152 Days To Go - Bedrock/Deubendorff/Stone Creek

The Infamous Bedrock Rapid. Site of Elaine's "Come to Jesus" swim in 1994. Basically the rule here is: "Don't go left!"

TL Report: I've emailed everyone a spread sheet showing final trip expenses and our final Moenkopi invoice. If you didn't receive it, please let me know.  Bill is designing a T-shirt for the trip to be digitally printed.  I will show it to you in next week's blog.


I was looking through the trip permit application that I will need to return to the NPS in March. Steve Leibig is going to be our qualifying boatmen since he has the most experience on the Canyon (10 trips!). I will need everyone's legal name, date of birth, address and phone number for the application. I will also be turning in the $100 per person NPS fee ($90 pp for the younger kids) with the permit (=$1770.00).


Did you have a chance to look at the new menu? Any feedback?




What the Grand Canyon forums are chatting about this week:

Tipping:  I posted a thread on how much to tip our shuttle drivers. I was private messaged by a couple of people and $50 a driver seems to be fine. I have factored this into the trip expenses.

Candle Pots - Campfire In a Can 
NPS regulations limit burning driftwood for camp fires to the winter. In the summer, we don't need a warming fire, but a aesthetic focal point would be nice. So, I'm going to make some candle pots. 

Parafin matches with candle pot

1. Take a coffee can or new 1 gallon paint can.
2.  Cut against the grain corrugated cardboard and tightly roll up to fit the roll vertically and as tightly as possible into the can.  You can use scotch tape to hold it in place.
3. Stick can in oven set to 225 degrees or slightly lower temperature and let it heat up for 1/2 hour or so can and cardboard are very hot.
4. Melt block paraffin wax (from food canning dept in grocery) in a pot on the stove or a crockpot. About 5 lbs is needed.



Thanks Mike Sawyer for the pictures!

5. Pour wax into can.
6. Put back in oven to make sure everything soaks through to the bottom and fills alll spaces in the corrugated cardboard.
7. Add more wax as needed to fill corrugations to the top and fully soak cardboard.

 We're taking three of these - quick to light, easy to snuff, great ambiance (little heat) and few ashes.


Deubendorff Rapid

Mileage This Week: River Mile 131-133.
At River mile 313.1, we'll run Bedrock Rapid (see photo very top of blog), class 7 (out of 10), a 7 ft drop. The top of the rapid has a large polished schist rock that divides the river into two channels. This center rock is called the Doll's House. The clean run is the river right channel. Running the river left channel is not recommended and usually only results from hitting the Doll's House rock. The video below is how NOT to run Bedrock and shows two rafts stuck in the river left channel after not making the move right. 










At River mile 132.3, we'll run Deubendorff Rapid, class 7 (out of 10), a 15 ft drop. This rapid has lots of holes, and a boulder field in the center.






Directly after Deubendorff, we'll make camp number 10 at Stone Creek as long as it's not too hot. Depending on the weather, we may layover here and hike to a beautiful waterfall, wash clothes, recoup, etc.

Stone Creek Camp

One of the Stone Creek waterfalls we'll hike to. This is a Christopher Smith photo. Thank you Christo for permission to use it. Lovely!

Notice the folks high siding on the right look a lot healthier?

Equipment/Camp/Info Check: What is High Siding?
In whitewater, if your craft (kayak, raft, etc) floats into something, you always lean toward it, which usually means you shift to the downstream side or the "high" side of the craft. 

Jumping to the high side of the raft will help to level it out and prevent capsizing.  There is a really good example of this in the Bedrock flip video above. The passenger high sided, the boatmen did not. Guess who ended up in the river?  This is an important thing to remember when rafting. If you feel one side of the raft go up, you should always move to that side. 
 "Defy Gravity."

Next Deadline: Final trip balance is due February 15th.