Year's ago we took Anna Lou on a little rafting trip from Glen Canyon Dam down to Lee's Ferry and back. It was really fun and so pretty. A few years ago I heard about a backhaul service that will take you from Lee's Ferry to the dam and then drop you and your kayaks off to go back down. And I've wanted to do it ever since. So we planned a little trip to do it!
Paul, Bean and I left on Thursday morning and went over to take Bean to see the North Rim. He was too young to remember the last time he had gone. It's always a treat! And we saw buffalo! That doesn't happen very often. In the late afternoon we drove over to check in at Cliff Dweller's Lodge for the night. In the evening we had a great dinner at their diner. We even tried avocado pie for the first time...it was really good! Afterwards Paul and I went over to check out the spot we'd leave from in the morning. We also walked back to the pioneer Lonely Dell Ranch and got to pick free apricots from the orchard there. So tasty! And we went over to look at the river from Rainbow Bridge.
In the morning we met our backhaul ride at the dock and they loaded up our kayaks (we rented theirs) and took us up the river to a drop off spot just below the dam. On the way up the captain gave us a little tour and pointed out desert bighorn sheep and wild horses and other cool things. Then we got in our kayaks and got on our way! It was SO beautiful! The water was about 54 degrees that day and it felt good to get in or get splashed some to cool off. We stopped off to see the petroglyphs. We saw the people on top at Horseshoe Bend looking down at us and we spotted several herons along the way. There were springs coming out of the rocks along the way too. We found a spot with some cottonwood trees to eat our lunch under. And we paddled on. We had pretty much smooth going except for a few riffles here and there and wakes from boats of other kayakers being hauled up or fishermen. One guy pulled out a nice fish just as we were paddling by. The wind came up quite a bit just before we got back and made for harder work, but it was still great. We were tired and ready to be done when we got done. We did about 15 miles in 5 hours...started about 10 am and got done about 3 pm.
We went to Jacob Lake to spend the night and had a fantastic dinner and wonderful, cool forest walk that evening. In the morning Paul and I took another beautiful forest walk and then got Bean and had a great breakfast! We drove over to see a historic forest ranger cabin and then headed home! It was such a great little 3-day vacation!!!
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