Spent a few days with friends in southwestern Colorado this past holiday weekend. We brought our inflatables and ran the daily on the wild headwaters of the San Juan river, twice. Its a really different place than the sandy-juan I'm familiar to in the canyonlands through Utah. Pictures didn't come out too clearly but in the background are the still snow-capped peaks of the Rockies. I'm on the small blue boat, or "duckie." It was great being in the mountains. We then returned a friend to Dolores and ran that river as well before returning to Arizona. I've had some good times lately but that weekend was one to challange the best. Today I'm off to the Baja with my good friend Scott. We have lots to celebrate as he and wife Julie just learned are going to have a child! The Baja 500 is running saturday as well as my 32nd birthday... Thanks for looking and check back next week for a few stories I'm sure of our days ahead in mexico.

skywalk photos

I seem to be having some technical difficulties with the blogger site uploading photos from my recent trip to the skywalk. I'll get those posted as soon as blogger.com frees up some bandwith..
In the meantime let me tell you a bit about my weekend. I started my roadtrip with a visit to a group of about 40 boy scouts and their dad's camping in the Hualapai mountains south and east of Kingman. There they have got one year permit to 620 acres of state-trust land and will do their best to clean it all up. They had me and Patrick from the GCNP river permit office speak to the groups about the Leave No Trace ethics. It was way productive and a really fun and querky group! Way to go you guys.
Next I drove the infamous dirt road to the Hualapai's skywalk at Grand Canyon West. They've got phase one in place with the skywalk out and over the rim and a shuttle service herding Vegas-spawned tourons among the various "attractions." The skywalk itself is a neat piece of architecture and engineering. The noise pollution from the billions of helicopters coming and going however is a real drag. Kinda of a funny thing they got going out there with big plans in the near future. A hotel and restaurants are soon to follow and an IMAX and a made for television Indian village are on the way as well. The price of admission included a stop at the historic bat towers, the debunked mining site where in the 1950's some ambitious investors mined bat guano from a cave on the north side of the river and extracted it by way of a 9000ft long cable tramway. The tower mass is still on the rim and was interesting to visit.
My bottom line opinion on the place is complicated. I've been asked if the skywalk is worth the price of admission- $75.00. Well I'd recommend that if one was looking for a Grand Canyon Experience, then it's certainly not. I beleive that a quality Grand Canyon visit should be personal, one should be left with time to listen, look and smell the vastness of rock and sky. With the grumblings of a steady line of diesel belching motor coaches and the screetching buzz of litereally hundreds of helicopters above and BELOW the rim, it is nearly impossible to find the peace needed to absorb the grandness of the western canyon. The skywalk is a made-for-vegas attraction that the Hualapais are hoping to profit from, perhaps motivated a chance by the witnessing what their neighbors, the Havasupai, have done with their waterfalls...

Did a fun river trip with fort tuthill this weekend on the Colorado in another lower Grand Canyon, or "Diamond Down." I rowed my raft, the Odyssey...redemption at rapid 231. It's getting hot down there and the reservoir mead is drying up a bit quicker than getting flow from the river. Should be interesting in the months and certainly years ahead. A decade ago the standard take-out for a lower gorge river trip was at Pearce's Ferry. Now, nearly 110 feet lower, the reservoirs nearest usable boat ramp below the Canyon is at South Cove, 16 miles further. The lake continues to drop 5' a month! Just last week the park 'service' graded a new ramp there to accomadate canyon motor rigs, but word is that the ramp extends to maximum low elevation due to some unsuitable below surface conditions. For our last night on the river we talked the folks into doing a night float, where we rigged all boats together and cruised river currents till sunrise under stars and spires. A good time! But with droping lake levels there are lots of newly exposed obsticles- mostly rocks and pre-lake vegetation. Maybe oneday they will just cut a hole in the dam and we can just float on thru? We also had a good look at the Hualapai's newest attempt to cash-in on their canyon with a river level viewing of the Skywalk up on the rim- really bizaar, like something from outerspace! I'm gonna get a closer look this weekend from ontop and recon the Skywalk for fort tuthill. I'll be volunteering a day for the Leave No Trace program this Saturday workshoping with some boyscouts in Kingman and plan to camp near Spencer Canyon and do the Skywalk- Check back for a full review...

Heres a few pictures of the fort tuthill "diamond down" training trip. Put ourselves through one great adventure. Notice anything wrong in the first photo? Here's how you right a boat after its been upside down through a rapid. Going back down there tomorrow, but will be rowing my personal 14' this time. The Odyssey will get its first Grand Canyon trip! Should be a really great time- thanks Andrew, I'll keep the rubber side down. Welcome to my new blog. Be sure to check-in often to catchup on my latest shinanagens...