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Now 73 years old and back to scaling the Cascades’ volcano peaks, prolific Centralian mountaineer Neal Kirby took a break from his normal mountain climbing adventures recently to visit northern Arizona and embark on a 16-day rafting trip through some of the Colorado River Basin and the Grand Canyon.
He has hiked in the Grand Canyon before, but this was his first time truly exploring the northern Arizona part of the river basin by raft.
“I’ve done the rim-to-rim hike, did that a couple of years ago, from the north side to the south side,” Kirby said. “But I was there for the first time 59 years ago, because my grandmother, when I was 14, took me to all the national parks in (the Southwest).”
Kirby visited The Chronicle earlier this month to talk about some of his favorite parts of the rafting trip. He had just returned from climbing Mount Baker again.
While Grand Canyon National Park encompasses 1,902 square miles, the entire Colorado River Basin covers approximately 243,000 square miles in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and even stretches down to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.
Kirby’s trip involved both rafting and hiking throughout Grand Canyon National Park with a rafting service. Together with a group of 20 other rafters and seven river guides, Kirby embarked on the 16-day trip throughout the park, traveling a total of 226 miles. The Grand Canyon is 275 miles long.
Seeing the Grand Canyon from the Colorado River was awe inspiring, but Kirby also thoroughly enjoyed exploring many of the river’s tributaries and distributaries.
One of those was the Havasu Creek, located on the Havasupai Indian Reservation.
“We went up a portion of that and took our life jackets on like diapers, and then went floating down the river,” he said. “... And I’ve been down to the Havasupai Indian Reservation before, twice before I’ve gone down with the climbing club before. That one particular canyon, Havasu Falls Canyon, it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s got aqua blue water and orange sandstone all around it.”
Havasu Fall’s turquoise pools are world famous, but given their remote location on reservation land, a permit from the Havasupia Tribe is required to visit them — unless you’re traveling with a paid guide service like Kirby.
Other areas they explored included Lava Falls, Lees Ferry, Diamond Creek and more.
As for his fellow rafters, Kirby was joined by three of his fellow climbing club members, but the rest of the rafters were all strangers. Everyone got along well, he said.
“We all got along great. It was really a good trip. I haven’t seen that always happen, where you throw a bunch of people together, and there isn’t even one harsh word between them,” Kirby said.
This might have been helped by the trip’s guides, who established a rule at the beginning of the trip.
“One thing they said was, ‘Let’s not talk about politics,’” Kirby added.
The guides — from Canyon Explorations — provided a lot more than just navigation of the rivers and creeks of Grand Canyon National Park.
“They knew the geology. They knew the history. They all seemed to be thoroughly informed,” Kirby said.
As for what he has planned for the rest of this summer, Kirby hopes to summit all five of the Cascade peaks again.
“Last year, I almost got it done. I got the first four done, and then I was going to do Mount Adams. I had it scheduled for Aug. 10, but then, Aug. 4, the fire started and they shut the whole area down,” Kirby said.
Mount Rainier is his first target for this summer. He hopes to reach the summit by the end of the month if weather allows.
