ASLE 2004 Grand Canyon Scrapbook

This page is a joint scrapbook for the first annual ASLE Grand Canyon River Trip. All participants are encouraged to send text and images. Last updated October 1, 2004.

Ann reading from DownCanyon on the beach across from Three Springs.

Trip Log
by Lance Newman

Day One, Thursday, July 29

We launch from Lee's Ferry at about 9 a.m. on a clear, cool morning. The Colorado River is bright green here just below the dam, but there have been thunderstorms the last few days, so the Paria River is dumping lots of light brown sediment into the water. Soon we are floating on water the color of coffee with milk. After running the Paria Riffle, we tie the boats together and float along for about an hour while our trip leader, Matt, talks about using the groover, washing the dishes, drinking plenty of water, and how to find scorpions rattlesnakes, and mice with hantavirus. As we drift under the twin bridges at Marble Canyon and then pass Cathedral Wash on the right, we cut into progressively older layers of paleozoic sediments: the Kaibab Limestone, the Toroweap Formation, the Coconino Sandstone, and the Hermit Shale. We eat lunch on a beach on the left just below Badger Rapid. Ann proposes that each member of the trip begin to make the Canyon home by learning to identify at least five plants, five reptiles, five birds, and five kinds of rock. After lunch, House Rock Rapid is our first big one. Just below on the right, we hike up Rider Canyon, where the Stanton-Brown expedition evacuated photographer, John Frederick Nims in 1889. Our first camp is at about mile 19 on the left. After dinner, Scotty reads a short essay, "In Defense of Poking Around." Bruce reads a few poems by his dad, Amil Quayle, including one about how the Canyon gets into each of us, and one about an indestructible dachsund.

Day Two, Friday, July 30

A cool morning running down through the Roaring Twenties, several small to medium rapids spaced about every mile or so. We stop to hike at Silver Grotto, where we slip and slide our way up a series of limestone chutes to a beautiful amphitheatre. Back down on the beach we make lunch next to a big fresh rockfall, just a few years old. After lunch we row down to Vasey's Paradise, where a spring flows out of the rock about 100 feet above the river, then to Redwall Cavern, where Ann asks Scotty to read a passage from DownCanyon. A cool afternoon in the shade, rowing down to camp just above the Marble Canyon Damsite.

Day Three, Saturday, July 31

We start today off by hiking back into one of the exploratory adits at the Marble Canyon Damsite, where we turn off our flashlights to experience true darkness. Back outside we talk through the history of the Sierra's Club's historic defeat of this project. Next a mid-morning hike at Buck Farm Canyon to view a lens of Devonian river sediment sandwiched between the Muav and Redwall limestones. After lunch, we hike up Bert's Canyon to check out the remains of the boat Bert Loper was rowing the day he died in 1949. A little further up Bert's Canyon are the remains of an old USGS camp and a spring with maidenhair fern and crimson monkeyflower. We row down to the lower beach at Saddle Canyon, where we set up camp in the early afternoon. Soon most folks head up the steep, hot trail into Saddle Canyon. About a mile back, the canyon boxes out at a slender waterfall. It's a hot night in camp, with strong wind until long after dark.

Day Four, Sunday, August 1

A relaxing morning on the water, refreshingly still and cool after last night's winds. One yellow warbler flies by, but the riparian zone is quiet in August, as most songbirds are no longer defending territories or trying to attract mates. So Dan and Mary sing folk songs and show tunes instead. As soon as the sun gets good and hot, we make a steep climb up to a set of Anasazi granaries about 600 feet above the river at Nankoweap. Ann assigns the hikers the job of counting the number of bends the river takes in the long reach downstream. No consensus is reached. From our perch on the wall of the canyon, we can see below a large hill topped with several ruins, as well as the broad gravel bars, once covered with rich silt, that these people farmed. Next, we stop at Kwagunt Canyon for lunch. From the beach we look north through a wide valley to the tree-covered rim. When we stop at the Little Colorado River after lunch, it has recently flashed, so the water is a rich reddish-brown. We take a short hike along its bank and then float down to camp at Tanner Wash on the right. From camp we hike back to a throne-shaped boulder covered with petroglyphs, including the one pictured at the top of this page. After catfish and cornbread dinner, we celebrate Mamoru's birthday with a dutch-oven chocolate cake. He tells us the story of how he became the protector of the brown bears of Hokkaido.

