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| Canoeing | 6.70 Miles |
1,135 AEG |
| | Canoeing | 6.70 Miles | 3 Days | | |
| 1,135 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | Great trip with the local Flagstaff Meet Up group! Special thanks for Mark S. for putting this all together. Not an easy task with 25+ peeps!
The trip started Friday morning. At 4:30am, Todd and I drove from his house in Kingman to meet up with a several others at the Willow Beach take out area. We loaded our gear onto the guide's trailer and drove back to the Hacienda Hotel to meet the rest of the crew. Just after leaving, I realized I forgot my ID and was not sure I would be able to go on the trip. 
After some anxious time waiting for the BLM guy to arrive, Mark, the trip leader vouched for my identification and they fortunately let through the gates at Hoover Dam.
We all teamed up and made several (hundred yard) trips with each others' gear, and then each team spend quite a while rigging up their canoes. At the dam, the water was extremely smooth and there was NO WIND (yet!).
Several of the group met at the sauna cave (and several accidentally floated on by). We did a quick explore of the cave and sweated off any sunscreen that had just been applied moments earlier. The cave was pretty wild and I'm glad we took our headlamps (see pics) and explored.
As we paddled downriver, Todd and I engaged in many heated altercations on proper team-rowing technique until he finally accepted my (cough!) noob YouTube wisdom and started paddling correctly (  hopefully he does not read this...hehe). We had one scary moment in Ringbolt rapid, but made it through unscathed. [Later found out someone from our group did not have such luck and did flip...losing a few bits of gear (and almost a life) in the process.]
We quickly setup camp (after I scurried off the BIGGEST wild lizard (chuckwalla?) I had ever seen) and started up canyon for the springs which were pretty terrific. However, it was hard to relax at the springs with nagging visions of brain-eating amoeba plaguing my every thought...eventually though, I found the SWEET spot, which was flat on my back in the first and shallowest pool, head propped up on a sand bag pillow. I even dozed off a few times!
The next day was a "free day" and we had the entire time to hike and explore the area. I wanted hike the White Rock Canyon hike so I could log it here on HAZ, so off we went! We had heard there was a "loop" back to the springs and we decided that would great as long as we could find the beginning of the split! We came across other hikers in our group with the same intention and between the 7 of us, found the other trail and came to first and most dramatic drop off. Here, we came upon a dad down-belaying his (very scared) 9-year old kid through this 25' shear drop. Another in our group found a walk around just right of this steep pour-off, but it was also very steep and required cautious down-climbing!! We had a couple of hikers from our group turn around here, but 5 of us took this route with any incident!
After that initial pour-off, the slot continues with a few more (easy) downclimbs and we eventually reached the Rock Art area (see pics) and then finally, the top of the hot springs!!
That night, Todd and I enjoyed freeze-dried cuisine as others in our group had to suffer with chicken, pasta and sausages...we all sat around the campfire each evening and enjoyed each other's company.
The next day, Todd and I loaded up and were the first out in our group (being the "noobs" we had the least amount of stuff to pack)! Unfortunately, The wind was freakin' brutal and we had a very difficult time even paddling down river. Other groups had left earlier and experienced several bad flips. One group even paddled back, leaving their boats/gear and hiked out of White Rock.
Todd and I had a few close calls but stayed close to shore as we muscled through all the whitecaps! We had to make several stops to rest as paddling into such a strong headwind was extremely taxing!! Around 11-11:30, the wind died down a bit and we enjoyed the last 1/2 of the trip back to Willow Beach. We were the first to arrive and hung out with some french fries until the rest of the group should up about an hour later!!
Great trip! Very glad I went!! |
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