Past Little Colorado to Papago

Tuesday, November 26th, 2013
This was another clear sunny warmer day with a few Class 4 + 5 rapids.

 Around every bend is more magnificent scenery. Sometimes we just stare.

 Zack on the oars.

Through the day, we passed the mouth of the Little Colorado River. It was so silty that it was almost red rather than brown. By 3:30 pm, we camped at Lava Canyon (not the big Lava Rapid), at the mouth of Lava Creek at Mile 66.
The next day we planned a layover so Zack's Bar was open at night.

Wednesday, November 27th, 2013
For our layover day the weather was cloudy with some sunny breaks, a cool wind and about 10C.

 Zack, Annie, a few others and I hiked up the Lava Creek bed looking for a fresh water spring. We never found it. Tom and I decided to backtrack a bit and hike a little way up a side canyon while the others went ahead on a longer walk.

We stopped on a small hilltop for lunch. It doesn't matter where you stop, the view is fantastic. That afternoon back at camp, I finally got all my gear dry. I was on kitchen duty so I had some work to do but we have a good team so it's always efficient and fun.

Thursday, November 28th, 2013
Again today the temperature was about 10C with a mix of sun and cloud. We left Lava Canyon and ran the Lava Canyon Rapid (4) & Tanner Rapid (4) before stopping at Unkar Delta. On the gentle slope around the mouth of Unkar Creek, there was an Anasazi native settlement that peaked around 1100 AD. They farmed nearby.

 There were quite a few dwellings of which only the foundation stones remain.

 It must have been a harsh landscape for farming, unless the climate was different then.

Walking among thousand year old ruins in North America isn't common. Being in the Grand Canyon includes many humbling experiences.

We ran Unkar Creek Rapid (6) and Nevills Rapid (6) before camping at Papago campsite by 2 pm. We had intended to camp just below Nevills but the site was taken. Papago is at the mouth of a slot canyon, a very narrow canyon eroded over time by a side stream.

 Tom and I hiked a little way up the slope above our camp on the sandbar. Others hiked further but neither of us felt our knees would appreciate significant climbing.

Jeffy usually sets up the 'groover', our poop can, somewhere with a view but on this night he chose a private spot in the dry creekbed of the slot canyon. Nice.