WATER, WATER & MORE WATER

When we finally got out of the water and rounded the corner we had a fantastic sight awaiting us. Another pool of water but this was a warm pool with running water and the sloping canyon walls (combined with the excellent traction on our shoes) with a touch of water splashed on the rock...it was the perfect mix for a fantastic waterslide (although not as fantastic as some we later encountered). We played in this pool for waaaay too long and Norm kept trying to get us to leave but we loved it here. The water was a little over 6 feet deep and in the picture you can see in the water where it suddenly gets dark. That was a rock shelf about a feet under the water that just cliffed straight off from there like a swimming pool. We were jumping, flipping and sliding around in this pool alot. We even took turns doing backflips into the water, dunking wars, and at one point we all found our own special part of the canyon walls above the pool and jumped into the water for a picture...but I don't think it turned out.

From that point we couldn't get OUT of the water. Before long we reached the next obstical...known as "Fat mans misery." It started with a 12 foot waterfall over two rock shelfs and into shallow water below. A large smooth black rock had rested itself nicely at the top of the fall and someone had wedged a piece of webbing into the crack for a hand hold. Once again we found ourselves turing belly-side to the rock and shimmeying down until we could touch the second rock shelf,,,from there it was a short jump into the water...(I'm standing in an alcove at the base of the fall)...but that is not the misery part...

THIS is the misery part. These boulders have fallen into the canyon and wedged themselves between the rocks...on a normal year the water would be much higher than this and the hiker would be forced to take off his/her packs and dive UNDER the water,,,swimming blindly beneath these boulders to the other side. I was rather looking forward to that based on what I had heard from friends and other hikers...but when we got here we found the water so low that, as you can see, we were able to just let the current float us through. But you may have noticed that our pacs are floating in many of these pictures. You see...we gave up on trying to keep them dry, it became quite pointless. It got to the point where we would just take the packs off and throw them into the water before us...and many times we would have to stop and dump the river-water from our packs. This is why I STRESS to you...DOUBLE AND EVEN TRIPPLE BAG ANYTHING IMPORTANT! Check it all and if it is something electronic like a camera...wrap it in a thick towel and THEN put it in a ZIP LOCK bag. We didn't realize it until we got home, but as we took the camera out for pictures...our hands were wet so when we put the camera back in the bags...they were wet so the bags got wet. Luckily nothing was ruined or even damaged (except our guide book because I forgot to bag it) but it is a smart precaution. Learn from our mistakes please.