South Rim to Marble Canyon

This is the second day of our Upper Grand Canyon Rafting Trip. This was one of the coolest vacations I’ve ever been on. I can’t recommend this experience highly enough! Outdoors Unlimited is the only company offering full paddling, and this series of posts will show you that this is the only way to go!

Sunday: South Rim to Marble Canyon

On Sunday we departed from Williams, AZ after an awesome breakfast, and headed to the Bright Angel Lodge. We stopped at the Grand Canyon Visitors Center on the way in. It was very crowded. The Mather Point overlook is right there, but David didn’t care, so we didn’t peak over the edge. There are other viewpoints closer to the hotel but we were so worried about finding parking that we missed another opportunity to look. It was oppressively humid and the sky was gray.

We took the Trans-Canyon Shuttle to Marble Canyon. I made the reservation several months in advance after following the instructions of the many helpful emails from Outdoors Unlimited. There were other options to have our car driven back to the South Rim, or to take the shuttle to Marble Canyon afterwards. We would have never made the 1:00pm trip if we didn’t stop in Williams, AZ.

Marble Canyon

There wasn’t a lot to do here, but we could walk from the single hotel to the Navajo Bridge. Navajo Bridge is actually two very closely approximated parallel bridges. One of them is the original, and the other one is wide enough and strong enough to have a modern highway cross it.

There was a mild police/ park ranger presence looking for the body of somebody who had jumped off the bridge that day. So obviously we are starting off on the right foot. We didn’t know the whole story until we were a couple days down the river. On a lighter note, Someone advised us that Condors hang out on the bridge and that is true. We saw one.

Dinner at the Lodge

We ate at the only restaurant in town. The waitress was so rude to us! But I don’t know how to describe it, it was almost like it was a joke. I mean, I got the joke. She was basically my favorite waitress ever. At one point someone asked her for water and she instructed someone else at the table to give their water glass to the person who was asking. I was laughing the whole time. I think they should make it a tourist selling point. Come to Marble Canyon to get abused at the restaurant.

Meeting with Outdoor Unlimited

After it got dark we met with most if not all of our guides and other travel companions. We had a general meeting where we discussed plans for tomorrow morning’s departure, and we were all given wet bags. There was further instructions about how to pack our backpack, and what to expect. We all went around in a circle and introduced ourselves. There would be 8 guides, and 24 passengers.

After that everyone headed to bed to sort out their backpacks and wetpacks and have one last opportunity to charge any electronics.

Tomorrow we traveled From Lee’s Ferry to Mile 20