Day Five, Monday, August 2

A cloudy morning, with rain threatening. Before we leave the beach, Lance reads a passage from DownCanyon about hiking in the Tanner Wash area. We spend the morning rowing down through Furnace Flats and into the Granite Gorge, running several big rapids along the way: Tanner, Unkar, Nevills, Hance, Sockdolager, and Grapevine. Good runs all around, except when Lance hits a big wave sideways in Hance and nearly dumps Ann in the river. At the bottom of Hance, the river cuts into the Granite Gorge Metamorphic Suite, and the walls become steep cliffs of schist, gneiss, and granite. We spend the afternoon clambering up into Clear Creek, then lounging next to a horizontal waterfall. On the way down, we run into Clair Quist, Amil Quayle, and Connie Tibbetts. Clair and Amil both started running down here in the early 60s. And Connie is a pioneering woman guide, one of the first to run the big motorized rigs. Amil, Bruce, and Eric represent three generations of Quayle's on the river. We camp under merciful clouds at Cremation Creek.

Day Six, Tuesday, August 3

This morning, Scott, Susie, Bob, and Chris leave early to make their hike out the Bright Angel Trail. The rest of us take our time packing up camp and then head down to the beach at Phantom Ranch. Emma, who has been feeling very ill since Day One, leaves us by helicopter. The pilot makes a turn over our heads on the way out and we all wave goodbye. We later learn that she has been taken to Flagstaff for medical treatment. We pick up five new participants here: Dawn, Susie, and Darel, from Cal State San Marcos, and Scott and Laurie from Oberlin. All five have made the downhill hike in record time. We stop for lunch at Pipe Creek, hydrate and orient our newcomers, and then run down through some big rapids--Horn Creek, Salt Creek, Granite, and Hermit--to an early camp in the schist. We take the afternoon to rest and recuperate, watching as the walls of the canyon upstream from here give us a spectacular show, reflecting the long afternoon and evening light. After dinner, Ann reads from DownCanyon, describing a hard winter hike on the Bright Angel Trail. Scotty reads a passage from Wallace Stegner about billboards in the Land of Enchantment. Dan sings show tunes, Mamoru plays "Sweet Clementine" on his harmonica, and Michiko sings us a lovely Japanese song about the moon rising over the walls of a ruined castle.

Day Seven, Wednesday, August 4

A big morning on the river today, beginning with Crystal Rapid, and then the rest of the Jewels: Tuna Creek, Agate, Sapphire, Turquoise, Emerald, Ruby, and Serpentine. The sun warms us up just in time to swim under the waterfall at Shinumo Creek and work up an appetite for lunch at 110-mile on the right. After lunch we hike up into Elves' Chasm, climb up behind the waterfall, and jump out into a beautiful, cool, plunge pool. The afternoon is hot, but a small, intense thunderstorm rolls through and cools things off just as we pull into camp. We watch the storm from beneath a ledge of Tapeats Sandstone. Downstream on the rim, two big boulders look like a turtle that has crawled out of its shell. After dinner, Scotty reads his favorite children's book, Desert People, along with a piece from A Canoeist's Sketchbook. Joli reads a few paragraphs from Barry Lopez's Desert Notes, in which the narrator borrows a hawk's point-of-view, in order to look down on himself as a tiny figure who blends in with the landscape.

Day Eight, Thursday, August 5

Biscuits and gravy! Grits, too! We work off our trucker's breakfast by walking up Blacktail Canyon, where we inspect the Great Unconformity in person. Matt leads us on a walk through time, in which he describes the major stages in the history of the Earth. The basement rocks here in the canyon are about one third as old as the planet. After giving the day a chance to warm up, we make a steep little climb up to Cooper's Ruin to look at a big collection of Anasazi potsherds. Back on the boats, we pass a herd of six Bighorn rams grazing alongside the river. After lunch at Randy's Rock, we nap under the ledges. A storm begins to gather and it hits us just as we drop into Spectre Rapid. The wind whips the peaks of the waves into a horizontal rain. Then real rain pounds down hard until we make it through Bedrock Rapid. We pull into a cool camp at Galloway Canyon, where Kari and some others are lucky enough to see the brick red front end of a little flash flood come roaring down Galloway. Later, we hike down to the first fall at Stone Creek which is running at about ten times normal volume, also bright red. Tuna steaks for dinner.

