Cal and VA | Adventures | Grand Canyon

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Thursday, 17 August 2023

Another restless night - can't get into that Army mode living outside. But breakfast was great - apple pancakes on a beach overlooking the Colorado River. While we were enjoying a cup of coffee, a Bighorn Sheep strolled the rocky shore across the river.

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grandcanyon2023 — On the raft and the calm Colorado River. Hard to get a great reflection in a muddy river.

grandcanyon2023 — Then the river gets rough - a constant battle to get my camera out and then put away for safety.

grandcanyon2023 — Clear sky makes for a dark blue background. Where are the monsoon clouds??

grandcanyon2023 — Our first stop today is mile 132 at Stone Creek. A short hike up the creek leads to a waterfall famous as a fall to take a shower (much needed). We were not able to soap up as you cannot use any soap (biodegradable or not) in the streams flowing into the Colorado River. The concern is danger to the fresh water flora and fauna.

This is our raft captain (Kelsey Pfendler) enjoying the waterfall.

Water pouring over Cal at the Stone Creek waterfall.

grandcanyon2023 — What was interesting during the trip was the river tides - evidently the dam releases water in cycles so there is a high tide and a low tide. Here a water plant is left on the sand when the river has lowered a couple of feet.

grandcanyon2023 — Erosion and a beached water plant at low tide.

grandcanyon2023 — As we were preparing to leave Stone Creek a group of five smaller rafts ran the Deubendorff Rapid. This was the first raft and even though the raft seems to disappear in the rough water, they are both have a great time.

grandcanyon2023 — Back in the raft we had some calm water as we approached our next destination.

grandcanyon2023 — At mile 137 we arrived at Deer Creek where a short hike brought us to Deer Creek Falls. Unfortunately the sun was quickly moving into the falls which would allow us only a few minutes to photograph the falls.

grandcanyon2023 — To avoid the sun I focused on smaller sections of the waterfall. The red rock and green plants were a great contrast with the white water.

grandcanyon2023 — A favorite shot of Deer Creek Falls.

grandcanyon2023 — The top of Deer Creek Falls on all these waterfalls I wondered what the creek looked like above the waterfall.

grandcanyon2023 — We were in the creek (literally) for a while so after the waterfall I chased dragonflys and damselflys while wading in the stream.

This may be a Familiar Bluet that is a widespread damselfly - it was tough as I could not bring my macro lens on the trip due to weight limitations. This was taken by my "travel" lens (24-105).

grandcanyon2023 — This is a Flame Skimmer who did not stay anywhere very long. I just barely captured this picture.

grandcanyon2023 — Back on the river after a quick lunch.

grandcanyon2023 — A Bighorn Sheep was spotted on the shore and chaos ensues as everyone scrambles to get cameras out. I took two cameras - one with a wider lens (24-105) and one with a zoom lens (100-500). I typically took out the wide angle lens for the river pictures. But for this guy I scrambled to get the zoom lens.

Obviously, we were making a bit of noise, so he looked right at us.

grandcanyon2023 — Calm water, red canyons, and dark clouds. Will we get rain?

grandcanyon2023 — No rain but we got wet in the rapids.

grandcanyon2023 — Another Bighorn Sheep spotted - this time way up on the cliffs. Again a scramble to get the zoom lens out of the waterproof bag. Of all the participants in the workshop I had the easiest way to access my cameras being able to get them out and put away fast and safely.

grandcanyon2023 — Backing way back it is possible to see how far away the Bighorn Sheep was on the cliffs.

grandcanyon2023 — Constantly amazed by the canyon walls and the fact that the Colorado River carved its path through all that rock.

grandcanyon2023 — Carving water was clear at our next stop. At mile 148 Matkatamiba Canyon carved by a small stream.

The canyon walls were straight up we had to, once again, walk up the stream. Our first obstacle was this imposing rock that stood about 8 feet high. We all required help to get over - all except our raft captain who at 5 feet something simply scrambled to the top.

grandcanyon2023 — The first little water fall - really a water slide. The water was so clear.

grandcanyon2023 — The next waterfall - had to see how such a little stream could cut the canyon - except when charged by the rain.

grandcanyon2023 — We continued our hike into the narrow canyon with our captain, Kelsey, nervously watching the skies - being caught in the slot canyon in monsoon season was dangerous.

grandcanyon2023 — Our trail through the canyon - the stream. We had to take pictures before hiking as we left the stream very muddy - there were about eight of us moving through the canyon.

grandcanyon2023 — Our farthest point - unfortunately Kelsey wanted us all to return to the raft immediately as we approached this water feature. I was able to quickly grab this picture before hiking out.

We were too far into the slot canyon in monsoon season for her liking. There were about eight of us with tripods and camera gear so we did not move very fast.

grandcanyon2023 — We camped only a mile away at mile 149 in Matkat Hotel campground. It was an interesting campsite as the cliffs provide overhangs for several of us. I was tucked under a small overhang.

As we were drinking beer and looking out over the river, high on the cliff were 5 Bighorn Sheep grazing on vegetation several hundred feet up the cliffs. I was able to catch three of the sheep in this picture zoomed all the way in.

grandcanyon2023 — A picture from my cot of the Colorado River looking downstream.

grandcanyon2023 — After a great dinner three of us stayed up to try some night photographs as the skies were clear. We were constrained as the cliffs closed the amount of sky visible.

I used a technique which took pictures every 6 seconds to combine into star trails. This is one of those photographs which also caught one of the Perseids meteors. The milky way is to the left of the meteor.

grandcanyon2023 — This is the result of combining 859 pictures of the sky over several hours. With some help from a star app (I did not have my iPhone so used someone's) I pointed the camera toward Polaris, the North Star, to capture the stars rotating around in a circle. It was challenging as the North Star was behind the cliff across the Colorado River. There were so many stars, including the Milky Way, that the cliffs are silhouetted by star trails.

After these pictures I went to sleep and, as usual, tossed and turned. I looked up and there were no stars - instead clouds. I checked my preparation for rain and was good. Minutes later a brief rain shower. As I was one of the lucky ones under the overhang, no issue, but many others got wet.

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