“It’s 20 days long!?”

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As I mentioned in the last post, the plan was to raft the Grand Canyon from beginning to end.  Here are a few more details and a little bit of back story:

When we came down from El Capitan last september, we all grabbed a six pack of beer, a bag of chips and a seat outside and just chilled. I mean really relaxed for the first time after several days of having our asses clenched as tight as a drum. I’d never been so relieved and aware that I was on solid ground.

Side note: Going up El Capitan is like taking a greyhound bus across the country where the person next to you winds up being your own personal fear of death.  Every day you just get to know each other real well.  Maybe sometimes you fall asleep and forget about them, but sure enough, right when you wake up, right back at it.  By the time you get to your destination you’ve got each other pretty well figured out, he knows you like vanilla zingers, you know he likes the juice out of canned chicken.  But despite all that getting to know each other, when you say goodbye  you’re like “Alright, take it easy buddy.  I hope I never see your frightening ass ever again, you freak me the fuck out man.”

Sitting there eating our victory dinner in Yosemite Valley, I think Timmy picked up on the fact that we had some mixed feeling about the last few days.  He gathered that we weren’t that into being told what to do and that we’d rather just make our own mistakes and suffer the consequences than have to be guided by other people.  Obviously the rock climbing could never have been accomplished without Timmy and Dave, but we needed the next trip to be all us.

So the next day Timmy gave us the info we needed to set up our next DIY adventure.  He said “Listen, you guys need to get back to what you do best.  Enter the lottery for a permit to raft the Grand Canyon on February 1st, and when you get one in 3-4 years, call me and I’ll help you set it up.”   He kept referring to it as the greatest trip on the planet, but I was a little skeptical.  Needless to say, we followed his instructions.

Fast forward several months and I get this text from Heath—->

I got a little sidetracked with the excitement, so I forgot to ask what our date was. I couldn’t believe, that after all these stories of people waiting 6, 8, 10 years to raft the Grand Canyon in a private raft, that we had our permit in less than one year.

But then it all made sense when I found out the date (over the phone).  Nobody wants to go rafting in the middle of winter.

So we’ve got some momentum now, this is our third trip in three years.  Might not sound like much, but it’s not easy to come up with and plan trips where you do something you know nothing about.  It can’t be too easy and it can’t be 100% suffering.  This time we invited two more people for the first time as well.  That’s also not easy.  You’ve got to find friends that are spontaneous, kind of tough, and cool enough to get along with your eccentric copilot.  So that’s where Ben Gilley and John Santos come in.  I’ll tell you about them in the next two or so weeks, so swing by each day and I’ll share the story the best I can.