To the Grand Canyon

Monday, November 18, 2013

Well, this trip was unfortunately travels without Anita, who felt that she wouldn't be comfortable rafting the rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. However, it was a unique opportunity to see the Grand Canyon from the river so away I went, although I knew that I would really miss my traveling and life partner.
Our oldest son Zack and daughter-in-law Annie organized the trip, got the permit and made the arrangements with the outfitters far in advance. Because of the high demand, permits are awarded through a lottery system and chances are greater as the weather gets colder. Almost 2 years ago, Zack and Annie got a permit for a 22 day self-guided trip with 16 participants, leaving Lee's Ferry on Thursday, November 21st and arriving 226 miles downstream at the takeout at Diamond Creek on Thursday, December 12th. They booked PRO (Professional River Outfitters) from Flagstaff, Arizona to:
-provide 5 rafts, all kitchen gear and all food (according to their "Winter Hearty" menu as amended by Annie);
-deliver 5 kayaks for those who wished to paddle, plus an inflatable kayak;
-drive us and all our camping gear from Flagstaff to Lee's Ferry; and
-pick us up at Diamond Creek and drive us back to Flagstaff.
Zack reserved 8 rooms at the Motel 6 in Flagstaff for each end of the trip. After much hassle with Air Canada and United Airlines, we each booked our flights individually to Phoenix, Arizona and then made our way by Arizona Shuttle bus or by rented van from Phoenix to Flagstaff.
The other participants in our trip were mostly Zack and Annie's longtime friends from kayaking and working at Madawaska Kanu Centre and Owl Rafting on the Ottawa River. My friend Tom Conyers took the opportunity to fill an opening for the first half of the trip.
On a trip like this, the trip leader (Zack), in consultation with the others, appoints a "boatman" to be responsible for a raft for the whole trip. Our 5 boatmen were Graham Bos, Jeffy Johnson, Patrick White, Andy Atkins and Zack. All of them have many years experience as raft guides on the Ottawa River and elsewhere in the world. Zack had the least experience in a raft but maybe the most experience as a competitive whitewater paddler in slalom races, extreme races and freestyle competitions. He had also worked for 5 months as a kayaker scouting rapids in Costa Rica for raft trips where Andy was one of the raft guides. In addition, a lot of the other members of our group had just as much rafting and kayaking experience and were available to fill in superbly on any class of rapid when needed. Although I had kayaked a bit years ago, I'd only been a passenger in a raft for one day on the Ottawa River a long time ago. I knew I definitely didn't have any skill to guide a raft through the bigger rapids but I had no fear knowing that there were such excellent raft guides at the oars.
On Monday, November 18th, Tom and I drove to Ottawa and stayed at the home of his friends Rick and Vivian for the night. At 4 am the next morning, Rick drove us to the airport and we checked in with no problems. While waiting for our flight we met other members of our group who were traveling on a variety of flights to Flagstaff.
We flew to Newark on United Airlines and then Tom disappeared onto his flight to Phoenix, which left earlier than mine. I flew to Phoenix with US Airways, another Star Alliance affiliate. I had a brief moment of panic at the luggage carousel in Phoenix at 1:30 pm when everyone got their luggage but me. I had my drysuit and some other river gear in my carry-on bag but my big waterproof barrel and big dry bag pack carrying all my warm clothes and camping gear did not arrive. Eventually I discovered that United Airlines in Newark hadn't bothered to transfer my luggage to my US Airways plane and that it would be arriving at 3:50 pm on a different UA flight to a different terminal. So I took the shuttle bus from Terminal 4 to Terminal 2, confirmed again that my luggage was coming, and waited. Thankfully, it did arrive as advertised on the 3:50 flight. Sass Cotnam, another member of our group, arrived on that plane too and we had a brief visit before I hopped on the Arizona Shuttle for the 3 hour ride to Flagstaff. Sass would follow later.
I paid the shuttle driver a little extra to drop me off at Motel 6. Zack, Tom and most of the others were in the parking lot when I arrived. We went for a great dinner at a Mexican restaurant, did a bit of shopping at the WalMart across the street, and tried to get some sleep in our last night in a bed for a long time.
PRO would arrive to pick us up at 10 am the next morning.