Friday, July 26, 2013

Down the River: Geotripper Goes Geo-Rafting

I'm on the verge of one of my great life adventures. Sunday morning, I'll be rolling over the Paria Riffles (below) on the first day of a 226 mile journey down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. I've never done it, and I've always wanted to, and after 40 years of waiting, it's happening. I'm excited to have the chance to explore the depths of the canyon pretty much for the first time. I've hiked to the river on three or four occasions, at Hance Creek and Bright Angel Creek, but those trips were decades ago, and had little to do with the river itself.

Of course, there is no communicating with the outside world, so Geotripper will be on hiatus for a couple of weeks. If you are new to this blog, this is a great chance to catch up on some of the past Geotripper series on the Colorado Plateau, the Sierra Nevada, and other wonderful parts of the world. They're listed below...

See you all in a few weeks! With pictures, I hope, assuming I don't drop the camera in the river!




The Other California: what to see when you've seen all the really famous places in the Golden State (in progress).

Vagabonding Across the 39th Parallel: A journey through the geological wonderland in central Nevada, Utah and Colorado in 2011.

A Convergence of Wonders, a compilation of posts on our journey through the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rocky Mountains in 2011.

The Abandoned Lands, a compilation of posts on our journey around the margins of the Colorado Plateau in 2012.

Time Beyond Imagining: A "Brief" History of the Colorado Plateau - this was an extended exploration of the geology of one of the great geological showplaces on planet Earth

Under the Volcano and Into the Abyss: Yosemite National Park - Exploring a few of the lesser known corners of Yosemite Valley, from below and from above

The Airliner Chronicles: My First Blog Series - Seeing geology from the perspective of seven miles above.

4 comments:

Gaelyn said...

Have an awesome time and hang on to that camera.

Tom Pender said...

I am certainly looking forward to posts on this trip. I've been keeping up (and reading older posts) with this blog for a couple of years now and really enjoy it. I hope you have a wonderful time. This trip has been a lifetime dream of mine as well. Hopefully I can make it come true someday. I am so happy for you that you are able to do so.

-Tom (Fresno area geologist)

Bruce B said...

Gerry- I put the video I took of you in Lava Falls at http://youtu.be/9hM55A-GbBo . Feel free to share it and let me know if you'd like the original file. I'm glad you were all OK and trust the rest of your trip was uneventful! -Bruce Burger, Seattle.

Garry Hayes said...

Bruce, thank you so much! I would love the file, if you could send it to geotripper@aol.com. It was fascinating to watch and see how the reality of the flip compared to my memory of it at river level.