Ninth river day 15.1 miles Bass Crossing 4/03/2019
Packing up after the much needed layover we prepare for 3 of the bigger rapids rated (8) on the rating scale developed by Otis R. Marston using a 1–10 rating, 10 being the most difficult. As opposed to the International Scale of River Difficulty, which classifies rapids from class I to VI and is more common elsewhere in the US and internationally. There are only 6 runnable rapids out of approximately 80 numbered rapids (According to most estimates) with this (8) or above rating in the Grand Canyon. We will be knocking half of them out by the end of today. Having previously rowed Hance (8) this will leave just Lava (9) and Upset (8) after we make it through Granite (8), Hermit (8) and Crystal (8) before arriving at our home for the night. Having watched the previous group run Granite and Hermit the day before we were ready to run them without further need to scout.
I rowed Hermit which was a fun wave train and ran it “hey didle didle right down the middle”. Ozz was up for Crystal to my relief. He rowed the large yellow raft rolling though the choppy water towards his goal: a massive lateral wave at the top of the rapid. Smashing through the goal on its bottom left, my mouth was dry from anticipation. In that instant, water came flying over my head covering my face, reliving some of the dryness in my mouth. We stayed left not daring look at the large hole on the right for fear that it would somehow suck us in.
Arter running Crystal, the last of the major rapids for the day, we quickly stop at the Ross Wheeler. It’s a small, tippy, and very heavy boat that was designed by Brett Loper in 1914 and abandoned here in 1915 by Charles Russell, August Tadje, and Leslie Clement in a failed attempt to run the canyon. We ended up staying at Bass Crossing Camp because Bass Camp was occupied.
Shortly after unloading the rafts since it was our night off, Jackie and I hiked to Bass Cable Crossing and tried to hike to Shinumo Creek Camp to see the top of the Shinumo waterfall, but decided we didn’t have enough time. Enjoying the view at Bass Crossing for a little while, Jackie decided that we wanted to try and find Bass’s inscription, which we didn’t manage to find, but enjoyed the blooming wild flowers that we were lucky to have seen. In a dessert environment, most plants only flower for a few weeks as their heat and drought resistant seeds remain dormant most of the time until next year’s annual rains. I feel super lucky that our permit coincided with this beautiful display in the overall hostile feeling desert environment.
We hiked back to camp to the smell of kabobs wafting up the valley. Brett and his cooking crew had the hardest dinners, but the best tasting in my opinion. After the delicious dinner I found a secluded spot up above the camp with a clear view of the sky to cowboy camp. I was stoked for some star gazing later in the night, however, right as Jackie and I were laying down to watch the sun set before the stars, I saw a cricket jump into a spider web right by my face. Immediately a huge black widow came charging out right beside me and pounced on the struggling cricket. As she was wrapping up the cricket, we immediately wrapped up our camp pulling out the tent, setting it up, and stuffing all our stuff inside.
For the beginning of the day we hiked up the bottom of Shinumo Creek. The day before Baldy “the chief asshat“, if you remember the guy from day 1, was ,surprise, surprise, still a dick when we saw him and his group again. He gave us a warning, saying the water was too high to hike up and we should do…. Blah, Blah….. Well I zoned out and thought to myself, “how many rafts did you flip?”, as we walked away from him. Well, believe it or not we actually made it to the base of the waterfall. The only casualty we encountered was Micah, he lost his footing wadding backdown the canyon in the current, so he floated the creek laughing and beat us all back to the rafts.
Adventures Of The Average Joe 