WATER ON THE BRAIN

Now where were we...ahh yes, still in paradise by the moonlit night.


We had a lay over day and did a monster long hike up to the source of Thunder River. Most of it was along the river except the bit I went the kinda wrong way and had to backtrack to find the group. Slight dramas but we all coped.


The last mile is 1000ft of vertical. That was hot, long and tough but the end was more than worth the pain. Thunder River literally thunders out of the side of the canyon in a large waterfall. Must be a huge underground cavern up there. We recovered, ate some lunch and the way back was much easier and quicker.

Not the most restful of layovers but well worth the trip.

Dories at Deer Creek

We got to wash the sand off at Deer creek.

Elves Chasm leaping

and wallowing

Boat jam at Havasu

hike up the milky blue river

Mark, who has a great camera and huge zoom took some great shots especially of us going through the rapids.
Lava Falls Rapids is the biggest one on the river. We all went up to scout. I was in Grady's boat with Karen. Grady was psyched, took a quick look then motored back down the path to do it, while half our group was still coming up. He was pretty revved up and a tad nervous so I think he just wanted it done.
Man was it fun! The beginning was perfect, but we hit the huge hole at the bottom slightly sideways. We were a whisker off flipping the boat. Karen highsided and I think I did my bit to keep the raft shiney side up aswell. It all happened so fast and the main thing I remember is looking up as a huge wave came crashing down on us. Can we it again...please!
I almost wanted to flip out just for the experience of it all.....maybe next time.

Grady, Karen and me hitting the hole in Lava
Pic by Marc

Myk, Rob and Laura was next. I managed to find a good spot to watch them. The top half was great but he went into that hole sideways. We saw the bottom of the raft flip up and luckily come back down empty of people but right side up. The all managed to get back to the raft and beach it with us. Myk's head and oar, just before they were engulfed
Pic by Marc

Everyone else had a perfect run, though Mark's boat got caught in a weird eddy near a big rock and could not get out of it for a while. Water does strange things.
The adrenalin was running pretty high, everyone was happy and many more " No shit there we were...." stories were born.


That is the last big rapid before the end but we had a few more smaller fun ones to cheer through.
The last day I kayaked the last 8 miles to the pull out at Diamond Creek. I'm really glad I did cause even though the little rapids I went through were still way bigger than anything I had done before so I was pretty happy I didn't swamp myself.

Kayak me

It was such a wonderful, amazing experience and I will bore people to death rhapsodising about the whole thing.

Serenity