Slickrock and Shadow

Hatch River Rafting Expeditions:  2 S-rigs tied up at Blacktail Camp Life on the Colorado River is part of the wonderful experience of the Grand Canyon.  Although this deviates from traditional landscape photography, the river runners seem to be part of the landscape here and photography of such can be rewarding.  Although the rafts are not particularly aesthetic, the background more than makes up for that shortcoming! Above is a photo of our camp at Blacktail Canyon.  Below are some pictures of Blacktail Canyon and other images from the river at various locations. Blacktail Canyon:  sandstone layers upwards to the top.   Hatch River Expeditions at Granite Rapids!  Exceptional Adrenaline! Gordon Smith at Lava Falls Rapid (I'm quite happy here!)

Carbon-Lava Loop leads through some beautiful terrain in the Grand Canyon Carbon Canyon leads up to an elevated valley which then connects nicely with Lava Canyon and then returns to the Colorado River.  This loop hike lets you see 2 canyons for the price of one.  Carbon Canyon is muav sandstone and boulders.  The connecting valley reminded me of Death Valley and its' "painted hills."  Then Lava Canyon consists of a beautiful clear stream flowing down red, sharp lava rocks. This loop is sometimes called the Carbon Chuar Loop. This a pretty easy hike with only 2 boulder-rock pile ascents total.  The rest is pretty easy with near-level walking through either dry or wet washes.  The narrow section of upper Carbon Canyon is shown above is is lovely.  My personal favorite section is hiking down the cool clear waters of Lava Canyon stream.  This area is absolutely beautiful but difficult to photograph.  It's one of those places that is am...

The Tabernacle:  a panorama from the top of this monument! From left to right the formations are Cape Final, Jupiter Temple, Venus Temple, Apollo Temple, Unkar Delta (the Colorado River), South Rim, Solomon Temple.   J.P., our hiking trip leader, a seasoned veteran of the Colorado River, said he hadn't done the Tabernacle hike in many years.  He'd done it just once before, maybe 10 years earlier.  With our Hatch hiking-focused rafting trip, he wanted to attempt this pinnacle again.  We got the talk the night before:  2,200 feet elevation gain and then loss, no water, hard, no shade. "Some people might want to skip this one and stay at the boat," he said to the group, "especially if you found some of the other hikes difficult." J.P. pointing to the tiny peak in the middle of the photo:  that's the Tabernacle.  This is 1/3 the way up the trail already. We started at the river at a nice sandy beach.  We'd return to this beach ...