Day Nine, Friday, August 6

We wake up in the dark to get ready for a long hike today. Many of us are making the "Death March." Matt sets a blistering pace on the way up the first set of switchbacks near the mouth of Tapeats Creek and we all begin to wonder if we'll make it. But the morning stays cool as we walk about three miles along the creek. The sun hits the trail just as we get to the steep climb from the bottom of Tapeats Creek up to the source of Thunder River. At the top, we are hot and red, but a big creek bursts directly out of a wall of Redwall Limestone and crashes down through cottonwoods and ferns and watercress. We relax for a while, snack, and cool off, then head up another set of switchbacks into Surprise Valley. We're braced for real heat, but a big anvil-shaped thunderhead rolls in just as we drop into the valley. The silence is complete up here. You can hear the blood running in your veins and clicking noises made by insects burrowing inside the barrel cactus. Near the trail is an Anasazi roasting pit for yucca roots. Surprise Valley is a big graben-like structure, a down-dropped block with faults on both sides. On the far end, we drop down into the Deer Creek drainage and refill our water bottles at Dutton Spring, which also flows straight out of the wall. Miraculously, we are the only visitors to Deer Creek this afternoon. Our group spreads out to explore and nap, then we gather together for the traverse through the narrows. Dawn's flip-flops fall off her pack and disappear into the gorge right at the spot where the trail is narrowest--just a six-inch ledge. Larry and Bruce have made the hike in reverse to shuttle boats, so we can head directly downstream from here. Rain begins just after we pull into camp at the Back Eddy about a mile down on the left. Scott cooks great jambalaya and Lance reads two chapters from Goodbye to a River by John Graves.

Day Ten, Saturday, August 7

Bright and sunny all day today, but not too hot. We run down to Fishtail Canyon this morning and make an exploratory hike up to where it walls out in an alcove of travertine-cemented conglomerate. The little canyon is full of big blocks of polished Redwall limestone, full of stylolites and fossils. We make lunch on a little beach above Olo Canyon. While we are eating, Kanab Creek, just upstream, flashes and the river gets really thick with silt--like a mixture of chocolate and strawberry milk. Thick rafts of driftwood and other flotsam choke the main current. We push down to Matkatamiba Canyon, where we spend the afternoon. Polished limestone chutes fill the first hundred yards of the canyon and we clamber up like lizards to peaceful amphitheatre. Some stay here to relax, while others hike on upstream. We make camp on a set of limestone terraces a few miles downstream, where Scott cooks salmon steaks. Lance reads the chapter, "Havasu," from Ed Abbey's Desert Solitaire, to get us ready for tomorrow.

Day Eleven, Sunday, August 8

A cool, quiet morning floating down to Havasu Canyon. The long hikers take off as soon as we arrive, heading for Beaver Falls, about three miles upstream. The rest of us scatter up and down the first half-mile of the creek for a day of reading, sketching, napping, and poking around. Several other groups come in and out during the day. A cool afternoon rowing down through the limestone gorge to the rocky beach at Tuckup Canyon.

Day Twelve, Monday, August 9

A short hike up Tuckup Canyon in the morning. A recent flash flood has filled the narrow bottom with gravel, which makes for easy walking. Then a long morning rowing down to Lava Falls, getting hotter all the time. We run through without problems and stop for lunch on some ledges on the left. While we are eating a private trip drops into Lava. One of their boats flips and drifts by as a pair of kayakers try to haul it into an eddy. We shampoo our hair with clean water from a nearby spring and then nap in the shade. The afternoon gets HOT. Ann measures 106 degrees Fahrenheit at Whitmore Wash where we stop to check out some Paiute pictographs. We camp around mile 193 on the right and celebrate being alive below Lava with a tequila party. Matt, Darel, Mary, Dan, and others sing and play guitar till the cool nighttime breezes start.

Day Thirteen, Tuesday, August 10

Making miles today. We stop for lunch and a short hike at 202-mile. It's another hot day, so hot that a coyote comes down to the edge of the river and sits in the water to watch us row by. We camp across the river from Three Springs, where a thunderstorm finally cools things down. Downstream, in the direction of our take-out, a dark storm sits for hours and a hard wind blows out of it towards us. We hope the Diamond Creek road isn't getting washed out. After turkey stroganoff, Scott McMillin makes a toast, and everyone joins in. Some read short pieces they've read. Some say a bit about what they've been thinking. Will and Diane tell about getting engaged in Grand Canyon some years ago. Walter reads a show-stopping meditation he's written. And Ann reads the farewell passage from the end of DownCanyon.

Day Fourteen, Wednesday, August 11

Group pictures on the beach at Three Springs, then a quick and quiet run down to Diamond Creek to meet Pam Quist and the bus. Welcome back to the rest of the world!

