Location: Grand Canyon National Park
Date: January 21-27, 2024
Distance: ~280 miles

My last two trips down the Canyon were 20+ day self support solo kayak trips and I was ready to share the experience with someone else. The only catch was I only had 8 days off of work, so it'd have to be a quick trip. And in the spirit of adventure it made sense to go all the way to Pearce. It wasn't an easy sell - paddle 40 miles per day, for 7 days, in the middle of winter, but a good friend from college agreed to come along and I was stoked for the adventure.

The forecast coming into the trip looked dubious. No snow, but lots of rain for the first two days and then lots of sun after that. With the pace that we were paddling we got to Phantom Ranch (mile 89) in just about 2.5 days. Robby had forgotten sunglasses (which we didn't really need yet given then rain), so we figured we'd try our luck and see if there were any for sale at Phantom. The answer was no, but then we saw the printed forecast calling for rain to continue through the next 2-3 days. We were having a good time, but that certainly wasn't a morale booster.

The days flew by as we kept to a pretty routine schedule. We'd both start breaking down camp once it started to get light around 7am, get on the water by 8:30, and paddle a variable amount of miles before eating lunch at some iconic location in the canyon. It felt a little sacriligous to see Nankoweap or Elves Chasm from the river and just keep paddling past - but miles had to be made. If it was a smooth day we'd get to a camp around 4:30pm or if we were trying to push we'd keep going just until dark around 6pm. Set up camp, eat some food, and repeat the process over. We started off making around 38 miles per day and then slowly ramped up from there. The biggest day was 47 miles. This trip also gave me lots of respect for the speed record - 34 hours is absurd.

That all being said it was a really fulfilling experience. It's always good to step out of the connected world and do something a little harder than you normally would. There was much more of a focus on the whitewater since we were paddling all day, and we were pretty evenly matched skill wise so we only ended up scouting Hance, Horn, and Crystal. Everything else was read and run (or I had written down the lines from a previous trip) and that helped us stay efficient on the water. Plus we rented Stinger XPs so the skeg and length helped us keep a good pace.

Would I do the same trip again? Yes, probably in a few years though and I'd take out at Diamond Creek since you could easily get there in 5.5-6 days and have extra time to enjoy the side hikes in the canyon. Having more daylight would also be huge, but permits for any other time of year are just so hard to get.

Here's a list of camps for the trip:

Day 1 - Tatahatso (mile 38)
Day 2 - Nevills (mile 77)
Day 3 - Mile 118ish (a random, no name camp)
Day 4 - Tuckup (mile 165)
Day 5 - Indian Canyon (mile 207ish)
Day 6 - Surprise Canyon (mile 250)
Day 7 - Takeout

Feel free to reach out if you’re planning a similar trip and have any questions!

I also make a video last trip talking about some of the specifics of self support kayaking which may be of interest: