San Juan - May 1999 - Page 4

The next side canyon we stopped at was Slickhorn Canyon.  The major attraction at Slickhorn are these plunge pools dug out of the softer rock by occasional flashfloods and erosion.  It's about 6 or maybe 8 feet from where I'm jumping to the water below in the picture to the right.

Tom (in the picture to the left) decided that it was just as much fun to wade in to the clear water.  We hadn't seen clear water in a number of days.

We also stopped at Grand Gulch because I had heard that there were Hisatsinom ruins that you could go see.  I found out later that the ruins were miles up the gulch.  So my trek to see the ruins was a bit of a waste of time but it was good excercise.

Tom rowed the last 7 miles or so.  On the first trip (a mere month earlier) these had been hellish miles as the water was low, dragging us on sandbars and moving very slowly which meant paddling a lot.  On this trip, well, that 7,000 cubic feet per second meant that we hit bottom just once and the river flowed swiftly all the way to the take out.  Tom did a hell of a job rowing though, I assure you.

So, at the take out, we had gotten in a day early.  The arrangements had been that the folks at Recapture Lodge would drive the truck down the day we actually got in or the next morning (when we planned to get in).  The drivers for Recapture were all there and the truck wasn't, so they would be driving it in in the morning.  That meant that if I could get a ride out to Recapture Lodge, then we could save the shuttle money.  I did get a ride in the back of these smelly hippie peoples' Jeep.  I'm sure I was pretty ripe myself!!!  My butt got sore, I bumped my head, but you know it was a good ride and I was glad to have gotten it.