The Ditch (Grand Canyon Rafting Trip) Part 1

This post may win "longest post of all time," and that's saying something as I've had some real doozies in here. If you're looking for some light bathroom reading, I'd recommend "Nightmare Fuel" (2023) or "The London Incident" (2008).

I have a backlog of about 20 computer science/discrete math HW assignments that I should prioritize over this entry, but I'm worried I'll forget everything from the trip if I don't get some of my thoughts down soon. And also, I don't want to do my homework.

I have very few regrets from my time on the Colorado River, but the few that I have are (in order of regret):

• not bringing a full-size pillow
• not bringing a dry suit 
• not journaling

Trying to recount 16 days' worth of memories is gonna be tough, so thanks in advance to the crew for correcting any errors in my account of our experience. Also, writing entries during/after adventures usually comes pretty easily to me, but this one feels really hard to put into words, so bear with my "rambling, incoherent response [that will probably not be] close to anything that could be considered a rational thought." Bonus points if you get that movie reference.

Before getting into the daily play-by-play, I think it's worth giving some context. 

Getting on the Trip

Most frequent question I've gotten thus far is "how did you end up getting to go on this trip?" The answer, in a roundabout way, is my friend Tom "Major Tom" Carney. Tom and I worked together for several years at UGA. He was a caving trip leader and challenge course facilitator while I worked in the Outdoor Program from 2015-2017. Tom and I stayed in touch after I moved to Utah in 2017, and it has become a bit of a tradition to ski together when he comes to visit.

Sidebar: Tom and his friend (now my friend) Brian threw me a surprise dinosaur-themed birthday party in the middle of one of the climbing classes I was teaching at Westminster. I still have the dinosaur piñata in my office. Get yourself friends like Tom and Brian. 

Just a reminder that you're never too old for a dinosaur-themed birthday party.
Major Tom is in the red shirt. Brian is on his right in the blue shirt.

Anyway, about 2 years ago, Tom reached out to let me know that a friend and fellow Atlantan, Cory, had accepted a faculty position in the University of Utah's Neuroscience Department and thought it would be fun if the three of us skied together. Tom and Cory knew each other from Cory's days as a trip leader at Georgia State--he and Tom and a bunch of other GA State/UGA folks would take an annual ski trip to Steamboat. I think it was my second year on skis when the three of us met up at Snowbird. I'm still a terrible skier, but I was an even more terrible skier then, but nevertheless, we had a good time and Cory and I exchanged contact info thinking that we'd probably end up as adventure buddies.

I don't think I have a photo from the actual day that Tom, Cory, and I skied together, but this photo captures my general sentiment when skiing with Tom.

Getting back to the original question of how I ended up on this trip. Cory and I met in Feb 2022, exchanged numbers, and promptly proceeded to...not organize any adventures. To Cory's credit, he did invite me on a Desolation Canyon river trip and I couldn't swing the dates. We loosely stayed in touch and would occasionally have aspirations to grab beers with other neuroscientists (looking at you, Russ), but that was pretty much it. Then on Christmas Day 2023, Cory reached out again. 

Get yourself friends like Cory.

At this point, I had logged a few extra multi-day river trips and had heard tales from friends and students about the magic of the Grand. I also happened to be on radical sabbatical this semester, so between an increased interest in river trips, actually having the time away from work, and recognizing that:

 I committed to the trip.

Assembling the Rest of The Crew

Probably the second most frequent question I get is: "was this a Westminster-sponsored trip?" "No." "Oh, cool, it was a personal trip--how do y'all know each other?" We...didn't. 

Not really, anyway. All of us had some sort of connection to one other person on the trip, and that person had some sort of connection (strong or loose) to Cory. Here's the breakdown:

Boat operators:

• Cory* - trip leader
• Brad* - friend of Cory's from 20 years ago when they were both raft guides and involved in Scouts; Brad also currently serves as COO for Whitewater Express in the Southeast
• Steve - Cory's neighbor. From what I understand, Cory was walking in his neighborhood, saw that Steve had a raft in his driveway, and struck up a conversation
• Joe - friend of Steve's; their kids used to ski race together
• Avery - our safety boater; did the whole river in a kayak; Westminster alum that graduated from the Outdoor Education and Leadership (OEL) program. I sent out a message to a few alumni that were working as raft guides to see if anyone was interested in hopping on the permit, and Avery took the bait!

