Day 5

I woke up last night and saw the stars. The big dipper had fallen out of sight behind the canyon wall, but Cassiopia and Signus had risen. The moon was shining too brightly to see much else. Sunset, moonrise and nighttime are my favorite times here - the first two for their effect on the walls. It's amazing to watch the slow creep of sunlight and moonlight and their respective shadows on these rock surfaces.

Today was another day of big rapids, which was great. I rode all the way at the front of the raft for a few of them, which is definitely more exciting (and drenching) than being farther back. Even better than the rapids were the hikes - we got to hike to two different waterfalls. At the first one, you could swim around behind the falling water, and then get pushed out through all the turbulence. The second was even better, because you could swim around behind, climb up through a tangle of dark rocks, emerge at the top of the waterfall, and jump down into the pool below. Both were absolutely beautiful.


(Here's Anne jumping down. Norm took the photo, not me.)

We put in a long day on the river and made it to mile 140 or so.