Participants

Allen Hadley
Ann Zwinger
Bernard Rous
Bob Smith
Bruce Allen
Bruce Quayle
Chris Smith
Dan Rous
Darel Engen
Dawn Formo
Diane Carson
Emma Rous
Eric Quayle
Frank McGill
Hal Newman
Joby Winans
Joli Sandoz
Kari Fraser
Lance Newman
Larry Vermeeren
Laurie McMillin
Mamoru Odajima
Maria Bowling
Mary Newell
Matt Herrman
Michiko Wakamatsu
Scott McMillin
Scott Mosiman
Scott Slovic
Susan Bender
Susie Cassel
Walter Rous
Willis L. Loy

The Moon Above a Ruined Ancient Castle
A Japanese song paraphrased by Michiko Wakamatsu

In spring we are having a feast
In a ruined ancient castle, praising cherry blossoms.
People have cherished cherry blossoms
Drinking sake for a long period of spring time.
But I feel sad when the moon lights up sake
In my sake cup, coming through branches of
A thousand- year-old pine tree.
I wonder where has the light of the ancient period gone.

Bats and the Colorado
by Michiko Wakamatsu

Bats are mammals, not mellow leaves
Swaying in the sky in the gorge at dawn
When I awoke on a sleeping mat
Looking at Venus and the full Moon.

Bats are mammals, not butterflies,
Catching moths and flies for breakfast
Fluttering over our toilet that faces
The Canyon's red and green rock walls 300 million years old.

Bats are mammals, not swallows
Flying above the stillness of the River Colorado.
A silence we had after towering waves,
High and violent and tender.

Bats are mammals, not human beings.
Their cramped human-like faces are not for changing the environment
Their big ears are for the wisdom of survival
They live skillfully, content with the world.

Canyon Transition
by Mary Newell

So, I've been back in New York three days, and I'm still on California time. Between seeing friends and catching up, this is the first night I've gotten to bed before 1 am. And now, at around 4:30, I wake up. I seem to be swaying a bit from side to side, or the bed is, a lulling rhythm. Well, OK, I'm having river dreams, which is not surprising, since I've recently returned from two weeks on the Colorado.

There's a chirper outside my window, a steady sound. Who beats the dawn and my usual wake time by a full two hours? It's not a rock wren, insistent, intermittent. Nor the canyon wren with its melodic, descending pitch, sometimes ending in a two-note kudo. Certainly not the ravens (Ra-wrook) who cleaned up after our camps.

The trip to the bathroom is simpler - no flashlight required- but what happened to the view? I miss the moonrise, dramatic whether full or crescent as it suddenly pops up from behind the canyon walls. It polishes the water, revealing surface ridges and rhythms, leaving a trail across the river. And I miss the sounds of rising tide lapping the shore, or the pulse of surging rapids. Instead are the little red and green lights that assure me - in case I was worried - that the electronics are ready to roll when I am. But I'm still rolling to another rhythm.

By the time I'm back from the bathroom, my ears are more attuned. The ongoing chirping is familiar: Cicadas. And winding up behind that, the grating sounds of early morning traffic.

A Toast, in two parts
by T. Scott McMillin

First, to our hosts, our chefs, our locomotion, our guidebooks, our trailbosses, our heroes -- The Boatmen.

Second, I've been thinking about a passage in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Circles," in which he writes that "People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them."

I have been unsettled by wave trains and guitar chords,
cacti and chocolate cake,
by ravens walking and dories flying.
I have been unsettled by hair combs and head lamps and
"Hot Coffee!"

I have been unsettled by Muav and meteors,
by Redwall, ringtail cats, and Rous bros.;
by Granite and Lava and Hermit and Crystal—
"Thank you, Crystal."

Hot soup and Supai,
devil's walkingstick and Bright Angel shale,
every moment this river and these rocks
have been too much for me,
and you, each of you, have been
even more.

To the Grand Canyon,
the Colorado,
and all who are shaped by the river.

Transcript of an Online Conversation
forwarded by Ann Zwinger

This just came through from a boatman friend and I thought you'd find it interesting. It makes our camp at 216 sound like a very good idea although I was hoping we'd camp at 220 because it's such a great camp. Alas, looks like no more. (216-mile was our last night's camp, from which we watched a large storm thundering downstream).

Voice 1: The Diamond Creek gage for the CR shows an interesting spike in flow of about 1500-2000 cfs around 6 pm, August 12.

