Our Grand Canyon Adventure

It was the adventure two years in the planning - 2021 was the year we were going to raft Grand Canyon! Steve has wanted to go down the Grand for basically forever, and the minimum age requirement was 12. So two years ago we plunked down our deposit for 6 days on the Colorado River and waited patiently for WanYing's 12th birthday and the passing of Covid. 

And, finally, it was May 5th and time to suit up and head down the Colorado! The drysuits were purchased, the neoprene booties and gloves were packed, the eco shampoo was in our bags, and it was go-time!

We had an astounding trip and I would recommend it to anybody looking for an exceptional adventure. It wasn't for the faint of heart - the rapids were big and the potties were outdoors - and man oh man did we have a good time.

Here's my highlight and lowlight reel:

Highlight: Outings

The coolest thing about spending multiple days down in Grand Canyon is that you get to stop and explore slot canyons, side rivers, and all sorts of little nooks and crannies that you can't get to any other way than being one of the few hundred people on the river. It's hard to pick out a favorite hike/excursion, since they were all so cool, but the Little Colorado River was definitely one of the best. 

The Little Colorado is mineral-rich, which gives it such a distinctive color. It's beautiful, and also a darn lot of fun to float down.

Here are some favorite excursion photos:

 

Highlight: Camping under the stars

We were blessed with incredible weather during our Grand Canyon adventure. Evening temperatures in the 60s, daytime temperatures in the mid-to-high 90s (this is downright balmy, the floor of Grand Canyon easily gets to 115 in the summer), and no rain at all! It was the perfect weather for sleeping out under the stars - we never even considered setting up a tent! Going to sleep under the stars, waking up to the Milky Way in full glory, it was amazing.

My favorite night was when Sam and WanYing decided that they wanted to sleep out on a rock shelf. So they toted their cots and clothes up on the rocks and had arguably the greatest bedroom view of all time!

Lowlight: Waking up at 4:45

Of course, the downside of sleeping out under the stars was that we were also up as soon as dawn's light broke. While waking up at or before 5 am will always rank as a lowlight for me under any circumstance, there was an ease that came with aligning to the sun's rhythms. We were in bed by nightfall and up at dawn and it was actually a-ok. Well, I think it was a-ok, the teenagers thought otherwise.

 

Highlight: Rapids! 

The big draw for rafting the Colorado (well, beyond getting to unplug and get away from it all and hang out with your very favorite people and having the staff feed you) is the rapids! A big canyon means big whitewater - Grand Canyon even has its own rapids rating system!

The hits were big and fun and we all went home having consumed no small quantity of the Colorado River as we laughed and shrieked down the rapids.

Highlight: A space for every style

The best thing about going with Western River Expeditions is that you get to go on a rig called a "J Rig."

 J Rigs are giant pontoons lashed together front to back, which means that if you want to sit in the front you get a full rapids experience, but the farther back you sit the more sedate the trip becomes.

We all migrated from the front to the back to the front again, and we really appreciated having the choice of how extreme we wanted each rapid to be, including solid napping options.

 

Lowlight: Dry skin

I live in Utah, the land of incredibly dry skin. Our average humidity level, according to some random website I just Googled, is 0%, peaking to an average of about 10% in the summer months. Compare this to an average year-round humidity level of 67% in Westminster, Maryland (where we grew up), and that gives you a picture of how dry is the air that we're used to. 

However, we were not prepared for what Grand Canyon would do to our skin. 

Between the constant wet-dry cycles, the dry air, the sun, and the high salinity of the Colorado River after Lake Powell's evaporation, man did Grand Canyon do a number on our skin! Our knuckles were cracked, the corners of our eyes never stopped stinging, and we gratefully used up every drop of the 4 types of lotion I brought. Lip balm was more precious than gold. Our skin was seriously dry!

Highlight: Everything about the staff

Our trip staff was simply amazing. They really loved what they did, they took amazing care of us, they fed us, they set up our potties, they took us on hikes, and every morning they were ready to do it all again. 

Highlight: The helicopter ride

Because we "only" signed up for a 183-mile, 6 day trip, we got flown out of the canyon by helicopter! This was a first for our family and we loved it!

 

Lowlight: The plane ride

After the helicopter ride and a shower (AMAZING!), we boarded a ~15 seat sightseeing plane for a 45-minute ride back to Lee's Ferry, where we put into the river and where our car was parked. It was, bar none, the most nauseating flight of my life. This was in no way the fault of the pilot or plane, they were both fine, it apparently is just how little flights go around Grand Canyon area. It was a beautiful, unspeakably awful flight.

 

The Best Highlight: Being together :)

The very best part of our Grand Canyon Adventure was just being together. No distractions, no to do lists, just us and the river and being fed food we didn't have to cook for ourselves and enjoying the simplicity of nature and the joy of being together. I really like these people.

 

 

So, add a Grand Canyon rafting trip to your list of must-do adventures, and invite us when you go, we'd love to do it again!

Vacation Training

Since the dawn of time(ish) Steve has wanted to partake of the iconic American adventure of rafting through the Grand Canyon. We signed up 2 years ago to take a 7-day trip in May 2021, since it's the first year that WanYing will be old enough. There is also a helicopter involved. We are all very excited. 

