By my third day in the canyon I was starting to figure out some of the tricks to packing my gear and getting organized. I started putting more and more of the things I might want during the day into the kayak, and also moved a couple of things I would want after breakfast (like my toothbrush) into my ammo can that would be accessible all day. These optimizations let me get my big bags packed earlier so that I wouldn’t be holding up the group when packing the rafts.
By 10 AM we had pushed off and were floating downstream. This section of the river is the end of the upper granite gorge that starts about 30 miles upstream. In this section the river cuts through all of the neat layers into the oldest rock. This layer of Schists and Granites is about 1.7 billion years old, making it some of the oldest exposed rock in North America. This layer of rock is also quite hard, making the canyon quite narrow here. However, in contrast to the previous day this day was relatively quiet in the whitewater sense. We only ran one rapid rated over 5 (Walthenberg), along with a few smaller drops.
In the early afternoon we arrived at the day’s main attraction, Elves Chasm. After tying up the rafts we scrambled up the creek to a beautiful waterfall. This “hike” (if you can call it that) is a good example of the kinds of activities we did during the day. Lunch stops with short, rugged, and very rewarding walks or scrambles. I quickly learned that doing these hikes in my kayaking booties does not work well. We took some time at the falls to check out the chasm behind the curtain, climb around on the rocks, and watch a few people go for a swim. After that we made our way back down to the river for lunch.
After lunch and filtering some water we pushed off to finish up the last few miles to camp for the evening. We pulled up to Above Blacktail Camp, just upstream of the mouth of Blacktail Canyon. After the usual unpacking and picking a spot to sleep, I grabbed the camera and headed up into the canyon to see what it was like. I was immediately impressed at the size of it, as well as the intricacies of the many layers that were exposed starting right at the mouth. It was a fun place to explore, at least until I ran up against a wet scramble that I could not conquer in the hiking shoes I wore.
We spent the better part of an hour climbing around in the canyon and at it’s entrance. After dinner I even returned to the canyon to take some photos of the milky way with the canyon walls framing the shot. It was a pretty cool place to poke around at night, and added yet another memory that I won’t forget any time soon.
Taken 10/29/21