Voice 2: Agreed, but it's more likely that the flood happened around 5pm on August 12th., if it showed up on the guage at 6 pm...It rained like crazy when we were coming back from Diamond Creek on the 12th, but it did not rain the night of the 11th when we were camped at mile 222 on river left....

Voice 3: Just got off the river and can report that the very large, regularly used beach called Middle 220 (just below Upper 220) is no more. 220-Mile Canyon flashed in an astonishingly large way. The camp is now dissected by a gulch about 100 feet wide and 8 feet deep, leaving no more sand on each side than would fill a child's sandbox. Down to the boulders. And that is just one branch of the deltaic split of the spew. There were about three more arms below that wiped out everything in their path as well. Momma Nature sure is something when she gets riled.

List of Books from which People Read Aloud

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Ann Nolan Clark, Desert People
W. D. Ehrhart, The Outer Banks & Other Poems
John Graves, Goodbye to a River
Robert Kimber, A Canoeist's Sketchbook
Barry Lopez, Desert Notes
Kathleen Dean Moore, Riverwalking
Amil Quayle, Poems in Manuscript
Ann Zwinger, DownCanyon

A Note from Walter and Emma

Dear Canyoneers:

Forgive me for not responding sooner. The saga that began with Emma's airlift continued through changing diagnoses of virus, pneumonia, gall galdder ("didn't look so bad after all" admitted the surgeon), and mild heart attack. We were allowed to travel from Flagstaff via Los Vegas with a stern warning about stress (imagine Emma plodding like a Skeksie to the gate two minutes from departure while I assured the gatekeeper she would make it no problem. Heath issues were put on hold until after our daughter's fabulous wedding. Emma had her stent put in the day before yesterday [actually, two weeks ago now], she's home, we've taken some gentle walks, and we're ready to live happily ever after.

Now. Thanks for organizing a wonderful trip, from the interesting and joyful people we met, to the boatmen who were to a man so much fun, so knowledgeable (or delightfully inventive when necessary), so "into" it, and so helpful to Emma; to every detail of providing food, packing the rafts, and managing the herd in an unobtrusive way...not to mention that bit of spectacular real estate we inspected.

Here is that piece I wrote about the trip. Rereading it, I suddenly realized that I got it wrong. The stars do go left around Polaris--but that's counter clockwise. Rather than rewrite the thing, I'd like to ask the question "Why did the clockmakers go the other way?" Maybe they copied the sundial rather that lying awake at night watching Ursa Minor whirl around?

It will take more time to sort through our photos, but for now I'm sending in a sort of rogues gallery of Moki Mac-ers, and also us at the wedding, but think of the final one as a toast to you.

--Walter

I would like to add my personal thanks for the group's thoughtfulness and concern for my well being. It's clear that I not only missed a great trip but a chance to get to know some wonderful people.

--Emma

A Brief Moment in the History of Recorded Time
by Walter Rous

Wakeful, my skull cushioned on a folded polar fleece, I draw a bead on Polaris, who hovers just above a gunsight notch in the blackened redwall.

He has snared the paw of Ursa Minor who noses straight up as if in pain. Tethered, he will circle on his nightly prowl. I can guess he'll go left and follow the sun, but Michael Jordan sometimes faked left and went right, so I must verify.

I doze. He moves. I start, and sure enough, it's clockwise. Probably our sages borrowed his motion when they dreamed up clocks. Having figured that one out, I want to watch it happen. But my lids droop and he eludes me. All of a sudden he's done a full quarter turn. I drift again and now he's dropped behind the cliff. I struggle to wait for Michiko's moon to rise and illuminate that ancient, ruined castle across the river.

I needn't worry. Just today I learned Newman's theory of uniformitarianism. Each quarter turn, the good professor assures me (catastrophes excluded), will be followed by another and another, in an endless circle of Hopi time. Let the little bear revolve without me. I've got miles to sleep before I go. It's Mimoru's bear who needs our help. He's left the circle and come to the end of his line. He's met the catastrophe and it is us.

We, too, are traveling a line. We follow the flow, mark the miles, connect each layer down through time.

There was a young man named Matt
Who strode the eons in four minutes flat....

Guess I'll have to finish this in the morning.

I wish we could slow this down, stretch it out, catch some back-eddies. Might just as well try rowing upstream. Even Eric, young Jedi of the oars can't do that. Probably even Bruce, his time-lapse incarnation can't. I wouldn't put it past iron man Alan to try to swim it, but they'd fish him out of Lake Mead in the end.

