Back in August, I received a text message from the leader of our rafting mafia saying that there was a last minute trip to raft the Grand Canyon and he had a few seats left. With absolutely zero intention of going, I put my phone down and moved on with my day.
A few minutes later I got a phone call from the rafting man himself saying he had a seat left but I needed to let him know ASAP. Long story short, after he filled the seat and then someone backed out, I managed to throw together the beginnings of a very rough plan and told them I’d take the spot. With just two days left to prepare, I was starting to wonder what the heck I had committed to. The kids were beginning school, they had their first football games, my husband was in North Dakota working, and I had my own work assignments I had to get turned in.
The plan ended up coming together after lots of pleading and begging with family members and before I knew it, it was 5:30 am and I was loading my stuff into my ride to head to Lee’s Ferry.
Our trip there was nuts. We got not one but TWO flat tires. And I’m super fuzzy on the details, but somehow we also managed to lose a tire, as well. Anyway, it was crazy and we didn’t make it to Lee’s until 3am with a wakeup time of 5:30am. We didn’t even bother setting up camp that night. We just rolled out a blanket and slept on the raft on the side of the road.
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The morning came fast and it was time to work. Because this is a private trip, we are all required to work and help get everything ready to go. If you haven’t ever seen everything that goes into prepping one of these rigs, well, believe me, it’s an insane amount of work. Once things were prepped and ready to go, we had to sit around and wait through the ranger orientation. Finally, by late afternoon, we were off.
Scouting out lava. These rapids may not look like much here, but they are the biggest rapids in the Grand Canyon and the Grand Canyon has the biggest raftable rapids in North America!
The weather was, in my opinion, absolutely perfect, but everyone else thought it was a little on the toasty side. 114 sitting in the blazing sun with gigantic red walls surrounding you and radiating that heat was a dream come true!
We saw the dead bats AFTER we walked through this disgusting water!!!
We spent 7 days on the river total. Normally the trip takes closer to 10-12 days, but with the higher water level and lots of hikes closed, we were able to fly through relatively quickly.
One of the hikes we did was up to the top of a waterfall called Deer Creek. It was one of the most incredible sites of the entire trip.
This was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever been on and my heart is still so full of gratitude and amazement that I got to participate. I met the most amazing people and saw the most wonderful parts of nature I never known existed if it wasn’t for this.
Anyway, I wanted to hurry and get this post up so I can delete the pictures off my computer and clear up some space. Hopefully I’ll take the time to get back on and write more of the details sooner or later!
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