On the third day, we rolled up the IK and paddled and rowed the other boats for about an hour and then tied the boats together into a flotilla and used a 3.5 hp motor that we brought. We had some problems with the motor initially and worked on it for about an hour while we floated until we discovered that the shut-off switch had an intermittent short. We cut the wires to the switch and the motor worked great after that. We did not know how fast we would go through gas, so we ran the motor fairly slow and went about 4.5 to 5 mph. We had about 6 gallons of gas with us and used about half of it on the whole trip. We passed some places on the third say where tourists were apparently helicoptered in and out to view the canyon. In addition, two Hualapai motor boats passed us on day 3 with just the captain's. They had launched at Diamond Creek that morning and their passenger's had apparently flown out by helicopter. They stopped and made sure we were ok and asked if we needed any ice. Then we met two rangers in a motor boat coming upstream just above recently-formed Pierce Ferry Rapid who told us that there was no way to scout it and to run it just left of the rock in the middle. They did not give us a hard time about using a motor and not having any of the boats registered. At that point we disassembled the flotilla and ran Pierce Ferry as individual boats, but did not use the IK.

The 14' paddle raft (with 4 people) and one of the 14' cats ran Pierce Ferry rapid successfully following the advice of the rangers without scouting and eddied out below. It was very big and ugly, and the hole on the left is huge and appeared to have gotten bigger and perhaps moved upstream from what I had seen in YouTube videos made in the early summer. As we approached in the paddle raft, we saw that the jagged rock in the middle extended further to the left than we thought, so we had to ferry hard to the left to get around it. That gave us some momentum to the left, which was probably not desirable. Even so, we were able to line up the big hay stack and the river turned us to the right into the large eddy. We held the eddy for a short time and then eddied out on the right bank. The captains of the other 14' cat, SOAR, and 18' cat saw that it was possible to eddy out upstream of the rapid on river left, and went and scouted the rapid. The bank where people used to scout has been washed away, to some extent, but it is possible to go higher through the tammies to scout, from the top of a 20' silt cliff, which I would recommend. But be careful, because the cliff bank does not appear to be stable. After scouting, and seeing the nastiness on the left, the 18' cat ran right of the big rock. But the captain was ejected in the hole below. Fortunately, the cat did not flip. We launched the raft, recovered captain and craft, and eddied out farther downstream on the left bank, loosing only a hat and a canteen. Next the SOAR went. He also aimed to go right of the rock, but hit the rock and lost control, breaking an oar blade on the rock. It is difficult to know exactly where to be in the current to make the turn down the right side. He went down the right side eventually and was also ejected from his boat, and was carried into the big eddy behind the rock where he was sucked under for a few seconds. I threw a throw bag from the left bank, but was far short. But after one circle around the eddy he washed downstream and was assisted by the other boaters. The last boat (Gene in his 14' cat), after watching the carnage on the right, ran left and had the best run of any of us, not even getting splashed. In conclusion, there is a good line thought Pierce Ferry rapid, but it is not at all obvious and there appear to be a lot of ways to get into trouble. It seemed like the hardest rapid that we did, by far, and I would rate it at least as a 7. In addition, Pierce Ferry rapid appears to be changing frequently. I would recommend breaking up the flotilla far before Pierce Ferry rapid and scouting it carefully.