Scoop Fountain Hills: Kayaking

"Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures." Naturalist Henry David Thoreau

That's basically what we had to do this morning in order to tag along on a kayaking trip down the Salt River with my fellow volunteers at Liberty Wildlife. People normally tube down this thing, but I've never wanted to do that, and Michael did it years ago. So we jumped at the chance to go with a bunch of folks that were familiar with the river and could help spot birds & wildlife. I have to admit I was a little nervous at first. Neither of us have ever kayaked a river before. But I have canoed and I have kayaked and I have definitely rowed a dinghy (when the engine konked out), so it all came back to me. We met at the Saguaro Lake Ranch, something we didn't know existed. You can rent cottages there.

Safety first! A man drowned in this river just a couple of days ago while tubing, so on the vests went.

Starting out, we had cliffs on one side,

and the Stewart Mountain Dam on the other.

Still upright after the launch. That's always a good sign.

As we were paddling along, we noticed a man on the top of this cliff.

Here's what he was about to do. And did.

Alrighty then. We'll stick to our kayaking, thank you.

You'll note that in almost all those pictures, no one is paddling. You're just going with the current, so the paddling is just to keep your kayak straight and to give you some stability when you get into some ripples or shallow areas. We added a little excitement when we hit some Class 2 rapids. Depending on the water level, these can be non-existent or crazy. We were at about a water level of 900 to 950, so had a medium experience. That was good enough since we were still learning how to maneuver these things. Those that didn't want to go that route didn't have to. They headed right, while we headed left.

Lunch break (of course, we didn't bring lunch).

On to the mud cliffs, where a peregrine falcon family was living (but I didn't see).

At one point, we came to a point where the Verde River merged with the Salt River. There are some rapids there, so both my hands were on my paddle, which means no photos. Later, my attempt at a selfie turned into what looked like me photo bombing Michael.

So we had someone else take our picture. I swear, I was not trying to block him.

We saw a lot of birds, although no eagles or ospreys. We didn't see any river otters either. But we did see some feral/wild horses. So cool.

The trip was a 4-hour trip, about 13 miles, which was just right. We'll see how my arms and hands feel tomorrow.

It was a great day. The best part was that I didn't get my non-waterproof camera wet, which was actually quite a juggling act. The monsoonal moisture cut us a break all weekend - a dry heat is a crock of you-know-what when the monsoon season kicks in. You're looking at 80%+ humidity plus over 100-degree temps. Bleh. But not this weekend.

You can go down the river without a guide, but we were led by Dylan from South by Southwest Adventures, and he knew where the shallow spots were, protected us from whirlpools, and drove us all back to our cars from the end point. Of course, now we're considering getting our own kayaks. It's really a nice way to spend the day. The main thing will be planting a car at the end point.

Now where were we?