Controlled Chaos

So 16 people who are making this Grand Canyon trip arrive on the river's edge at Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River on March 4th.  The Ranger gives us permission to rig our rafts, launch our 3 dories and we all start unloading the gear, the food, the required equipment and what we will take with us into this large cleared area that soon starts looking smaller and smaller as we fill it up with stacks and piles and occasionally lone items.

At the water's edge, John from Moenkopi Riverworks lays out the 4  18 foor NRS rubber rafts and inflates them using a large electric compressor designed for rafts and points to those of us who are there to start carrying the metal raft frames from the trailer and placing them onto the rubber and start strapping them down. We add an additional frame at the back of each with a heavy duty drop bag for storing things in covered with a metal cover. We add oar stands and oar locks, We strap on 2 spare oars per boat. We add the straps for the gear bags that will hold our personal waterproof duffels called dry bags.. Individually each raft is taken to the back of the trailer so a very heavy very large ice chest can be slid into the raft and straped down.

Pam Mortenson and  have purchased the food for the trip and it is now organized into the coolers.  We will use each cooler for 1 week so the meat products have been frozen into them by Moenkopi in their large walk in freezer. We will have one opportunity per day to get into the cooler for that week. The dry goods have been organized into numbered rocket boxes and they are loaded. Additional rocket boxes, now holding firewood but soon to hold all the human waste that our group generates are  loaded. The toilet seat and supplies are loaded ( 1.6 rolls for every 10 people per day of the trip or 3 rolls per day for 21 days, and 5 rolls for each of the last 4 days and a few spares) Our major and personal first aide kits are loaded and strapped in. The kitchen boxes and dish pans and soap are loaded/ The strainers that we will strain the dishwater through as we pour it out are loaded. the floor of the kitchen that we will carefully clean off after cooking to keep from leaving micro-trash at our campsites is loaded. Our hand washing stations and water purification system is loaded. The cameras and tripods are loaded.

All of the gear is either loaded or put back into the trailers as we realize that we have brought too much stuff or there is duplication.  After all, what is on the boats has to be rowed 288 miles down the river.  We can leave nothing in wayside dump stations,  There are none. Dave Mortenson makes the final decision as to what we need to take of group gear. Lists are made and saved of what went into what raft. Pam has the food organized the same way.Our drivers are ready to take all our vehicles to the end of the trip and park them/.We move the loaded dories down to the river runners campsite and tie them up for the night. I get off the shore first, rowing over several items gravity loaded into my rower's foot well for the short trip down that I have to find room in the hatches for tomorrow. We have a dinner to attend and the last packing of our personal gear at a motel tonight.  Susie Too is home on the river and I will be as well tomorrow.