On day five we awoke with a scream. It was not so much the first two snakes in the groover area that made Lee scream. There was a king snake that had killed a rattle snake in our bathroom area. As Lee decided to make her exit it was the third snake, a rattler, which elicited the scream. Frankly she showed great restraint. I think that placed in the same situation I would have screamed like a school girl.
Nancy called into the KSL outdoors program on the sat phone later in the morning. The hosts seemed to like the snake story. They also thought it funny when she mentioned that “unfortunately” three of her daughters could not be on the trip because they had babies this year. After she lost reception Shannon pointed out to Nancy that she said something that she probably did not mean to. Afterwards Nancy made sure to tell me that it is not unfortunate that we had a baby this year, and that she loves baby Jane. All three daughters thought it was actually pretty funny.
The first major stop of the day was the Little Colorado River. It is normally a beautiful turquoise color. A few weeks earlier the river flashed, and it has been muddy since then. Apparently something above us also flashed. When we went to bed the night before the river was mostly clear. When we woke up it was muddy. It would stay that way for the rest of the trip.
After the Little Colorado there was a major shift in scenery. The cliffs are still high above us, but now the rims are as far as ten miles apart. The rock instead of red sandstone is now more earth toned at river level. The other consequence is that now it is much hotter.
We ate lunch at Tanner Flats. It was really hot. It is less than two miles away from a place called Furnace Flats. It definitely felt like we were in a furnace. After lunch we went to some Indian ruins that are in the area. There is a big rock called the birthing chair. It looks like a chair and has carvings all over it. I do not know if it was actually used for birthing, but since that would be cool that is the story that I am going with.
Our camp for the evening was Cardenas. We got there fairly early so we got to rest again. It was a little harder to enjoy, because Cardenas was a fairly warm camp. It did have some fairly good shade. We had fun playing games. We got a good game of Werewolves going that night. I think I was a little nervous that night. The next three days would bring five of the big six rapids. It was time to get ready.
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