Sunday, September 19, 2010

Day 3 - Seeing the Sights

Our group started the day out by exploring the area around camp. We arrived too late and too tired the night before to do anything but set up camp, eat and head off to bead. There are some Indian granaries on the side of one of the cliffs, and Stanton’s Cave is on the other. Stanton’s cave is where one of the ill fated trips stowed their gear then hiked out having decided the roaring twenties was enough for them. The day before I had developed a headache on our hike. This happens to me in the heat sometimes. I decided to take it easy to try and avoid the same fate on this day, so I skipped the hikes. It gave me the chance for some alone time. I wrote part of a letter, drank lots of liquid and tried to stay in the shade.

Day three was mostly a sight seeing day. It was a day when a camera would have come in handy, but alas I currently only have one photo from the day. There were some rapids, but mostly we were either pushing along or stopping to see some of the sights.

The first stop was at Redwall Cavern. The cavern was formed by floods on the Colorado that cut into the cliff wall as the canyon turns. John Wesley Powell described as capable of holding fifty thousand people. But then again he was prone to exaggeration. Current estimates are that it could hold five thousand closely packed. When I saw it to be honest at first I was under whelmed. From the river you simply cannot appreciate the immensity of it. It is quite a striking place, and when you get to the back you realize it is huge. We took a big group photo with our silhouette spelling out August 2010.

The second stop of the day was at Nautiloid Canyon where we stopped for lunch. Up the canyon there are several Nautiloid fossils that can be seen. I again skipped the hike fearful of another headache. In hind sight I probably should have opted for the cool relief of the side canyon. The other cool thing we saw was from the river. There is an old Anazai bridge crossing a small gap in the ledge. The only thing one can think upon seeing it is to wonder who would be walking up there.

Our Camp for the evening was at Saddle Canyon. Luckily lower Saddle is a rather large camp, because we were forced to share with a commercial group who made it there first. Sharing a camp is not bad, though it does strike against what we are acustomed to on the river. We had enough room for everything but the groover. For those uninitiated in things of the river the groover is the camp porta toilet. In my river experience the only possible worse spot we have had was last year on Cataract Canyon. There we camped on a completely barren sandbar which made use of only distance and dark of night for privacy.

That night we had steaks for dinner, which was a good thing. The commercial group also had steaks and we certainly would not have wanted to be outdone by them. We also had a night of dumb jokes and other general silliness. I am not sure why but we were in a bit of a silly mood after dinner. I laughed so hard my sides hurt. Right when we were getting ready to go to bed the guides from the other group came by to say hello. It was interesting to talk to them, and get their perspective on the canyon. The only problem was that I really feared we were making a nuisance to those who had beat us to bed. The guides were many things, but quite was not one of them. They soon left though, and while they remained noisy I felt much better not being a part of the noise.

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