In later April, I was able to launch on a private river permit for the Grand Canyon with 7 other people. Although the permit allows for 20-something days if you want, we planned 18 days on river, not including the rig day and camp at the launch ramp. I've done 2 previous float trips down the big ditch - one in 1999 and one in 2009 (I think those are the years). FWIW - I also spent quite a bit of time in the canyon between those two trips as the field site for my graduate research and thesis was also in the canyon - in other words, I think it is beyond a special place. Our group of 8 had 4 boats (three 18' that were provided by the outfitter that helped with food planning and prep, and my personal 16' (well really 15'6" due to the diminished tube design) which was really just the beer boat and some overflow personal items. As you can imagine, its not easy to capture the experiene of floating for 18 days through the canyon for 226 miles with 5000' walls around you and hundreds of rapids etc. Try not to overload you with pics here - just a few to make me smile...also, I currently only have pics that my wife or I took, so most of the good whitewater pics where taken by others from the bank and may be a bit before they get passed along to me....
Rig day - gotta carry all your food and beer for 18 days, and of course, carry all your waste out.
The blue rocket boxes carry 2 days worth of food each, plus some other extras. The brown ones behind them, well...you can figure out what they bring back.
I prefer to bring liquor for these kind of trips as a little bit goes a much longer way - but still gotta have some beer - our beer-rimid was relatively tame compared to some I've seen - we probably only had about 1200 cans or so.
Tranquil evening along the river
Marble Canyon section
Hiking to the Nankoweap Granaries (the classic photo)
How many evenings are spent