Like everybody else, all of our vacation plans last summer got scrambled. We did a lot of local camping around the great state of Utah, which was great. And we started started thinking, "what could we do that keeps us out in the outdoors, socially distanced, and is still having a good time all together?" And, thus, our ramp-up plan for Grand Canyon rafting was born.

The training regimen started with tubing the Provo River. Admittedly, that was really just for fun and had no actual "white water rafting skills" element

Next, we did a one-day rafting Green River expedition in Dinosaur National Park, as described in this post.

Our 2020 rafting training culminated in a two-day trip through Westwater in Southern Utah. We had so much fun! I thought a one-day expedition was a blast, but the fun of two days in a raft, camping out in the wilds, and having the staff cart our stuff around and cook for us was SO GREAT.

We spent a couple of days tooling around Moab first, which was fun because we hadn't been to Arches for a few years. It's such a great park. 

Also, the campground we stayed at was super posh and had a pool, so we also spent considerable time there.

And then it was time to start rafting! Westwater is a series of class III and IV rapids on the Colorado River in southeastern Utah. There are some pretty intense sections, as well as a lot of flatwater (true in any river expedition). 

Of course, we love the rapids.

But, while we don't love rowing particularly much, we love playing around on the flatwater and end up spending the majority of our time very wet and very happy. 

One favorite game is a trust fall circle thing (I guess I should work harder to come up with a name for this game). Basically everybody stands up on the gunwales and holds hands and then we lean back until somewhere between one and 6 people end up falling into the water. 

Maybe I'm not selling it very well, but it really is a ton of fun. Our guide even insisted on playing with us (he was probably tired of rowing while we all goofed around). 

We also love the t-grip trust lean game (still working on names). In this one, two people lock oar t-grips and lean back until one or both of them fall into the water. Our games aren't sophisticated, but they sure are a lot of fun.

Other fun games include the perennial fun of pushing people out of the boat when they least suspect it (the trick is to try and grab your attacker's PFD so you can pull them in with you) and otter floating (less of a game then just floating down the river to avoid rowing). 

We also enjoy jumping off of big rocks and forcibly boarding the gear rafts because we know they have the snacks. 

WanYing's specialty is "riding the bull" (that one has a name!) in the medium-sized rapids. This is where she sits on the nose of the raft, one hand in the air and one holding on.

But our very favorite game is Last Man Standing. The goal being, of course, to throw/yank/push/kick everybody else out of the raft. This one gets vicious and, also, exhausting. We finally figured out that we need to set rules requiring people to stay on the gunwales because the little ones will just burrow in under the seats and good luck prying them free.

I hear rumors that some people just paddle and float placidly down the slackwater. Admittedly, that does sound more restful than the constant motion of my family, but where's the fun of the float if you don't worry that at any moment you may be shoved off into freezing water?

Fortunately, the camping was placid and lovely. I love primitive camping, especially when somebody else does the cooking, cleaning, and all of the actual work.

Our Grand Canyon Rampup was a wonderful and unexpected way to enjoy 2020. Bring it on, Colorado River!

Intention in Three Bracelets

Like so many people, the events of the past week have torn me apart. Violence. Hatred. The incredible abandonment of any true definition of leadership by the highest post in the land - worse than that, encouragement of distrust and destruction by an elected official. 

I've been reading Be the Bridge by Latisha Morrison and am grateful for her voice and hope for reconciliation. She lays out a framework for racial reconciliation (or, let's be honest, reconciliation of any kind) of lamentation to confession and forgiveness  to restorative reconciliation. But right now, I'm just stuck in lamentation and confession for the brokenness of our nation and our collective responsibility and guilt. I think it's ok to hang out here in lamentation - it's an appropriate response.

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions - the stats on how quickly the average resolution is broken (80% are broken by February) tell me that resolutions are not a great formula for change. 

But I do like the emerging trend of a word or intention for the new year. My friend Sarah and I always compare notes on our new year's intentions, and this year we both chose the same word: Gentle.

I struggle with the concept of self-care... I can never quite decide if something good for me "counts" as self-care or not, even if it doesn't make me feel good in the moment. I find the notion stressful (the opposite of the purpose of the concept of "self-care"). But in the last few months, I've come to embrace the concept of being gentle with myself. It may be hard for me to decide if a given choice is "self-care," but it's easy for me to identify whether or not a choice is gentle.

And I have emphatically determined that I need more gentleness in my life. 

This month, my heart and my intentions are well-summarized by three bracelets I've been wearing regularly to celebrate and remember my intention:

1. A cross. For faith. For redemption. For new life. For hope.
2. Noonday's We See Color bracelet. More redemption - it provides a living wage to artisans in Uganda and is a visible celebration of all the colors of us. It reminds me to continue my inner and outer work of racial education and reconciliation.
3. Noonday's Morse Code Bracelet Kit. Redemption part three - the beads are made from artillery shells that artists in Ethiopia melt down. It's violence and conflict transformed into hope, dignity, and beauty. And I used the beads to spell this year's intention, "gentle."
   

I know none of this is going to heal the world. But these symbols of hope and redemption around my wrist are meaningful reminders for me of the work God's doing in me and through me. And I love that.