Rafting the Colorado???

[kolanuraven]

Anyone here ever raft the river thru the Grand Canyon?

I'm thinking about doing this next yr and wanted some feed-back.

I've done the Salmon several times....so kinda know what I'm up against.

Any info would be handy!

[kolanuraven]

This trip I'm looking @ is 6 days....lots of side trips of hiking etc....then after you're done you helicopter out back over the river length you just floated over!! I'm not sure what they desire as far as fitness goes. I've never really given that a 2nd thought but I've always been extremely active...still am !

I know on the Salmon floats the meals are equal to 5 star! It was amazing. I was prepared for granola bars and Gatorade and would've been happy with that....but steaks, chops and all the fixin's was truly amazing!

[sw]

KRaven,
Never done it but alot of the guides used to run the Colorado and the Salmon. The Colorado is way big water, 20' rollers compared to 15 on the Salmon, they said it was like the salmon during high water, fast and furious, thats why they pull out and go on hikes. I always thought it would be fun. Did I mention that the first dead body I ever saw was a guy we pulled out of the Salmon? When we were in high school, we would float the Salmon from town to either my house or farther down about three times a week. Full moon nights were something. Anyway, we were floating along, saw a pair of cowboy boots, a pair of wranglers and a shirt on the shore, thought about pulling in and getting a pair of boots. Went about a mile down the river and here on this snag was a guy face down in the water, no boots, no Wranglers, no shirt. We pulled in and ran for the nearest house to call the sheriff. Needless to say, we learned a whole new meaning of the words, the power of Mother Nature, and a whole new respect for water. Scared YET?

[kolanuraven]

On my last Salmon trip w/ Layne P. & Co....we went thru where the 2 Salmon branches come together.... it was just below Mackay Bar I think....anyhoo.....just the day before a raft of ,some other group we hadn't come across before ,had flipped and about 3 had drowned...and a bunch others were hurt.

All their gear and stuff was all over the adjacent bank, stuck in the root ball of an old tree that had washed down, etc. It was a mess. We were pretty quite for the next rapid or two!!!!

[sw]

I will never forget going to Riggans to pick up some people in June, I think it was about 1975, the water was so high that they were going over the cables for the cable cars that cross the river, 5 day trips were done in 3 cause the water was going so fast they could not pull in so they kept on going. The road into the pickup place had water on it in some places, the normal water level was about 20 feet below the road. There was a whole boat load drowned when the river went down, their boat ran into a cable and flipped it. I could tell you all kinds of boating stories on the Salmon.
Here is one that comes to mind.
My friend and I spent the summer between Junior and Seniors in high school running shuttles for boaters between Salmon and Riggans, Boise and Salmon, so you could take a boaters cars to Riggans, hitch hike to Boise, pick up the other boaters cars and drive back to Salmon. We were riding colts for people and riding a grazing association in the mean time so we were making our real money from tourists but we got to do what we liked the rest of the time.
I got a contract with an outfitter to move all of their vehicles for the summer. One of the guides was alot of fun, we liked him alot, but he was from the East, deathly afraid of snakes, cause he never had been around them. Alot of the float boats are equiped with a boatmens box, which he has to sit on while steering, and it has ropes, patches, etc for caring for the boat. While on the way to Riggans to pick him and his party up, we encountered a very large Bull Snake. We threw it in, a good snake is alot of good comedy material when you p*** them off. When we got to Riggans the boats were later than they should have been so this snake is gettting on the warm side of life. The boats pull in after 1:00, it is about 100 degrees, we kindly threw this Bull snake into the boatmans box when he was not looking and took a seat on the hill to watch the rest of the story. This snake was POed, this guy went to throw something into his boatmens box and that snake was doing the Cobra dance and hissing like a rattler. You could have heard that lid slam from a mile away over the sound of the river. When he had his heart back in his chest, he came runing after us cause he knew. He even bought us beer for the way home, made his week. BTW, drinking age in Montana was 18 then.

[Cowpuncher]

Water is high in most Colorado rivers this year - for a couple more weeks. We lose from 5 to 10 rafters every year. About the same number of skiers that die from Douglas Fir Disease.(running to a tree while skiing)

The Colorado river is downstream from Lake Powell so the river will have whatever water in it the dam people let go.

Anyway, good luck if you go. I would too if I was about 40 years younger.

[zephyrus31]

You go, girl! That's enough adrenaline rush to last a good few years for me.. Can't you take me with you, Kolanu?

[kolanuraven]

I once made a list of " Things I want to do before I die".....I've done most of it .

I've run w/ the bulls in Pamplona, bulls fights in Spain, the kasbahs in Morocco, climbed the pyramids in Egypt ( yes, I know it was illegal!), toured Africa twice, my dinosaur research,my archaeology work here in the East in the winter,

I've yet to sky dive ( but I've para-sailed) and yet to do the Colorado. So I'm sitting on 45 yrs old.....so I've done pretty good so far on my list!!!

sw, the Salmon was neat. We have super duper white water river here in the SE also...so I'm no stranger to the dangers of it. Remember the movie Deliverance " squeal like pig, etc"....well that river The Chatuge is about 5 miles from me and it's one of the major white water rivers in the US. It's a man killer!!!

[Jinglebob]

[kolanuraven]

[zephyrus31]

*big, shiney eyes* Amazing!

[kolanuraven]

Well....ck another thing off my list!! I booked my Colorado river trip for the summer of 2007!!!