Lee's Ferry to Soap Creek, Shinumo Wash and Eminence campsites

Thursday, November 21st, 2013
There was a mix of sun and cloud as we ate a quick breakfast, aided by the PRO outfitter in setting up the kitchen for the first time. After packing up, we walked a couple of hundred meters back up to the Lee's Ferry landing for our lecture on the canyon from the park ranger. This started with, "Welcome to the United States of America, the greatest country on earth". It's nice that he loves his country but we think Canada is pretty good too so it didn't seem particularly open-minded.
He was stern to start, possibly because he'd seen the almost 3,000 beers we'd loaded the day before and thought we were incompetent. Eventually, he seemed to realize that we had some good, experienced people on the trip and we weren't going to cause the park service a lot of trouble. He started to laugh at our jokes a bit so the lecture on camping, the environment, river safety and so on went pretty well.
After the lecture, we set off downriver. I started fishing right away and caught the first rainbow trout just after we left the landing. The water was clear and we could see trout in every eddy. Soon all our fishermen were catching fish. We threw them all back since we had steak thawing for dinner.

 Jen and Patrick on the river.

 Lunch on a sandbar near the Navajo Bridges spanning the Colorado 4 miles below Lee's Ferry. This is the last indication of civilization until Phantom Ranch at mile 88. On Thursday night, we camped at Soap Creek at mile 11. We'd had a few showers during the day but the rain started in earnest right after dinner. It was an early night.

Friday, November 22nd, 2013
It had rained all night and continued to rain all day Friday. Because of the rain and all the rapids, we didn't fish. We ran quite a few rapids rated from 2 to 7 on their scale, which goes to 10. We got a little off our preferred line down the right side of House Rock Rapid (a 7) and went sideways through a couple of big holes on the left. At one point, Zack, on the oars, looked down at Tom and I paddling in the front and we were completely submerged. Nevertheless, Zack kept the raft upright and we got through just fine. Andy, in his raft, snapped an oar in a powerful boil. The oar was jammed in place so he couldn't switch it out quickly and ended up drifting in among the rocks on river left. By quick thinking on his part and quick weight transfer by Clo and Duane, they managed to avoid being pinned against a rock. It was scary to watch from just below them, though.
We camped at Shinumo Wash at Mile 29. The rapids were fun but everyone was thoroughly wet by the end of the day.

The Shinumo Wash campsite.

Saturday, November 23rd, 2013
This morning, everyone dressed up for "I can't believe you wore that" day. Matt got everyone's attention with his sasquatch suit. Because of all the rain, the river was now very silty and brown. So much for fishing.

 It had rained all night and now it was raining all day. Everyone was getting wet and cold.

 At Mile 33, we stopped at Redwall Cavern, which is a huge cave with a sand floor right beside the river. This picture from the back, with people at the front, shows the size.

It was nice to be out of the rain. We tossed a frisbee around to keep warm. Duane is making a diving catch.
At the end of the day, we camped at Eminence, below President Harding rapid at mile 44. It was still raining, so we set up tarps for the kitchen and all stood there after dinner and drank at "Zack's Bar", where we chanted, "Ba da da da da da...." and slammed our insulated cups or beer cans on the bar every time we wanted Zack to pour us another drink. As some wise man said, it's easier to pass out drunk on a night like this than to try to go to sleep. By this point, all our gear was getting pretty wet. We were planning to stay over the next day at this campsite to do some hiking so we were really hoping to get dry soon.