g) Ice Chests - We had plenty of ice on this trip despite not being as strict as we could have been about cooler management. We opened coolers at lunch and frequently returned unused food and left overs to the coolers after meals. Still we had ice left over at the end of the trip. One cooler just had ice in it, and we would not have needed that extra ice. We did not put any beverages in the coolers, however. I think just two of our coolers had sleeping pads over them during the day. Things could have been different, however, had we flipped a raft and gotten river water in a cooler. That would have melted a lot of ice. Regrettably, we did have some fresh vegetables go bad before we ate them. We probably should have eaten them sooner.

h) Flows – This year there was a lot of snow pack on the Colorado River watershed. Lake Mead was low from previous drought, and the Bureau of Reclamation decided to release from Glen Canyon Dam at nearly the maximum capacity of the power plant. This gave us considerably higher flows that on our previous trip, and the flow was much more steady. We had over 25,000 cfs for all of the bigger rapids, over 27,000 cfs for Lava, and a peak flow just below 30,000 cfs. In comparison, on our 2009 trip we had about 7000 cfs to about 14,000 cfs on a daily cycle. One exception to the steady flow this year was that Reclamation lowered the flow for the 4th of July to a minimum of about 18,000 cfs. This lowered the river level by a couple of feet and reminded us how lucky we were to have steady flow and to have a higher flow than what was typical in recent years. Actual flows were 24,800 cfs on 6/27/11 when we launched at Lee’s Ferry at 10:00 am, and between 25,100 and 25,500 at Lees Ferry from 7/28/11 to 7/2/11 (at noon), dropping to a low of 18,000 cfs at 10 pm on 7/3/11. The gauge at Phantom Ranch read 25,600 cfs at noon when we passed on 7/2/11, 25,300 at noon on 7/3/11 when we ran Granite through Crystal rapids, 20,200 at noon on 7/4/11, 20,800 at noon on 7/5/11, 25,300 cfs at noon on 7/6/11, and 26,800 at noon on both 7/7 and 7/8/11. The Diamond Creek gauge peaked at 29,800 cfs at 2 pm on 7/9/11 (the additional flow coming from monsoon runoff) and read 27,300 cfs when we ran Lava on 7/10/11. It read 27,100 cfs at noon on each of 7/11 and our take out day at Diamond Creek of 7/12/11.

i) River Water Color and Rain – When we launched at Lees Ferry on June 27, the river was green. It remained green until the last week or so of our trip when we had a few days when it went back and forth between green and brown. Then there was a very strong monsoon on Friday 7/8/11 and many side canyons flashed turning the river red. We saw Mohawk flash and other trips said National, which we had hiked up that morning, also flashed and carved a new channel several feet deeper than it had been before. After that Friday, the sediment decreased and the river turned from red to brown again, but then the sediment increased again and the river was red when we took out on 7/12/11. The Diamond Creek road was passable with a 2wd van when we left, but work had been done on it recently and PRO had us load and leave as quickly as possible in case it rained again that day. We left the river by 11:30 am. Once the monsoon started, we had rain every day, some in the afternoon and some during the night, but it never rained for more than about 30 minutes at a time and most showers were of a shorter duration. We never had more than a couple of these showers in one day.