x) At this flow, it was a lot easier to move the rafts down the river than it had been on our last trip. We did not work as hard as last time rowing on the flat water and had more spare time to hike and hang out in camp. Rafting the big water was a lot of fun in the rapids as well. Ashley oared through Hermit and a number of the more-difficult rapids. Bryce also did a lot of oaring and did well, as did Michelle, Tracy, and Tom. Mike, David, Wesley, Glenn, and I all did well at the oars in the harder rapids. I thought we were all competent as oarsmen and no one was a weak link. We established a boat order when we started that we generally stuck to through the trip. Mike took the lead, Wesley or Glenn went second in the kitchen boat, David went third, and Michelle or I was sweep. Ted, and any other kayakers, typically went in the middle, but went last sometimes when the rafts were close together entering a rapid. Mike had a lot of responsibility going first, including pulling into eddies below rapids, finding camps, and deciding when to stop. David brought a GPS and played a big roll in navigation until the GPS got lost early in the trip. The GPS was believed to have been attached to a strap that got disconnected to access something else and the GPS probably slipped of the end of the strap. Even after the GPS was lost, however, David and Tracy were helpful reading about camps and looking up which ones had early shade or late shade in the morning. David, Mike, and I each had copies of the Martin guide book, which was very useful and a must for any non-commercial Grand Canyon river trip. I also copied Jim Michaud’s instructions for running rapids onto waterproof paper, which was very helpful, especially for the kayaks.

y) Rapids – David and I did a lot of research before the trip, including watching many YouTube videos, and had a plan for most for the harder rapids at this flow before we started. We were concerned about the high flows, but found that generally, the rapids were easier than at lower flow, at least if you knew where to be. In a number of rapids, some of the places that you didn’t want to be were even more of a threat, but we were consistently able to avoid those areas. We ran House Rock on the right without scouting. There were features at the top that kept us off of the right shore, but we all had good runs in raft and kayak alike. Mike, Glenn, Wesley, and David were at the oars, and Ted and I were in kayaks. Looking to pull into an eddy on the left after the rapid, Mike ran big in House, farther left than the rest of us, and still did fine. We scouted at least one of the sixes in the 20’s, but did not have any problems there. We scouted Hance, where a rafter had recently died, and all did the left run. We entered just left of the big rock, pulled into the eddy behind it, and then squared up for everything below that. We hardly got splashed, which was quite a contrast to our run two years ago when I nearly washed out. Mike, David, Wesley, and I were at the oars.