Rest of crew:

• Ada - friend of Avery's
• Andy* - friend and academic mentor of Cory's
• Chris* - Cory's brother
• Doug - Steve's brother
• Rio - Joe's son
• Me*

*indicates ATL HOMIE!! I'm sure I'll get into the joys of having 4 other crewmates from ATL later in the post, but let me tell you, I did *not* think I'd get to have a conversation about Sparkles skating rink prior to this trip and it made me really, really happy to do so.

Everyone in this crew has a wonderful backstory, and each person brought a unique perspective and set of skills to the experience. Truly a special crew. I would run a river with any of them in the future. As this is a public-facing blog, I won't go into the details of their lives (that's for Brad's book that he's going to write), but take my word for it--they're all exceptional humans.

Okay, so that's pretty much how this crew was assembled, and I have every confidence our team could go toe-to-toe with Rick Sanchez's interdimensional heist team. Actually, now that I think about it, I really wish we all would have accepted the GC permit invite with "You sonofabitch, I'm in!")

March 26/27 - travel and rig days

3/26 Travel day was a little...chaotic. I was terrified that I was overpacking for the trip...until I saw everyone else's packing. So. Many. Snacks. And air mattresses. Theraguns. Light up Mickey Mouse wands that blow bubbles. Spaceman costumes. Guitar sealed in a 170L dry bag. I felt like a total amateur. And I was deeply appreciative of Steve and Doug's willingness to share their Red Vines. They are, in fact, crazy delicious.

I carpooled with Joe, and by the time Joe's truck was loaded with our stuff and everyone else's stuff, it was riding reeeeeally low to the ground :). His son Rio, the youthiest of our crew, drove himself because he needed to depart the trip early around day 6 (to go back to school :). Joe and Rio planned to set a car shuttle the following day so that Rio could hike out around Phantom Ranch and drive himself back. We had aspirations to stop at the hot springs in Meadow, UT on the way to Kanab, but packing took longer than expected ("longer than expected" was a recurring theme on this trip), so we made it to Kanab and got hotel rooms while the rest of the crew loaded into Steve's SUV for a 5am departure from SLC the following morning. Woof.

3/27 Joe dropped me off at Lee's Ferry in the morning (after we unloaded a LOT of gear) to wait for the rest of the crew to arrive while he and Rio set his shuttle. Ada and Avery arrived about an hour later, and I helped them unload her truck (also very full of gear) and then the three of us awaited for Steve's Party SUV to arrive with the rest of the crew.

I enjoyed my morning reading "The Grand Canyon Reader" written by friend and colleague Lance Newman while babysitting gear and waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Around noon, a very large truck from Canyon REO arrived with our head rigger, Ben, and his team. While we technically had enough personal watercraft to outfit our own trip, it was strongly recommended to us to use an outfitter for our equipment and food, and let me tell you--I 100% agree with this recommendation. Canyon REO was fantastic to work with. They have very efficient systems and the gear was top notch. Would strongly recommend this outfitter for future GC expeditions.

Ben (a Westminster alum!) directed our crew on how to rig our rafts and pack group and personal equipment. I won't try and describe the systems in a ton of detail in this blog, but for future reference, we had a kitchen boat with a commissary box and other kitchen needs, a bread/produce/eggs boat, a groover (toilet) boat, and a camp box boat. One of the things I liked about Canyon REO's system is they'd drawn up boat maps with recommendations on where to store specific items/boxes (e.g. eggs in the drop bin next to veggie crate and electric water filter, etc.) which made it really easy to replicate loading each day and know where items were. Ben gave us a demonstration on how to use the kitchen systems (stove, blaster, water filter) and turned us over to the NPS staff for our safety briefing. 

Let the rigging begin!

The commissary box

Our safety briefing was informative, and also...intense. I am being a little hyperbolic in this next section, but not by much. We were told:

• If you're not wearing a drysuit, you're probably going to die.
• If you sleep out (not in a tent), a bat will definitely land on your face, and you will definitely get rabies.
• If you drink more than 4-5 liters of water, you are definitely getting hyponatremia.

I'm not trying to make too much light of the severity of some of these situations--we all agreed that the content was important, it was just that the delivery was like, maybe a little too scare-tacticy?

Listening to the NPS Ranger give our safety briefing. 

We were all pretty terrified of bats by the end of it.

Once boats were rigged and loaded and we were briefed, we rowed the boats down the river a few hundred yards to our campsite, got our tents set up for the evening, and enjoyed one last meal off the river at the Cliff Dwellers Lodge before turning in for the evening.

Okay, I was delusional to think I was going to do a single post for this entire trip. I'm already at 1,800 words and we haven't even gotten on the damn water yet. I promise the next post will actually feature...the Grand Canyon.