An adventurous trip canoeing down the Colorado River.
Launch time is 10:30 a.m. on an Arizona Saturday morning, so we decide on an overnight stay at the Gold Strike Casino Hotel. A little gambling, a little dinner, then off to bed early.
It’s Saturday morning and we have to be at the Allen Bible Center (which is an information center) no later than 9:30 a.m. in order to be inspected by the Bureau of Reclamation. The Coast Guard requires certain items for water safety; one bailing bucket per canoe, 15 foot rope or cord to tie in equipment, and a flashlight. Life Jackets which are, of course, required were provided with the canoes and three oars per canoe. There is a short drive from the center to where we launch the canoes, so we load up the busses that are provided for us with our equipment and canoes. The access road is approximately 2 miles and is paved from the lower portal gate to the bridge, but after that point it turns into a narrow dirt road and steep trail.
After going through the gate, we drove down a couple of miles of steep, narrow, winding road. This area is not normally open to the public and they usually don’t allow large groups in the area due to a past history of vandalism and littering, but we convinced them that we would use trash bags and leave the area cleaner than we found it. At the bottom of the bridge, we stopped and unload our equipment and canoes. Since the area we are launching from is inaccessible by vehicle, it will be necessary to hand-carry our gear and canoes about 300 yards down a dirt road to the river. We loaded our equipment into our canoes, teaming two people per canoe and we were off with out maps and information about the sites to watch for along the trip. The water was cold, but refreshing on this hot summer day. Some of us are first-time canoers and really feel the excitement mounting as we start down the river.
The water in this area has very little flow, which required a lot of paddling and made our start off a little slow. Mile markers on the Nevada side of the river are white signs with black numbers, not to be confused with the navigation markers which are red or green signs. A few hundred yards below the launch site we come upon a long sandy beach scattered with willow trees. Just past the beach and up the lagoon, we come to the rain caves that have a mixture of hot and cold water drops. As we get to the end of the lagoon, we beach the canoes and walk up to the sauna cave. The sauna cave is warm upon entering and gets darker, warmer and wetter as you head towards the back of the cave. It is so dark that we have to use our flashlights to find our way. It’s about fifty yards to get to the back where we end into a wall with crystal rock and hot water running down. It’s quite steamy! A dam was to be built here, but when they started to build a tunnel at this site, they ran into hot water and had to abandon it. Travel Blog
We go back down to the beach and climb into our canoes. As we head back down the river, we find another beach that hosts pools of hot springs. We found the water running into the springs to be cold, but the water bubbling up from the bottom of the springs was hot, so between the mixtures we got a very nice, comfortable water temperature. We take care getting in and out of the pools as the algae on the rocks tended to get slippery plus we didn’t want to step on the few frogs that shared their pool with us. As we again climb into our canoes to head further down the river, we notice the water to start getting rough so we guide the canoes over to the left where the water is a little smoother. A few yards below Gold Strike Canyon, down the river on the Arizona side, is another “hot” waterfall. This one is within a few feet of the river and a little larger, but not quite as hot as the first one we encountered. Just past the waterfall we find a palm tree, which stands out like a sore thumb, and is the only one of its kind on the river.
We have traveled approximately one mile on the river to this point and have experienced quite a bit already. About a third of a mile past the one-mile marker is a large canyon with a nice, sandy beach which is called Boy Scout Canyon. We didn’t dock our canoes, but the information that we had told us that there were more hot springs and hot pools up in the canyon. We are now approaching Ringbolt Rapids, which is marked by a large ringbolt set in a rock on the Arizona side about 250 yards above the rapids and about 15-20 feet above the high water mark. This is one of many ringbolts used from 1865-1890 to wrench steam boats up through the rapids. Travel Chacha
We decided to camp for the night at a beach just above Ringbolt Beach so we docked out canoes and tied them to rocks on the beach or whatever was available. After setting up camp, we went for a hike to find the large waterfall that was supposed to be in the area just a few miles up a small stream. As we neared the stream, we saw that the stream ended (or began, however you want to look at it) about 500 yards from the river where we docked. We called it the disappearing stream. It was a strange site and the only thing we could figure out was that the stream flowed down into an underwater cave. We found the water in the stream to be hot in some areas and cold in others and we had to climb several small, but slippery waterfalls to reach our destination. When we finally reached our destination, which was a large waterfall that fell into a nice large pool, we were ready for a long swim. The falls were beautiful and well worth the climb. We were, however, careful not to get the hot water in our nostrils because we were warned by the Forest Service that the amoeba that grew in the pool could make us deathly sick. By the time we hiked back down the stream to our campsite, we were exhausted and ready for a good nights sleep. We first had to satisfy our hunger, so we quickly set up camp and prepared for a barbeque on the beach. After eating, we sat around the campfire; we went over the events of the day and made our plans for the following day. Labh Janjua
Sunday morning brought out some of the fishermen in the group, but the time for fishing was short as we had to get started back down the river. We took down our tents and packed our equipment into the canoes, but found that the water level had gone down about four feet during the night so we had to drag the canoes down to the rivers edge to resume our trip. The water is a little swifter here and that makes the rest of our river ride a little faster. As we continue our trip, we are already planning to do it again. It’s been such a wonderful experience thus far. The early sun on the river is a site not to be missed along with the ducks paddling around and the fish jumping out of the water. The river is so green in this area, but so clear and clean that we can see the bottom in most areas. In fact, we saw very few weeds in the water of any kind.
Just before we came to another set of rapids, we spotted a water cave that you can go back into about forty feet, so we did. We took our four canoes into the water cave where it was shady and cool and just what we needed after canoeing miles in the hot sun. After we were cooled off a little, we headed back out to float between the rich, tall red canyon walls. Three more miles into the trip we come across an interesting diagonal fault across the Arizona face of the canyon. This is Weeping Canyon Wall. Soon to follow is ‘”the balanced rock” and a natural stone arch “window” on the Nevada side. Such interesting sites to behold and if that wasn’t enough, we spotted Bighorn sheep on the cliffs above us. Wild burros are also common in the canyons, but we didn’t see any on this trip. Between mile six and seven we find a formation on a canyon wall that resembles the backbone of an animal. Geologists call it a dike, but the locals call it the dragon’s back. At mile nine, on the Nevada side, is the old gauging station. This was used for monitoring water levels, flow rates and silt contents. There are two cables above us and a catwalk on the Arizona side. One of the cables has a cable car that provided the guager access to both sides of the river. The other cable was known as a restriction cable, which was used to monitor private boats as they were not allowed above this point of the river. Many parts of the trip have been lessons in history. At about mile ten is a Historic Landmark sign, which marks the trail that leads to what is left of the guagers residence. Further down the river just before the mile eleven marker on the Arizona side are a group of buildings that are part of the National Fish Hatchery. The buoys floating off the shore indicate that boats are not allowed (this includes canoes and kayaks). If we had been more ahead of our schedule, we could have stopped just below it and walked back up to see the trout. Our tight schedule didn’t allow us the time on this trip. We had to meet the buses at a certain time, but let me tell you, this is one trip that will never be forgotten and I would highly recommend it for any adventurer.
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