Grand Canyon Rafting Trip - Out of the Canyon

Patrice, Dave, Val and Dave on the "buckboard"

One of my pet peeves is the use (overuse) of the word awesome.  It is used for everything from a new pair of shoes (“these shoes are awesome”) to your morning breakfast (“that oatmeal was awesome”).  The dictionary defines the word awesome as “extremely impressive or daunting, inspiring, great admiration”.  That said, I have to say that rafting through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River is AWESOMELY AWESOME, what a trip!!!

On Sunday morning, September 2nd, we ended our trip at Whitmore Wash in the Grand Canyon, 188 miles from where we started six days earlier.  We were helicoptered out to the Bar 10 Ranch where we showered, had something to eat and then flew in a small plane back to Marble Canyon where we started our trip.  There we split up with our friends Dave and Partrice and drove on to Las Vegas where we stayed for a few days to recover from our trip.  Dave and Patrice were headed to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to camp for a week before returning home.

When we arrived at Harrahs in Las Vegas we were very pleasantly surprised to find that Jennifer (I’m not sure what Jennifer’s title is, but we make all of our Las Vegas reservations and arrangements through her) had booked us into a suite on the 22nd floor overlooking the Las Vegas Strip.  What a contrast, we went from waking up on a cot under the stars next to the Colorado River to a suite high above the Las Vegas Strip.

Sunday, the last day of our rafting trip, was quite a day, Val pointed out that we traveled on a raft, helicopter, airplane and car all in the same day.  I will be describing the trip in detail with many pictures and videos over the next few days, but first I wanted to let Val give her impressions and feelings about the trip.  It was her idea, she got Dave and Patrice on board and did the planning – thanks Val.  And thanks to Dave and Patrice for joining us, they were great traveling companions.

Hi... Val reporting in,

This trip was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  It was so much more than I thought it would be.  The beauty of the Canyon, the exhilarating rides through the rapids, watching the full moon come up over the canyon walls, the rainbow over the river after an afternoon thunderstorm are just a few, but the most surprising thing of all was the emotional aspect of the trip.  All of us had tears in our eyes at least once on this trip.  Sounds silly, I know, but it was all so overwhelming and wonderful.

As Dave said, we will be adding photos and narrative to the blog as soon as Dave has time to process all the photos and put pen to paper, so to speak.  There is so much to say and show you about our adventure on the River in the Canyon.