No--go with the flow. No regrets. I'm not going to be that guy who couldn't enjoy his journey down canyon, his anticipation squelched by the ache that the more he saw, the more he'd leave behind. Maybe you can't step into the same river twice. If so, I'll take a little of it with me, remember the guys, do it on film, get it on paper, like Ann, who's got a whole lot of it down pretty right, at least until the next revision. Maybe she could add a chapter on Larry, starting with the little known fact that his body consists of 89% river water and the other half mostly silt. And a chapter on Scott, the bard, who takes it all in, reading the river and its walls as he reads his books with delight, and every meal is pure poetry...except maybe for the grits (although that too can be rhymed).

Twirl around, little bear, see if I care. I've got miles to row before I sleep. Throw your gall bladder to the ravens, Emma, dear. We'll get that much more freeboard and so a little less bailing on the next run. What lies ahead, we want to know not. What makes it interesting are the great unconformities. That's it!---

There was a young man named Matt
Who strode the eons in four minutes flat
He leapt with enormity
Cross the great unconformity,
Mankind came at the drop of his hat.

I give in to sleep with a smile, because I can almost be certain that in another quarter turn, I will wake to Bruce's heart warming bellow....

"Hot coffee!"

PLANTS OBSERVED ON ASLE TRIP, 28 JULY - 11 AUGUST 2004
by Ann Zwinger

ACERACEAE ~ Maple Family

Box-elder (Acer negundo) One of the most common trees in the canyon, easily recognizable by the maple tree-like leaves, usually three-lobed and toothed. You'll find the familiar winged fruit (called samaras, a beautiful word) only on female trees because male and female flowers are on different trees. In any place where there's enough water and shade, like Havasu.

AGAVACEAE ~ Agave Family

Century Plant/Agave (Agave utahensis) Very common, a huge plant with a flowering stalk that may be 8 feet tall and looks like a candelabra. After it flowers, that particular plant dies, but there are many small plants left around it that sprouted from the underground roots of the mother plant. The flowers are important bat food, and the big, nutritious root is often dug and roasted although reported not to taste very good.

ASTERACEAE ~ Aster/Daisy/Composite Family

Snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrace) Those little bushy, tiny yellow-flowered plants all over the place. So-called because when they're dry a couple handfuls makes good fire starter.

Seep Willow (Baccharis sp.) You all know it's NOT a willow. Check out the flowers. Big tall shrub all along the river with clusters of tiny white flowers. Very common.

Broom Baccharis (Baccharis sarothroides) More common as we went down stream. Looked like the Spanish broom planted along highways or very green and healthy Mormon Tea, with clusters of many bare stems that give it its common name.

Wire-lettuce/Skeleton-weed (Lycodesmia juncea) Small pale pink flowers that look like a phlox or something, but each petal is a flower unto itself, making it an Asteraceae; very fine wire-like stems, small shrubs usually growing singly in dry spots.

Deerweed/Poorweed (Porophyllum gracile) More common in the lower canyon, looks somewhat like Skeleton-weed except the foliage has a very bluish cast and the small flowers are white. It has dark long narrow glands all over the plant, large enough to see without a handlens, but a handlens helps. The oil in these glands, which comes off on your hands, has a strong, distinctive odor which is pleasant or unpleasant depending on your nose.

Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) One of the most common plants in the Canyon, and a blaze of glory in the springtime when it's one of the earliest to bloom. Too bad we missed them flowering but they are still easy to identify. The basketball- and larger-sized bush has very whitish-gray leaves from a thick covering of hairs that protect tender leaf tissues beneath from strong sunlight. The good-sized flowers, up to 2-3" across, bright beautiful yellow, rise a foot or more above the leaves.

BERBERIDACEAE ~ Barberry Family

Fremont Mahonia (Mahonia fremontii) We saw these in the garden at the beginning of Saddle Canyon; easily recognized by their holly-like leaves, small fragrant yellow flowers in the spring (Saddle Canyon IS a garden in the springtime!), and bluish berries in late summer and fall when we saw them.

CACTACEAE ~ Cactus Family

Prickly pear (Opuntia engelmannii) Probably the most common cactus in the canyon. Not only does it have formidable needles but glochids surround the needles, very fine short little spines that are worse than the big needles because they are not easy to remove. Named after George Engelmann, a German botanist who came to the U.S., settled in St. Louis, and was nuts about cacti and did major work on the whole family.

Beavertail (Opuntia acanthocarpa/basilaris) Look a lot like Prickly Pear but don't have as aggressive spines and the pads have a marked bluish cast. Easy to tell apart when you see the two of them together.

