I was so pumped to do a lot of hiking on this trip; I’d heard so much about the hikes you can only do from the bottom up. It would be the only thing I was disappointed about. But, I understand why the Guides made their decisions. This had been a huge monsoon year already, with one disastrous & deadly trip just a couple of weeks before ours due to flash floods. Some of the slot canyons had water in them the Guides had never seen before & some were filled with debris. Also, most of our group were not hikers & not interested in hiking. It was also freaking hot. There were many things to take into consideration. The hike & walks we did were so wonderful & lovely…no complaints there. Maybe someday Danny will do one of these trips with me. Alex told me they have a special hike/raft trip in April each year.
We parked the boats right next to the huge huge huge amphitheater. (No way to get it all in the photo.)
One of my favorite views of the Canyon & river.
Hiking up to the Granary.
We all sat right up there on that ledge…we could look right into the windows.
Hiking back down…very carefully.
I loved this short hike into a Slot Canyon. It was a silent hike on the way up…there was rarely silence on this trip with 22 women along. But this was wonderful. Then on the way back, our Guide, Ryan taught us a song & we all sang. Wow…the acoustics in this canyon were great. Just the everything about this hike was spectacular!
This hike required a little swim to get to the waterfall at the end.
We took a short walk to this lovely big waterfall. We were all so excited to get to swim in CLEAR water! It felt great & everyone got in & played while the Guides filtered water for the rest of us.
Loved hiking into these Slot Canyons alongside the river.
The scenery….wow oh wow! Right when we left Lee’s Ferry we saw two rivers meet….one emerald green but the one we’d come to know so intimately, is the muddy thick brown Colorado.
Our first couple hours of rafting & we went under Navajo bridge.
This one might get blown up for my walls at home…loved this view!
Just growing in the sand right next to the river….such spontaneous beauty!
The sun setting or rising would always make the canyon even more beautiful with bits of light & shadows.
Incredible colors throughout the Canyon.
The beautiful clear waterfall we all swam under!
Our Guides were so smart & knowledgeable about the geology of the canyon & the Native American history. I wished I knew more about the rock…maybe a winter project if I can find a book titled “Geology for Dummies”.
We saw these mountain goats in a couple of different places. We saw deer, a lot of small blue herons, a million ants of varying sizes, way way to many annoying & sometimes biting flies, some birds but no condors (boo!)
You can see the cacti growing on top of this rock that sits right in the middle of the river.
This was at our camp on the last night.
My last photo of the trip.
