alvars.us

Today was the day of the big canoe trip. Went w/ a group from the base on an organized trip down the Colorado. We put in at the base of the Hoover Dam (very cool!) and floated downstream for about 8 hours.

Putting in at base of dam

Other Direction from dam

Now that is a nice picture and the trip started out nice but the wind picked up later and well, more on that in a minute.

We weren’t out that long and we stopped at a cave (sauna cave) which is about 150 feet deep and is man made. It’s just a square tunnel dug through the solid rock walls. It was made back in the 30’s when they were surveying for the dam. They made the tunnel to test the strength of the rock walls but hit a spring (a hot spring) and had to move on to another location.

View of river…

We stopped along the way at interesting canyons and at hot springs. We canoed into small caves and had a really good day. Now don’t let the calm water fool you, the wind picked up and got stronger and stronger. At times, the wind which was blowing upstream was making waves in the river that broke over the bow of our kayak and slowly filled it with cold water.

A few pictures of places we stopped to hike or sight-see

 There was a pontoon boat that went with us down through “black canyon”.  Good planning by the MWR people who put the trip together.  On of the guides said that after 43 trips this was just about the windiest he’s seen.  We started with 11 canoes and kayaks, but only 6 finished the trip.  The other 5 had to be towed downstream because they couldn’t finish the trip against the wind.  Depending upon who you ask it’s between 8 and 14 miles from the dam to Willow Beach where we ended.  There are markers on the river that indicated it is about 10 miles.

I presume it’s called black canyon because of a stretch of narrow canyon with deep dark walls half way (or more) betwen Hoover Dam where we started. We stopped at 3 hot springs and had lunch at Arizona Hot Springs.  I hiked there a couple of months ago from the road.  It was just as busy and crowded this time as last. Lunch was provided by MWR and was a HUGE sub sandwich, potato salad, chips and fresh fruit and lots of cold water.

Anyway, a great day.  No pictures of the lower half of the run because we switched from a canoe to a kayak when some of the other people got on the chase boat and I was afraid of getting the camera wet in the kayak.  Good call too, because we really got wet!

Kudos to Nellis AFB MWR for a great trip!