Rising Temperatures...

Day 57: Marble Canyon, AZ

Tonight we are camping out once again, this time near Marble Canyon, Arizona at Lees Ferry – right on the Colorado River.

This morning we got an unexpectedly early wake up as some of our cell phones didn’t register the time change from Mountain Time to Pacific leading those on wake up duty to think it was 4:00 am when it was actually only 3:00 am. I had changed my watch to Pacific Time the night before so I could only laugh when I looked at it and it said 3:00 am. After double checking the time I promptly laid back down and fell back to sleep until it actually was 4:00 am.

I enjoyed oatmeal and hot chocolate for breakfast along with Birthday Cake which Allison had bought to celebrate Mark’s birthday.

We took full advantage of the fact that we had crossed time zones without going west and were on the road by 5:00 am! The first 30 miles involved a bit of climbing before we stopped at Jacob Lake for a short “snack break”. From Jacob’s Lake we descended into a valley where we stopped alongside the road at mile 50 for a van lunch of peanut butter and jelly or baloney. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich along with a raisin bagel that I had left over from the package I had bought in Zion.

After lunch we continued about 15 miles to Cliff Dwellers where we stopped to refill our water bottles before the final 10 mile ride to Marble Canyon. It was extremely hot today so when my group reached Marble Canyon we found the first group who had bypassed lunch in an attempt to beat the heat eating at a small restaurant and another group of riders enjoying slushies and ice cream at the gas station. The van had missed everyone and gone past Marble Canyon so Jon, Nick and Sehee set off to find the campsite four miles down the road at Lees Ferry and check to see if the van was there. When they did not return after a little while the rest of our team began departing for Lees Ferry in small groups. After the majority of our group reached the campground we set up our tents before heading down to the Colorado River to cool off.

With the temperature hovering near 110 degrees the extremely cold water felt good. Zach had asked Alex and I to cannonball into the water however there was no dock so we decided that we would just run straight into the water without feeling it. After Alex and I ran into the water Anish, Nick, Jon and Sehee who were sitting on the shore did the same along with Zach. A few other members of our team showed up to test the waters before we all headed back up to camp where Mike and Mark had fixed us spaghetti for dinner. Sean and I were on dish duty tonight and cleaned up after dinner.

The view from where we are camping tonight is amazing but because we are surrounded by red rock cliffs it also makes it extremely hot. So hot that when we turn on the water spicket only hot water comes out! We actually took our water bottles down to the river to cool the water while we swam this afternoon. I’m hoping to get to bed by 8:00 pm tonight with a 72 mile ride and 4:00 am wake up tomorrow morning.