Day 6 - Upset

We awoke to a beautiful cloudy morning.  As we ate breakfast and broke camp, we were happy, because the clouds are our friends protecting us from the hot and burning sun.  Temperatures have been in the 100's but on the river it feels cooler and we keep everything pretty wet to create evaporation.

Today we joined the paddle boat.  I liked it on the flat water but in the rapids, I was concentrating on rowing so much that I missed the excitement of going through the rapids.  Mark and several others jumped out and floated through 2 rapids.  They said the liked it but no one was smiling as we pulled them back into the boats.  They were pretty cold and Mark swallowed some of the river. After lunch at Kanab Creek where it was too hot and very sunny,  I switched rafts.

We came down the river and we started to see lightning and hear close thunder.

As we approached "Upset", we parked the rafts and went to scout out the rapid.  Four of us stayed on the shore and took photos of the rafts going through the rapids in the rain.  We then hiked back and shot them with Tess.  She took us right down the middle and it was crazy exciting.  We rose high up and descended down low several times.  It was so wonderful.  I loved every minute.  I'm glad I got to do this one on day 6 instead of day 2.  I would have been scared to death, but now I am so experienced, I absolutely loved it.  It was a wild ride for sure!

Mark is on the front with the paddle up

Our guide Tess

Johnsons are happy they survived Upset

It rained again as we rowed out of Upset and the canyon cooled down and looked so pretty.  We pulled into a rock ledge place to spend the night--no sand!  2500 feet of red wall sandstone greeted us right across the river.  We set up camp and then had stew and cornbread for dinner.  It was good.  We then had an impromptu guitar/song concert by Matt and Marin.  She sang a song by "The Cranberries" called Zombie that I really liked.  It got dark to the rhythm of the guitar and we one by one went off to our hard beds on the rocks.  It was just a sliver of sky with the very tall looming wall in front of us and tall walls behind us.

After getting all situated which takes some time each night, it started to rain.  I washed my face, lotioned up, cleaned my feet, rubbed in Aquafor, brushed my teeth, put my stuff away so it won't blow away, settled into bed and said our nightly prayers.  The rain felt good and I just used my sarong for a blanket so I won't get too hot.  I can get it wet if needed.  I tossed and turned and it rained at least one more time, but I awoke rested and ready for another day.

The Legdes, our bedroom for the night