We camped on the third night on a huge flat sandy beach downstream of Pierce Ferry rapid on river left. It got colder that night and wet cloths that were hung out no longer dried over night. But we took our jackets off as soon the sun came up the next morning. On the fourth day we floated and paddled for a while, trying out each other's boats, and then put the flotilla back together and motored out. We ran Iceberg rapid (small at this lake level) as a flotilla, which went fine, but the more conservative thing to do would have been to have ran it as individual boats. Iceberg rapid is just as you enter the lake, and it would be harder at lower lake level. The lake water was clear and warm and we motored across to South Cove, which was easy to find. We derigged on the side of the boat ramp, using about half of the width of the ramp, which had very little traffic on a Monday and was an excellent place to take out. Then we picked up a vehicle in Ash Fork, dropped off a passenger in Chino, and were home to Phoenix before 9:00 pm.

We did this trip during a scheduled "constant flow" experiment, when the river was held at 13,000 cfs for two months, which worked out great for us. The water was very clear when we started, but got brown as it picked up silt below the high water level of lake Mead. Unstable cliffs of silt up to 30' high continuously collapsed into the river, even at constant water flow, and sounded like far-off artillery on the third night. Four days was adequate the way we did it, but we could have used more time for hiking. Without a motor, it might have been possible to float the flat sections at night as a flotilla and sleep on the boats, but one would have to be very careful not to float over Pierce Ferry rapid in the dark. Even in the daytime, we should have broken up the flotilla farther upstream of Pierce Ferry to make sure we didn't go over it tied together.