Just a few photos and video links
In the last newsletter I sent you a teaser from the Grand Canyon National Park video series. Here's the rest of them:
http://www.nps.gov/grca/photosmultimedia/grand-canyon-in-depth.htm
Some guides like to fire beads made from river mud while on a Canyon trip. They glob a bit of mud into a bag, bring it to camp, show the folks a few design tricks, let them have a couple of days to make their own beads using knives, forks, & sticks, then the guide fires them up in a coffee can on the coals. This is the result. Afterwards, folks string them up for necklaces or ankle or wrist bracelets with twine the guide's brought. Nice memory from the Canyon, huh? Shockley fired these up for folks last year:
Schockley’s idea of breakfast just above Unkar ;-)
Ever wonder what they did with the stuff they got out of the Bat Caves?...
Ever noticed those Tarantula Hawks (huge black and orange wasp-like bugs flying around camp)? Wondered WTF? Check this out... I"ve seen it in real life, and everyone on the beach was silent, watching the horror…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUzrC5lUZYk
Erika's flip of the Okeechobee in Grapevine last spring (everyone was okay, and the boat ding-free!! If you download the photo you can zoom in.):
The eclipse of the moon last April, from a great camp on the island below 193 mile, photo Jerry Eisner.
Some very cool videos of what a bird called the American Dipper (formerly known as a Water Ouzel, which was my favourite name) does. First time I saw one do this in a steep whitewater cascade while climbing in the Tetons in the early 70's, I thought the bird was committing suicide!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV6IDY1TSC0&spfreload=10
and another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyFEbuy8RUg&spfreload=10
What guides do best: tellin' stories around the campfire (again, c.o. Jerry Eisner):
Some early pre-dinosaur tracks on river right just below that rapid with the fun waves below House Rock:
Tellin' stories again: floating past the 40-mile Marble Canyon damsite, rafted all together and reading from Fedarko's book...
Ever wonder what the ruin right up on the rim above Nankoweap looks like?:
Pretty cool, huh? Mud and daub. Right under a lip at the brink... for hunters? Signalling to the granary watchers 3,300 feet below?
Cool shot of scouting Hance:
Private boaters running Lava here... tandem, one boat left, one boat right. As you can see, the boat on the right didn't have such a great run... and the boat on the left?... look closer... no shorts!
Speaking of nude, here's Gar (closest to right shore) and I swimming Lava in 1979, right run, at 2,500 cfs (they were working on the turbines). See the rocks that create the Ledge Hole and Humpback Chub? Sorry Mr. Ranger, the first wave sucked our shorts off!
And just a favourite shot of some favorite folks:
Now for some fun video links:
Here's the classic river game: What do you call it?...
Ammo Can game video.
And finally, you've read Andre's Red Knickers story I wrote about boatman rituals? Well, here it is. But would you like to see it in action?...
Monte doing the above Lava secret ritual ;-)
