Colorado River Trip Out

Sometimes when I tell people my stories I fear they think I’m lying. But I don’t need to lie, it’s just chronic bonkers over here.

Feb 23 I got off the Colorado River after a 20-day float. It’s taken a couple days to get home and I still don’t have my feet under me BECAUSE (here’s where it gets good)…

On the first night out (incidentally at Lower Jackass beach) I lost my tent, beloved handmade down sleeping bag, Thermarest Neoair, iPhone, wallet, all of my casual clothes, and about $500 more worth of gear to the River in a sudden wind storm. I was seconds late to my tent, only to find stakes still in the ground and the tent floating, pitched perfectly, down the middle of the river. It was dark, and the River very dangerous, so I ran alongside it the best I could on shore, maybe 50 yards of bushwhacking, before submitting my fate to Nature.

Day 1 of 20 cold and wet February days and nights in the Grand Canyon.

Shawn loaned me a 30/40° bag and a new Big Agnes pad, and made me feel at home on his boat. Darryl loaned me a relatively-waterproof tent when he departed at Phantom Ranch. Marcie loaned me long underwear, a touque, wool socks, and gave me two pairs of panties. And Blake let me take this photo on his phone, one of only two photos I got to take this time in the Grand Canyon. Thank you Warriors.

So, I don’t have photos to share as usual. I will share with you that this trip peeled me like an onion, and made me grateful to just be alive. I’m working very hard now to get back on top, and I feel like I owe that hard work to Nature.

It’s useless anyway trying to capture the beauty of the Grand Canyon; it exceeds depiction.

Across from our yellow rental boats in this pic is another private raft group. Late in the trip they gave me a pack of Rwandan cigarettes and some mushrooms. A little high, smoking Rwandan cigarettes, wearing the same clothes I’d been wearing 17 days, I felt floored, humbled, tiny, and chuffed to be me. But… Rwandan cigarettes?!