Cholla (Cholla bigelovii) Sometimes called "Jumping Cactus" because the joints detach so easily and seem to jump and latch on to anything handy. The only way to remove them is to slide a comb beneath you and the cactus and lift up. There are several species but their growth pattern is unmistakable.

CYPERACEAE ~ Sedge/Bulrush Family

Sedges and Bulrushes and Rushes (Carex, Scirpus) We saw these everyday, at the edge of the river or along streams, crowds of slender dark green stalks, brown heads of various designs and persuasions. Not fancy plants but important in stabilizing soil. To identify a sedge, feel the triangular stem and remember "Sedges have edges but grasses and rushes are round." Do not run your fingers down the edges of a bulrush: some are sharply toothed. There were some gorgeous ones at Ledges.

CHENOPODEACEAE ~ Goosefoot Family

Tumbleweed, Russian Thistle (Salsola tragus) The noxious weed that infests a lot of the West. Down here, where the livin' ain't easy, tumbleweed seems more interesting and ingenious in its growth form as it curls into a loose ball that rolls across the sand, scattering its myriad seeds as it goes.

Fourwing Salt Bush (Atriplex canescens) Good-sized bush with grayish leaves that usually grows where there are a lot of salts in the soil; some of you tasted the leaves and could detect the salt. "Four-winged" comes from the handsome papery seeds.

FABACEAE ~ Pea Family

Sweetclover (Melilotus officionalis) "Offinionalis" in a scientific name usually indicates that the plant has/is used for medical purposes. Everyone knows yellow sweetclover because it's so common; sometimes it grows so thickly along roadsides you can inhale the fragrance as you drive by. It enriches the soil with nitrogen as many Pea Family plants do, but topside it's considered a weed.

Milkvetch (Astragalus sp.) There are probably more milkvetches than Heinz has pickles, and they require an expert to separate species. As a genus, we recognized them by the sweetpea-like flowers, and the several leaflets on the leaf stalk which = 1 leaf. The pods are a giveaway to the Pea Family although these are smaller and fatter on the stalk. Desert varieties are often whitened with hairs to protect from the sun and evaporation.

Acacia/Cat-claw Acacia (Acacia greggii) Also known as "Wait-a-Minute Bush" which you appreciate when a branch reaches out and its little cat claws snag you on the sleeve. Acacia in the canyon is a small tree with very small leaflets and little ball clusters of flowers in the spring, pods in the fall. It is frequent in the lower canyon where we saw it.

Camelthorn (Alhagi camelorum)If you think Catclaw is bad, walk through a stand of Camelthorn like there was where we camped at Tanner Beach. It scratches and bites. An introduced weed that boatmen are working on clearing out of the canyon. It has a tiny rose-colored pink pea flower and tiny inch-long seed pods that are constricted between the seeds ~ we saw both but you had to really look for the flowers. Thought to have been brought into the West in the late 1850s, possibly in straw accompanying a camel train that traveled across the Southwest in an effort to find another more efficient way of transportation across desert areas.

Redbud (Cercis occidentalis) Too bad we didn't get to see this is full bloom, especially up Saddle Canyon or sunlit against dark canyon walls. It's a knock-out. Beautiful lavender blooms in spring before the heart-shaped leaves come out, and then dangling pods 2 to 3 inches long.

FOUQUIERIACEAE ~ Ocotillo Family

Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) Begins down around Havasu ~ a bunch of buggy whips stuck in the ground, full of spines. A really wonderful and odd plant. Whenever it rains, an ocotillo leafs out and flowers soon after, so it may flower any warm time of the year. When the leaves drop, their stems remain and harden into thorns. It's only close cousin is an odd plant called a Boojum Tree that grows in Baja California and looks like an upside-down parsnip stuck in the ground. The odd name is actually very literary ~ it was named by someone who had read Lewis Carroll.

MALVACEAE ~ Mallow Family

Globe Mallow (Spaheralcea ambigua) The big bush on the big dune beach downstream of Elves Chasm. Looked like all the mallows that are so common in the canyon but was a big bush and the flowers were more reddish than orange; most mallows tend to be a few to many stems but NOT a shrubby form like this one. We looked at the star-shaped hairs on the leaves. The flower looks like a miniature hibiscus which isn't strange considering it's the same family.

NOLINACEAE ~ Nolina Family

Beargrass (Nolina microcarpa) A particularly beautiful plant stood in a cluster of boulders just as you exited "the patio" above Deer Creek Falls. It was easily six feet tall, with a big multi-branched head of white flowers. The leaves look something like a yucca, which they are not.

