Day 13 - Mile 190 Camp to Mile 216 Camp

Between Wes’s evacuation last night and our reaching Diamond Creek (the end of our river journey) tomorrow, the mood had become more subdued and reflective.

Since we were now short a guide, a lot of reshuffling as to who would row which boats had to be done. Leonard took over the dory, Robin the paddle boat, Kayla and Daniel remained in their oar boats, Ivan was promoted to being allowed to take passengers in the third oar boat, and Olivia and Mitchell (assistants who were not allowed to take passengers) took the gear boat by themselves.

Wes had been asking Herb and me all along the way, when were we going to ride with him in the dory. Figures, I finally told him that today would be the day, and then he goes and gets evacuated. Leonard was now in charge of the dory, but I wasn’t sure just how much experience he had in one, so I chickened out. Maybe tomorrow.

It was a pretty mellow day in terms of rapids. The only ones of note were 205 Mile Rapid (a 7) and 209 Mile Rapid (another 7). At this point 7’s were becoming less intimidating and more fun.

As we got further down the river, the canyon began to widen and open up.

Many of the rock formations looked like ancient temples

We pulled over to camp on a nice beach around Mile 216, which meant we only had 10 miles to go before reaching our take-out point at Diamond Creek tomorrow. Wow! The end of this trip was starting to feel real, just when I was really getting into the groove of river life.

From camp we had a lovely view of the canyon walls lighting up at golden hour.