My family and I went on river trip to Horseshoe Bend. Lees Ferry, the launch off point was roughly 4 hours from my family in Las Vegas and from me in Scottsdale. I left at 4:00am to get to the launch point by 8:30.
15 miles out my car died, and I coasted those last miles until I reached the overnight lot across from Lees Ferry. I was lucky I made it. I didn’t have time to worry about the car because we were late and needed to get on our boat.
My family arrived and we quickly organized our wet bags and loaded our kayaks. It was ~an hour boat ride to the dam. We unloaded our kayaks and equipment, then loaded up our kayaks for the trip down the river.
It was beautiful. We were surrounded by 1000 foot high red rocks. You could see how this canyon had been sculpted by so much water over so much time. It was spectacular.
The water was freezing. It is 47 degrees year-round, never heats up. Cold. We were off down the river. During our boat ride up the river our guide pointed out campsites, hikes, notable features, and other stops. Our first stop was going to be a good one. Our guide pointed out a white rope, barely visible, dangling along the canyon wall.
We got off at the first stop and hiked up the red rocks to the white rope. It was dangling ~30 feet straight up a canyon wall. I was the first to climb up it. Easton went next stating, “If it held him it will hold me.” There were two main ropes that went straight up the canyon wall. After that there were a dozen more ropes helping you up crevices, canyon walls, and through gaps. I think it was the best hike I’ve ever done. At the end were near the top of the canyon, looking down at the now tiny river below.
We hiked back down, the ropes being even more exhilarating going down than up. We made a fire and had hotdogs. At one point during lunch a huge gust of wind came along and shot dirt and pebbles at us. This was not pleasant and not a good sign. Luckily it was the only such experience we had the whole weekend.
We packed back up and were on our way back down the river.
We came to our second stop. It was just down from a campground my mom wanted. Unfortunately, that campground was already taken by a group of women. We found a good beach and my parents started exploring the area. I sat in my kayak on the beach and dozed off. That 3:45am start was catching up to me.
There are many campsites down the river to choose from. This would be one of the first options. The next couple sites would be around Horseshoe bend itself. During our boat ride the guide let us know those were by far the most popular sites. Made sense. A lot of people probably kayaked/boated/paddle boarded this river simply for the Horseshoe Bend portion.
The area we were at had a decent campsite that wasn’t taken. There was already a guy and his son camped out in the best area overlooking the river. The main downside to our campsite would be lack of view. It was up into the trees a bit and we wouldn’t be able to see the river at all. But it was a 10 second walk down to the beach that no one had claimed so we decided to make it our spot. We were worried about the Horseshoe Bend sites being too crowded and this was about as good as it got, we guessed.
That night we invented a cornhole-like game in the sand, played 3 flags up, 2 on 2 football, cards, and ate copious amounts of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate.
The next morning I woke up first and went down to the beach. I stretched and read. It was the most peaceful time I’d had in a long time. Except for the duck that didn’t stop quacking for an hour straight.
The fisher’s boat who camped by us got beached and he asked for some help getting it un-stuck. Garrick, Garrick’s friend Hunter, and myself moved the boat back into the water. It was the perfect amount of exertion in the sun to warrant my first plunge into the freezing water. I ran into the water. I must restate – it was freezing. I end every shower I take making it as cold as I can. The coldest shower in Scottsdale doesn’t come close to that water.
We packed up camp and started down the river for our final day. We travelled roughly 4 miles the first day and had 7 to go.
My parents have some really nice kayaks with tons of space and lawn chairs setup to sit in. They look like a king and queen up on their lawn chairs kayaking next to us sitting in the other dinky kayaks they have. My mom and dad let Dresdan and I experience the king and queen kayak treatment for much of the river. My mom would drift behind. I thought she wasn’t paddling hard, was weak, or was just coasting. More on that later.
We stopped and looked at some petroglyphs that were really neat. We continued on and were searching for a cliff jump our guide told us about but forgot to point out. We knew roughly what mile it was at and were told to “look for a big boulder.”
We found a big boulder. There were some trees that needed to be climbed through to get behind the boulder. Garrick and I got out of our kayaks and made our way through the trees. Now we had to navigate our way on top of this boulder. I found a tree that could be climbed so I could shimmy up the boulder. I was on top!
I went to the edge. I asked my dad to poke his paddle into the water to find a deep enough spot to jump. I could see the huge rock in the water that I needed to avoid. Next to us was a smaller rock. The water was clear in front of it. We realized that was definitely the cliff jump our guide was talking about. But it was like 7 feet high. Hardly worth it. Our jump had the exhilaration of needing to clear a huge rock to be safe, plus about 15 feet of air.
I jumped quickly. Can’t think about these things too much. What was way more exhilarating than the jump was the icy plunge. Again, it was freezing!
We continued our kayaking. We were going very leisurely, taking our time. The last thing we wanted was to get to the ferry with tons of time that we could have spent on the river or hiking. There was a hike we intended to do still coming up. It was likely our last activity before the last miles to the ferry.
We came to the hike and for the first time realized it was 5:00pm. We didn’t want to be kayaking after the sun went down. We probably would have enjoyed that hike a lot more, and done a lot more exploring, but we were now in a rush. We quickly went through it and got back to our boats.
I swapped kayaks with my mom. Remember earlier when I thought she was just weak? Now that we were in a rush everyone started paddling as quickly as they could. We were on a time crunch.
I paddled, and paddled, and paddled, and watched everyone fly ahead of me. I was quickly at least 200 yards behind anyone else. My mom wasn’t weak, the kayak she’d been using was a brick!
I’ve hiked rim to rim at the Grand Canyon and that was the hardest single physical act I’ve ever done. This might have been second. It was grueling.
Part of the problem was the wind blowing against us. If I stopped paddling for 10 seconds I’d lose 5 minutes of work. It was brutal. I decided I couldn’t stop paddling for even a second or else I would get pushed back and have wasted all that energy. I started counting my continuous strokes. 300, 10 second break. Start over. 400, 10 second break. Start over. 500, 10 second break. Start over. 600. After 600, I stopped counting, I never stopped. For almost 2 hours I didn’t stop paddling for one second. No water breaks, no breaths.
I couldn’t decide what was worse – paddling as hard as I could and watching everyone fly ahead of me, or paddling as hard as I could and watching Easton in my dad’s kayak, not paddling at all, getting further ahead from me.
It was hard, and awesome.
We got back to the ferry, emptied our kayaks, loaded them into the car, and it was now a 4 hour drive for each of us to our respective homes.
It was an awesome trip. We’re already planning our next one. Next time I’ll probably bring my inflatable kayak. I recommend this trip to anyone. It was great.
No Coincidences 