Rubber Ducks - lost at sea

With the recent publication of "Moby Duck", the travels of a heap of rubber ducks and other toys lost at sea in 1992 have been in the news lately. I remember finding a rubber duck in Thailand, but alas it wasn't one of the famous ones, which are quite distinctive and have probably all faded to white by now. I am disappointed to see that most of the images used to illustrate this tale are of the classic rubber ducky and not the ones lost at sea in this incident. This includes the cover of the book in question.

Here is a link to a story about the bounty on the ducks that includes a photo.

And another link to a story showing the fading toys

rubber ducky on Tonsai Beach, Krabi, Thailand (1-15-2010)

close up of the duck

Black Canyon Trip Teaser

Sam and I were in Vegas and somewhat stymied from some objectives by weather, motivation, and just being sort of exhausted (at least for me). After a day of playing on slacklines in a park, we decided to try a packraft trip down the Colorado River through the Black Canyon. I had always wanted to do this paddle but wasn't excited about paying an outfitter or doing a bike shuttle. This trip had the added benefit of lower elevation (warmer), hot springs (even warmer), and packrafting, which would hopefully give some of our other muscles a break.

Inflating the rafts at the mouth of Goldstrike Canyon

Late that night we camped along route 93 in AZ and the next morning (3-24-11) we packed up our gear and left the PLC (the Peace Love Car) at Willow Beach and shuttled up to the Goldstrike Canyon trailhead in Nevada. There we hiked down the canyon, inflated our rafts, paddled upstream a bit past some hot spring grottos to the steam sauna (a manmade tunnel into one side that had a hotspring and was full of hot steam). We paddled almost up to the restricted area sign before turning around and heading downstream exploring side waterfalls, canyons, hot springs, and so on. The water was very clear and cold in the Colorado and a lovely greenish color. We soaked in Boy Scout Springs and then at Arizona Hot Springs. From our web research we concluded that most of the interesting stuff was in the first 3 miles, so we spent most of our time there. Also we were hoping that the vicious upstream winds would die down in the evening. We remained in the Arizona Hot Springs 'til around 5 pm and then headed downriver (it was hard to leave the hot springs).

Looking upstream from near the sauna cave to the Rte 93 bridge

Sam enters the Sauna Cave

Sam setting up his packraft-cam

Sam in a little side canyon

The wind didn't really die down, although sometimes it wasn't as bad as others. The current was quite strong, so as long as you were at least keeping your paddle in the water you made some downstream progress (mostly), but in a few spots we had to paddle hard just to make any downstream motion. Every once in a while it seemed like the wind was really stopping, but then it would pick up again. Sam counted 1400 paddle strokes for one mile at one point. We had around 10 miles to go to the take out, and at first we could see the mile markers, but then it got pretty dark. About the time it got truly dark, the lights of Vegas provided a bit of glow on one side, and shortly after it was truly dark we were able to see the lights of Willow Beach in the distance. In true Yogaslacker form we were cold and it was dark by the time we got back to the PLC (a little after 8 pm).

Willow Beach when we got there - note duck in lower left

We semi-dried our gear and packed up and headed back to my truck where I crashed for the night and Sam continued on heading N and E towards North Dakota. It was a highly successful mission even if Sam did consider it a rest day. Hopefully I can get some of the pics from the waterproof camera or Sam will be able to put together a video from what he got that day.  If I do it again I'll take more food and enough gear to camp out.

Sam advancing (or retarding?) the timing on the PLC

As usual this is just a teaser report and more will be posted on the web page eventually. here:
RRR , Las Vegas, and Black Canyon trip report

Here it is: link to  Red Rocks Rendezvous plus trip report

Indian Creek teaser

I finally got out to Indian Creek. First with Stacy and Stephanie, then with others I met up with at the Creek (mostly Alf and Bob). It started out quite cold with a bit of snow but by the end it was quite toasty in the sun.

Lots of gear makes the leads less scary

Stephanie starts up the Incredible Hand Crack

Stephanie and Stacy hike up - we made Stephanie carry everything

I head up Chocolate Corner

For the first week we were mostly climbing thin hands and fingers with climbs like Coyne Crack, Scarface, and Swedin Ringle. After that we tended to the wide - up to full on offwidths - like SC memorial, Big Boy, Big Daddy, Right Arm, and Sinestra... Good times. I even have a little bit of skin left and definitely feel like I have improved my technique a bit.

Alf 2/3 up "Big Daddy" - embracing the wide

Donnelly Canyon - Donnelly and Supercrack walls

As usual a more complete trip report can be seen on my web page here: Link to Tom Grundy's Indian Creek trip report