NYCTAGINACEAE ~ Four o'clock Family

Wishbone bush (Mirabilis bigelovii) Scott found this bush and said he only sees it growing between boulders at Schist Camp. "Wishbone" comes from the angles of the branches where they connect with the stem. A frowzy bush with tiny tiny greenish white flowers just coming into bloom. Not a big showy plant like most of the Four o'clocks but one of the treasures in the canyon that reward having a hand lens and an affection for detail.

Four o'clock (Mirabilis pumila) This is the small, deep pink flower on trailing stems that Scott pointed out at Matkatamiba.

OLEACEAE ~ Olive Family

Single-leaf Ash (Fraxinus anomala) One of the most common trees in the canyon, lots of it in Havasu or where there's some dampness. They have winged seed pods that are called samaras just as maple trees do. You can recognize them by their four-sided branches.

ONAGRACEAE ~ Evening-Primrose Family

Hooker's evening-primrose (Oenothera hookeri) Tall plants with 4-petaled yellow flowers, frequent along the river; Scott found a patch of orange-flowered plants at Silver Grotto.

White evening primrose (Oenothera pallida) Evening-primroses are a distinctly western genus of plants, easily recognizable by having 4 rather large, delicate petals, 8 stamens on long stalks, and a 4-partite stigma like a yellow X. The flowers open in the evening with a soft aroma ~ watch for hummingbird moths pollinating them at dusk.

Camissonia (Camissonia) This is cheating because I saw this only at Havasu. It's a very unusual looking plant with peculiar basal leaves that look almost metallic, spattered with reddish-purple splotches, and a leafless stalk holding out 3/4"-wide flowers with four rounded, yellow petals but instead of an X stigma (like an Oenothera) they have a ball-tipped stigma ~ botanists are fussy.

POACEAE ~ Grass Family

Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) All OVER the place, especially as we got into the lower canyon. Successful by it's creeping growth habit; what makes it the chosen grass for places where grass is hard to grow. It's very bright green (in a landscape where this is uncommon) and the blades have conspicuous white hairs at the base. An invader which is crowding out native grasses.

Giant Reed (Phragmites communis) BIG grasses about 10-12 feet high with graceful panicles of flowers. All along the river and unmistakable.

POLYGONEACEAE ~ Goosefoot Family

Desert Trumpet (Eriogonum inflatum) A very common plant all over the Canyon, easily recognizable by its inflated stem topped by a cluster of tiny white flowers. Sometimes the inflated part has a tiny hole in it where a wasp inserted her egg which then hatched in the relative safety and ease of the inside chamber.

SALICACEAE ~ Willow Family

Coyote willow (Salix exigua) All along the upper part of the river, less frequent as we got into the lower Canyon and the Sonoran Desert.

Cottonwood (Populus fremontii) Except for along Bright Angel Creek on the way to the lodge and a few at the Patio above Clear Creek Falls, all we saw were new sprigs up to 2 ft high in gravel bars.

SCROPHULARIACEAE ~ Figwort Family

Red monkey-flower (Mimulus cardinalis) Crimson flowers on long stems come off the stalks in pairs, as do the opposite leaves. Lots around Elves Chasms, Stone Creek, Deer Creek (at the bottom), Matkatamiba, other wet places. Tubular two-lipped flowers are sometimes mistaken for Cardinal flowers (Lobelia cardinalis) which also grow in damp places. But monkey-flowers grow singly on a long stalk while cardinal flowers cluster in a group at the top of the stem and have white markings in the throat; monkey-flowers have a tinge of yellow.

SOLANACEAE ~ Nightshade Family

Wolfberry/Desert Thorn (Lycium andersonii) Fairly common as we got toward the end of the trip but also at Saddle Canyon; wasn't in flower or berry when we would have noticed it.

Datura/Thorn Apple (Datura wrightii) Unmistakable. Big white-trumpet shaped flowers that smell like petunias. The seed pods are covered with spiky thorns, hence the other common name. Poisonous although not always fatal, but still not a good plant to sprinkle on your breakfast cereal.

Silverleaf Nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium) We really only saw these one place, along the path to Phantom Ranch Lodge, growing in partial shade. Catch the eye because of the lovely blue flower which is in 5 parts but all fused together like a flat, opened umbrella, accented by a bright yellow cluster of stamens hanging out of the center. The berries are yellow when ripe.

Sketch Gallery