Day 2: Beamer Trail to the Little Colorado

	Medium Large	Morning view of the campsite, with everyone by me still asleep
	Medium Large	Getting ready to go
	Medium Large	Sunrise
	Medium Large	Looking up Tanner Canyon
	Medium Large	Steep climb at the beginning of the Beamer Trail, which will take us to the Little Colorado River
	Medium Large	Jason, with towering cliffs
	Medium Large	Sun coming up on the Beamer Trail
	Medium Large	Me
	Medium Large	Looking southwest along the Colorado River. Our campsite was at the base of the dark red cliffs on the left.
	Medium Large	Looking northeast, in the direction we're hiking.
	Medium Large	Jani in the bottom right corner
	Medium Large	Neat cactus
	Medium Large	The river gets split into two here, and re-converges
	Medium Large	Another neat cactus
	Medium Large	Some rafters along the river
	Medium Large	A few more pictures of rafters taken by Morby || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	The river re-converges
	Medium Large	Me and Jani approaching camp
	Medium Large	Our campsite, on a beach along the river. We'll be leaving out main gear here and coming back in the evening, so we're just taking small daypacks for the rest of the hike.
	Medium Large	Rapids near our campsite, with Colin on the beach for scale || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	From our campsite, we climb up on cliffs that go over 500 feet above the Colorado, and continue on to the confluence with the Little Colorado River.
	Medium Large	Our beach camp is on the smaller, darker beach just below the larger, whiter one near the top
	Medium Large	Side creek flowing into the river
	Medium Large	The Little Colorado Expedition Team
	Medium Large	Typical view heading towards the Little Colorado. The trail got pretty close to the edge at times, and the view was awesome. The trail ducked in and out of many little side canyons, which added a lot to the actual distance of the hike.
	Medium Large	Another view of the side creek
	Medium Large	More shots along the trail || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Rafters heading through some rapids
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Red dye in the water. At first we thought it might be a signal for help, but later found out that the USGS and other groups were doing some measurements and tests, and this was probably a part of that.
	Medium Large	Another person going through the rapids.
	Medium Large	A few more pictures of rafters taken by Morby || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	The final stretch towards the Little Colorado
	Medium Large	One of the many side canyons along the way
	Medium Large	The confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, the Little Colorado being the brown, silty one coming in from the right. Often, it's the Colorado that's muddy and the Little Colorado that's clear, but not this time. There's a big sandy island in the middle of the confluence. || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	heading into the Little Colorado Canyon, which if it were not attached to the Grand Canyon, would definitely not be called 'Little'
	Medium Large	Looking north along the Colorado River. I believe this is the point where it officially transitions from Marble Canyon (north of the confluence) to the Grand Canyon (south of the confluence)
	Medium Large	Me by the Little Colorado
	Medium Large	Jani
	Medium Large	Swimming! Despite the brown color of the water, it was still cleaner than us at this point. The water was cool, but not freezing. || || \/
	Medium Large
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Filtering some water for the hike back. Unfortunately, there wasn't good access to the Colorado River here, so we filtered Little Colorado water, and confirmed what all of the webpages I read said: It tastes like shit. It has a very high mineral content, and that was obvious in the taste. I was very happy to drink Colorado River water again once we got back to camp.
	Medium Large	Looking down the Little Colorado Canyon
	Medium Large	Beginning the hike back to camp
	Medium Large	Flowering cactus along the way
	Medium Large
	Medium Large	Neat cactus growing out of a rock
	Medium Large	Beginning the descent back to camp
	Medium Large	More cactus
	Medium Large	Sunset on our camp, as viewed from above
	Medium Large	Filtering cold, yummy Colorado River water
	Medium Large	Setting up camp for the night

Day 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - Main Page