Day 6 - Nankoweap to Lava Canyon

Izzy and I had our raft loaded by 8:30 but it was another hour before most of the rest were ready to launch. We used some of the time to pump and filter river water to fill our empty drinking water containers.

Once on the river, it was a slow paced day. Leif was back in his kayak for the day.

Stef was very relaxed on his inflatable Stand Up Paddleboard.

Clouds started building but nothing came of it.

We stopped at the confluence with the Little Colorado River for lunch, hoping to see the famous turquoise waters

but the Little Colorado was very muddy - the common result of a rain storm somewhere upriver. This means our river will be muddy for the foreseeable future, added an extra process step to the filtering of river water.

The waters of the Little Colorado mixed with the clear waters from the base of the Glen Canyon dam over 75 miles upstream.

The dories flirt with the line between the two river sources.

Pam Mortenson rode with Helen in the Susie Too,

while the Portola with Greg Hatten added color.

Nate (our videographer) and Doug check out the Tapeats sandstone that now appeared at river level.

We passed Crash Canyon on river right. For an aviation family, this location near where a United DC-7 and TWA Super Constellation collided in June, 1956 was interesting. The Federal Aviation Administration was created as a direct response to this airline crash.

We arrived at our camp at Lava Canyon about 3:15 p.m. Because of some rocks near shore, the dories were docked to the back of rafts. It's a fair amount of work, but protects the wood boats from damage while adding to the challenge of loading and unloading them.

Desert View Watchtower on the south rim was visible from camp which likely meant that people were plunking coins into telescopes to check out our camp. Next time we view Desert View I'll have to pay more attention to the upriver view.

We had lots of charcoal for the dutch ovens, but very little lighter fluid so Greg and Tony got creative. A raft inflating pump does wonders for feeding air to the charcoal. The dutch ovens were used regularly to bake fresh gluten free bread for a couple of the trip members as well as occasional cobblers for desserts.