We woke with the sun and packed up our camp. We had spent the night at Soap Creek, a small campsite that was just before the Soap Creek Rapid (5-6). There is nothing like starting your day at 9 am by jumping in a boat and getting splashed by cold water first thing. It is quite the wake up call.
It wouldn't have been so bad, but the actual sunlight that hits the canyon floor is very limited due to the steep canyon walls. So after getting soaked, we stayed in the morning shadow of the canyon walls for about an hour after that and it was pretty chilly.
The morning was also the start of our decent into another layer of rock formations, the Toroweap Formation. This layer averages about 255 million years old and is composed of pretty much the same material as the Kaibab Limestone above but it is darker in color.
A little farther down from Soap Creek, I took the oars down Brown's Riffle (2). On July 9, 1889, the President of the Denver, Colorado Canyon and Pacific Railroad, Frank Mason Brown, drowned at this point when the boat he was in capsized. He was not wearing a life jacket. Thankfully, this riffle was just a few little splashes for Handy Man and Matt in our big, 18 foot raft - and we all had life jackets on!
Handy Man took the oars back for Sheer Wall Rapid (2-3). It looked a little bigger to me and I did not feel like poking a hole in our boat today. The walls were lined with sharp, jagged rocks jutting out into the river.
Amazing and beautiful, they were worn from millions of years of rushing current.
Seventeen miles into our river trip we finally came to House Rock Rapid (4-7)- The second largest rapid in the Canyon I would get to see this week. House Rock was a household name. I had heard many stories about House Rock already. When Handy Man was just 11 on his first trip down the river in 1992, Matt was unable to skirt around the last large hole on the left side of the river that forms at most water levels. As Matt hit the hole head on and the raft wavered, Handy Man was pitched overboard.
We had a Grand Canyon movie night at my in-laws the week before we left. I was able to watch the old VHS video of my husband's 11 year old little body getting pitched over-board and then seconds later towed out of the water by his father.
House Rock already had some history with this group.
This was definitely a rapid the guys planned to scout carefully.
There was something about the way they watched the water and talked about the rapid that comforted me. But I honestly did not want to know all the details. I think ignorance is bliss sometimes.
They let Handy Man go first. In fact, it was becoming a pattern on all the bigger rapids that Handy Man and our boat was the designated "Crash Test Dummies."
House Rock Rapid is the first significant drop that awaits boaters as they make their way through the upper reaches of the Canyon. It has a reputation as the first taste of big water and it has a way of surprising people. The rapid makes a broad right bend, pushing most of the water towards river left, where two bus-sized holes await to devour anything and everything.
This is the monster hole at the bottom!
So in we went! I had my Oh Crap Straps in hand, my helmet on tight and I was praying not to go swimming! That Handy Man amazed me in his skill and natural ability to read the water and respond without even thinking or second guessing himself. We managed to miss both holes on House Rock and come out unscathed - just a little wet. Okay, a lot wet - but we didn't go swimming.
The down size of always going first is that no one was there to take our pictures. But we sure got some great shots that day!
Here is Kenny and Oken
Last down was Craig, Ben and Josh. Josh had taken the oars all day and was exited to run House Rock. Handy Man and Kenny managed to pull off in an eddy at the bottom of the rapid so that we could video Josh's run.
The run started off pretty good. And then... well I will let you see what happened!
The shore got very frantic very fast.
Once Matt had seen them start turning sideways into the hole, he ran for our boat, jumped in and started rowing against the eddy to perform a rescue. He later said he didn't even need to look back to know what was about to happen, he just knew they were destined to flip. Kenny and Handy Man were right behind Matt. Ryan ran past me and yelled for me to grab the camera and dry bag that laid where he was filming. They jumping into Kenny's Boat and started reaching for the rescue bags.
Oken and I were left gathering all of the dropped cameras and helmets left on the shore as people went running to rescue Craig, Josh and Ben.
