White water rafting on the Grand Canyon

I was lucky to have been able to go rafting on the lower third of the Grand Canyon with Western River Expeditions Memorial Day weekend with five friends. 28 people in total left Las Vegas via bus, plane, van, and then helicopter on the ultimate journey to our J-Rig rafts.

We first split the group up for two separate flights to fly to the Grand Canyon flying over the Hoover Dam into the Grand Canyon landing at Whitmore International Airport with an elevation of 4100 feet.

We waited a few minutes and saw a van driving down a hill to pick us up and head to the Bar 10 Ranch. Once at the Ranch, we waited for the second plane to arrive to head down to the helipad to shuttle us to the landing where the boats were waiting for us.

We were introduced to our guides (Joe, Jason, Corey, and RD), got our orientation, and headed out for our adventure and were now on “River Time” per our guide leader Joe.

Our home for the next few days: The J Rig rafts

To say that seeing the Grand Canyon by river is breathtaking is an understatement. We stopped along the way, for breaks, lunch, had a few rapids along the way and then stopped at our camp site for the night. The first night camping was cold and started to rain during dinner and ended up pouring for much of the night. After a long night of rain, the sun broke in the morning and we prepared to hit the “230 rapids”, discover more of the canyon, and go to Elephant Rock and waterfalls. The following night was clear and two of us decided to sleep outside under the stars which was incredibly peaceful. The moon lit up the sky until it moved across a ridge, once it was blocked but a Canyon wall, the stars really shined.