One Grand Canyon trip down, a few days rest and back out for a 5 day 6 night encore. I wasn’t going to be able to go, as it was going too end to late in the month, so I tossed an idea out. “Move it up 5 days?” The trip leaders said yes. I was shocked and felt valued. Why, I have no idea. Talking about ideas, this was going to be an exploration. A project of Mr. Rick Demerest. He signed on Rich Rudow. This proves that he is quite smart. Rich is the king of Grand Canyon. Expectations were set low. All the “low hanging fruit” has supposedly been picked, canyon exploration wise. But big gifts sometimes come in small packages. Such was the case this time.
Joining Rick, Rich and I was Jenny West, who benefited from the dates moving up too and did not hesitate to jump on the trip. Signing on for a shorter version were super studs Guy Smith and Grand Canyon ranger Todd Seliga. The road out to the start, if it can be called a road, was rugged. My first ride in the infamous Polaris.
The next morning we were on our way. So enjoyable was the day, that we took our time and ended up camping in the slot in the Muav layer. The canyon stood out, at least so far, for several unique reasons. First off, it had a HUGE water holding capacity! Rich says none he has found has more. One frightening pothole was just avoided by angling off fall line around a corner. I mean this keeper was 10 feet deep and vertical on the lip. While the pots were mostly dry or shallow, one could see the likelihood for 2 dozen swims after a storm. Second was that the canyon appeared to be along a fault line. The walls on each side were of different layers.. We would dip into the Redwall, out the bottom, then into Temple Butte, then shift to the opposite wall and be back in Redwall again. VERY odd seeing Muav and Temple Butte boulders in a Redwall slot. By the canyons end, we would experience Redwall, Temple Butte and Muav, the 3 layers in 7 different installments. Days later the canyon would earn the name Bargain Basement. Seven layers for the price of three.
To be continued
Pictures
Polaris
Good morning
Guy and Rick
Orange
Todd and Rich
Redwall beauty
A happy guy
rich dancing
Smilin Jenny
Todd
Around the corner
Pothole
Back Up Man
lunch
WOW!
Dodge the keeper
Camp for the night
Full slideshow
Impossible to find the RSS link
Rich Rudow
Ram’s story is pretty inspiring. I put one up from the same trip on my Facebook account with photos from my new Nikon 1 AW1 Camera. I really like this camera so far, but it’s a far bigger load to carry around than my old point and shoot. Here are a few photos that caught the most attention on Facebook:
Jenny West doggedly refusing to believe this was a rappel. She was right – it goes!
Guy Smith finds the skinny line to avoid another keeper!
Dwarfed by incredible scale in a primordial place
The story and more photos here ….
https://www.facebook.com/rich.rudow/media_set?set=a.10203327450765137.1176635992&type=3
Regards,
Rich
hank moon
Cool Shots, Ram and Rich!
Rich Rudow
Ram, looking at the “dodge the keeper” photo, I would say the lip of that monster was 20′ high. I locked off on rappel to get this shot on the way down. The mud line suggests that that thing can hold 15′ of water!
2065toyota
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