When the boat flipped, Ben popped out next to the boat right away. Craig
was trapped under the boat for a few seconds longer. But Josh had been
trapped for quite a while under the boat. While Matt was rowing against the eddy to catch the capsized raft, he saw Kenny and Ryan pushing off shore and finally counted three heads in the water. Matt knew we would handle picking up the swimmers and he continued racing towards the unmanned raft in hopes of catching it before it was carried even further down river.
Ben got swept into the eddy near the beach and was separated from his dad and brother. He started circling back up stream to where Oken and I were standing on shore. Oken started running into the water to assist Ben out of the river. Ben could hardly stand on his own, the freezing water and adrenaline turned his legs into jello.
Thankfully Ryan yelled at Kenny to stop rowing after the boat before he got too far through the eddy and sucked into the main current. Otherwise, Oken, Ben and I would have had to all get into the water and swim down stream if they got too far from us!
We helped Ben into the boat and Kenny started rowing through the eddy again and down stream. There was no sign of Matt, the capsized boat or Craig and Josh. We had no idea if Matt had picked either of them up or managed to catch the free boat.
We came around a bend in the river and there we saw Craig and Josh shivering and clinging to a group of rocks on the canyon wall. Kenny rowed towards them and we helped them into the boat. Craig confessed later that night that he never saw Ben in the water after the raft flipped. He never saw that Ben had been peeled off by the eddy. As he and Josh clung to the rocks, he said they both started praying together that someone had rescued Ben and that he was not hung up under the raft.
Ryan took over rowing the now very heavy raft carrying 7 passengers. A few minutes later we finally caught up to Matt and the capsized boat in a small eddy. He said he didn't see any bags floating or gear dragging and hoped we had everything still attached under the boat.
Now what???
Luck on our side, the eddy Matt ended up in had a large sand bar about 50 yards farther down river. We floated the boats onto the sand bar and positioned the capsized boat in a calm pool between the eddy and the shore.
Ben and Josh started to remove Ben's kayak that was strapped under the boat on top of all of their gear. With a some effort, the guys were able to remove the oars from the oar locks and the back up oars. You pretty much have two options at this point - keep diving under water trying to remove all the gear in order to make the boat light enough to flip or just try and flip the boat fully geared up. The water was freezing. The straps swollen with water. They started stringing lines to the raft and were about to anchor them to rocks and trees as leverage to try and flip the raft over, fully loaded.
While they were running lines, I was holding the other two boats on the sand bar. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another boat. The other group that had pushed off the same day as we did at Lee's Ferry was just behind us and coming down the river.
I yelled to Handy Man and we all started shouting and whistling to them to see if they could lend a hand. They were a strange group of people, but I was so happy to see them at that moment!
They immediately rowed over to us and started lending a hand.
One of the guys from the other group stopped us from anchoring to the trees and rocks. He said he didn't want to intervene in our plans but he said he had flipped a lot of boats and the way we were attempting to right the raft would only break a bunch of our lines. So he had us string the lines to the raft and about 10 guys climb on its back and they all started pulling and just walked the raft right over in the deeper water of the eddy.
I unfortunately only got the before and after photo. I was trying so delicately not drop my iPhone in the river while holding two boats. Right about the time the boat was standing vertical in the air, another tied raft bumped the boats and the lines got jerked and I almost dropped my phone which would have been disasterous!
Once righted, we thanked the other group profoundly. We made sure all the gear looked like it was still there and we decided to eat lunch and regroup.
Thankfully the sun was shining and the guys were able to dray out and warm up a little. We confirmed we were all fastened tight and were back in the rafts, heading down stream. I was just glad these three guys all managed to survive House Rock with out a single scratch!
One more small rapid for the day, Redneck Rapid (3), but Josh let his dad take the oars. He was still pretty shook up.
We camped that night at at a beach called Bank Left and helped the guys lay all of their stuff to dry. Josh's sleeping bag was soaked, so was their tent. He borrowed my sister-in-laws sleeping bag (who was rafting the second half of the trip).
We sat around after dinner watching the replay of the videos and trying to laugh off the day.
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