. We always had a full complement of participants on our trips, which was 16 people on a private permit. I think this changed after the waiting list was phased out, but I'm not sure. I just haven't kept up with it. Sometimes we had people hiking out at Phantom Ranch (mile 88) and others hiking in there to replace them. We just felt that such a trip was too good to not be shared with as many friends as we could.
 
Nick your post sparked memories. Prior to our trip we had time for logistics planning and training. My practical canoe training started when my canoe arrived in San Diego. The first time I tried to paddle it was humbling. I was unprepared for how easily it keeled over and turned. I likened it to paddle while sitting on a beach ball. It felt very different than paddling bow position in my friend's aluminum canoe. I spent hours paddling it on San Diego bay until I could confidently control the direction of travel. I also learned a simple brace while negotiating the boat wakes, swells and white caps on the bay. We had access to the base swimming pool where I learned to roll my capsized canoe upright and bail it out from the saddle.

Kim offered to carry my food and equipment on his raft but I wanted to try and carry everything in my canoe. That lasted one day. I quickly realized the constant need to bail water out of the canoe and with the dry bags located in front of me the only access I had for bailing was along side of my legs and that was not efficient.

At the start of the trip the only course correction strokes I knew were ruder and front draw. While paddling hard to avoid a large hole I was unable to control the canoe and was drawn sideways into the hole. I was being tumbled so bailed out of the saddle holding onto the gunnel and my paddle. The canoe then flipped over my head and twisted out of my hand. At some point I decided to let go of the paddle and swim to the surface. I swam down the river to an eddy where Kim reunited me with my canoe and paddle. Kim always negotiated rapids first while his brother went last in order to assist in emergencies. This happened early in the trip and it got my attention. After that I began trying any stroke I could think of to make quick course corrections and before long became much more confident and comfortable. I actually remember being flipped around backwards and bracing and controlling the canoe until I executed a 90 degree turn back forward. Of course once I thought I was proficient the river humbled me but I was never separated from my canoe again.

We never saw anyone else floating on the river. We did see other people at Phantom Ranch where we made a quick stop.

I was accustomed to traveling in wet cold environments but I had never spent as many continuous hours with that level of physical movement in a dry suit before. Wearing the PFD over the dry suit in conjunction with paddling I wore my shoulder sore wear the zipper of the dry suit passed over it. Clothing considerations were also important. The mornings were the coldest but I didn't want to dress too warm knowing that I would warm with activity and the normal temperature rise during the day. Adding or removing clothing would be time consuming and inconvenient for everyone. Avoiding time consuming stops was the reason why the toilet was the last item loaded before getting on the water. I remember watching my friend practice rolling his kayak first thing in the morning wearing a wet suit. Good Times!

Shortly after the last set of rapids and before Lake Mead the water slowed and there was private property where you could pay to exit the river. Kim and his brother exited there then transferred motor mounts, outboard motors and fuel for the two remaining rafts to transit to the pickup location on Lake Mead. A high speed park ranger boat came up the river from Lake Mead and took the kayaks and my canoe to the pickup point.
 
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