WHITEWATER RAFTING THE GRAND CANYON
280 Miles - June 01 to June 18, 2018
Cliff Schinkel, Charles Kersch, Carlin Kersch, Kevin Lay, Triorco Unanue, and Lara
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Rigging Day | Day 01 | Day 02 | Day 03 | Day 04 | Day 05 | Day 06 | Day 07 | Day 08 | Day 09 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18
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DAY 13
This is the day we have all be anticipating with dread. Well, I have anyway. We were preparing to run Lava Falls, a raft macerator that the engineer of the Grand Canyon put
there for our enjoyment. We chose a side of the river to scout from and rowed as close as we could without getting sucked into it, and tied off the rafts. Then we hiked over big
boulders to the shore along side of it and compared suggestions for how to attack this giant level-9 rapid. In short, there was a huge jagged rock on the left, a 7-foot drop into
a 30-foot wide hole on the right...and about 24" of tongue between them. The trick was to ride the tongue. Unfortunately, I missed by a smidge and got sucked into the hole.
Everything went very quickly after that. I saw Triorco at the front of our raft gasping for air as hundreds of gallons of water poured onto him, forcing our raft under. I rowed
heartily to pull us out, only to fall in again and again. So, I spun the raft hard hoping to reach the tongue. Instead, we hit the haystack and flipped like a leaf. Triorco's legs
were flying in the air as he held on to the raft. I got thrown but managed to grab the raft also. And then we rode the remainder of the rapid in the water. At the end, Charlie
attempted to rescue us and slow the fast-moving inverted raft
, but was unable to catch up before...we heard another roaring rapid coming up! It was a level-6, a long right
curving run
along a sheer rock wall. Nothing we could do; down we went. With waves hitting us in the face, we jockeyed as best possible to avoid getting pinned or shredded.
Finally we came to slower water, Charlie caught up to us, and we wrestled the raft into an eddie where we could assess the damage and Flip it back. We lsot and air pump and
two
oars, and sheered off a 1/2-inch steel oar pin. After three failed attempts at we six trying to flip the raft back, two other rafters stopped and added their body weight to ours.
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