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Dear Bob and Sue: A National Parks Podcast

#23: Dories, Ho!: Floating the Colorado River Through the Grand Canyon Part 2 of 2

Dear Bob and Sue: A National Parks Podcast

Matt and Karen Smith

Society & Culture, Nature, Personal Journals, Places & Travel, Science

5.01.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2020

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this second part of our mini-series about floating the Colorado River in a small wooden dory boat, we share stories from our second trip through the entire length of the Grand Canyon. We describe some of the breathtaking places along the river that we didn’t see on our first go around, as well as our runs through two of the most extreme rapids in the country. If you haven’t already listened to Part One of this series, you might want to start there. In that episode, we discuss the logistics of a Grand Canyon river trip and what it’s like living on the river. Spoiler alert: both of these trips were adventures of a lifetime. Your bucket list will get longer after listening. And at the end of the episode, we answer a question from our mailbag. Some of the topics we discuss in this episode: We start the episode talking about Karen’s idea of what a bucket list is, and some of the adventures still in our bucket. (This sentence will make more sense after you listen to this episode.) What it was like to float the entire length of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon Descriptions of our day hikes, including Elves Chasm, The Patio, Havasu Creek, and more Floating down the Little Colorado River wearing oversized diapers Our impressions of running two of the biggest whitewater rapids in the lower 48: Crystal Rapid and Lava Falls How the beach below Lava Falls got its name Links to more information: To see photos from our travels, visit our Instagram account, or TikTok account Where to get a copy of our book by the same title: Dories, Ho! List of concessioners who run commercial boat trips Where to learn more about our books and travels Join the conversation on Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

What puts the mighty in McMillan mighty hikes?

0:03.0

The adventure with my mates.

0:04.6

All the different emotions you go through.

0:06.8

The memory of my late wife.

0:08.4

Knowing that I'm helping support people living with cancer.

0:12.1

Grab your boots and take on one of 15 stunning hikes across the UK.

0:16.4

Do it as a team, with friends and family.

0:19.0

Or rise to the challenge by yourself.

0:21.5

Every step, sweat, tear and smile will make a difference to people's lives.

0:27.2

Such mighty hikes to sign up today.

0:30.1

I wonder if he was worried about getting to the last couple of days on the river

0:33.7

and all of his passengers have run out of booze and now they're cranky.

0:37.6

No, what he was worried about is that we would run out of booze and start drinking his.

0:43.6

Which again, spoiler alert also happened.

0:56.5

This is the Dear Bob and Sue podcast.

1:03.3

Our stories of adventures and misadventures as we travel to all the U.S.

1:07.4

national parks and other public lands.

1:09.8

I'm Matt Smith.

1:10.8

And I'm Karen Smith.

1:11.9

We are the authors of the Dear Bob and Sue series of books.

1:15.5

Today's episode is the second in our two-part Dorishoe series.

1:20.4

In our last episode, we discussed our first trip down the Colorado River in 2016.

...

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