Another Grand Canyon post — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

I don’t know how many posts I’ll do about this part of our travels - probably until I run out of pictures (oh nooooo!).

Ok - so I had told you about the air temps in the upper 70’s to 80’s (in the afternoon), but when we started each morning, we were almost always in the shade and just about everybody was wearing layers (Steve wanted it noted that he din’t, nor did another guest from Australia). The water is a constant 50 degrees (coming from the bottom of Lake Powell through releases at Glen Canyon Dam). If you got splashed in an early morning rapid, sometimes you didn’t warm up until lunch time. You see, the low angle of the sun at this time of year, kept a lot of the canyon shaded.

One day Steve and I saw a “sunbow” (a rainbow around the sun peeking over a cliff), but I couldn’t get a picture due to approaching rapids. Imagine there’s a rainbow around the sun in the next picture:

This multicolored layer was my favorite - Bright Angel shale - because of the varied colors and compact layers. Redwall limestone is the broad expanse of red above it.

It was amazing how much geology I learned, and fascinating to see each new layer of rock emerge as we passed downstream (and deeper into the ages).

More Bright Angel shale -

The starting of the Tapeats sandstone (here at water level, and later in our trip, towering above us) -

The walls are getting tall:

Our next stop was where the Little Colorado River came in. You can see how light blue the Little Colorado is, as it enters to the left of the green main Colorado River:

Calcium carbonate is carried down the Little Colorado, and settles down on the bottom, making a white reflective base for the clear blue water to flow over. We’d seen pictures of the main Colorado River at very high flow, and it was a frothy muddy brown, due to all the sediment and rocks it was churning up in its flow down the canyon. Luckily, we had clear green water the whole trip. As we floated on it, it looked”dirty”, but in buckets we’d scoop out at camp to do laundry or splash baths in, it was very clear.

We hiked up the canyon of the Little Colorado, so we could float down it aways. The guides told us to put on our life jackets like diapers, wade in and have fun “riding the rapids”!

Steve had fun with my camera, taking all the guests’ pictures as they floated by him, until I told him that he needed to take a turn in the water. He was a little leery, given his tender ankle, and his antipathy toward cold water, but in the end he did try it.

Speaking of cold water, the guides had told us that this river was warmer than the main, so we were all excited to try it. It WAS NOT. That was the last time we voluntarily swam in a river. We would stand in the water at the edge of camps, and splash ourselves clean most afternoons. Unfortunately, the solar shower we had brought fell apart after the first day. I actually didn’t mind the bracing splash baths, but Steve really hates cold water, so it was always a struggle for him.

As we left the pretty turquoise river, I had to get a final shot upstream -

Later that same day, we hiked up a slot canyon:

…alongside some gorgeous rocks -

…to exit at the top of the canyon in a wash that showed some major upheaval in the rocks:

We then crossed out of that canyon, and returned back to the river via another canyon, with some pretty views too.

The North Rim of the canyon is that very distant formation at the center left of this next picture -

Interestingly, the Colorado River cuts down closer to the South Rim of the canyon. Maybe because you can see the river from that rim, rather the North, is why it’s so much more popular and built up. In a later post, I’ll share pictures from each rim, that we took on our visits there, after having spent all this time in the Canyon itself.

As we exited the side canyon, this was our view of camp for the night: