Lee's Ferry

These are photos from Lee's Ferry campground on the Colorado River, just upstream from the entrance to the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, circa 27 May, 2007.

This photo faces roughly north from our campsite.:
While this photo faces roughly south:

This ended our travel day on the ill-fated Buckskin Gulch expedition, from which I will post more pictures in later posts.
Our biggest problem at this campground were the very loud drunks across the road. Whaddyagonnado?
They would have been merely an irritant except we had a 5am wake-up to make the 6am shuttle to the trailhead.

Can't wait for my photos?
My expedition mate has posted his photos here.

A Tale of Two Hammock Rigs

Another photo from the Moqui group site, circa late June. [See last post].
That's not just a hammock, there - that's a habitat. It's my friend's Clark Jungle Hammock
North American deluxe model. It claims to be a four season hammock, and it colapses down t the size of a rugby ball, weighing about 3.5 lbs.
Of course, it costs over $200 as well...

Now just for contrast - not as any judgment:


his is my 10 year old son's hammock, which he got as part of his birthday present.
[Bongo's not in this photo - you can stop looking.]
It's a Byer Mosquito Hammock under some surplus tarp. It's comparable in size and weight to the Clark, except that whole rig cost less than $50.
Of course, it's definitely a summer-only hammock and doesn't have near the weight capacity.
It's great though, if you're just starting to experiment with hammock camping, and don't want to spend a bunch and then find out that hammocks make you crazy.

And yes - given the choice, I'd own a Clark.

More on Hammock camping:
Hammock Camping 101

Group Camp site

Bongo, at the Moqui Group Camp site in the Coconino National Forest, not far from Blue Ridge Reservoir, and across the street from the Blue Ridge campground. Neither of these campgrounds, though, has direct access to the reservoir - just so you don't repeat our mistakes.

The occasion was my son's 10th birthday party and/or HAM radio field day. The combined attendance required a group site. Coconino National Forest gets $50/night on the weekend for this site, which will comfortably accommodate up to 50 people (we capped out at 18 - not counting dogs). There is drinking water and vault toilets.

The entire forest, however, was under campfire restrictions, so we had to do all the cooking with propane, and substituted lanterns for campfires late at night.

This is a picnic table in the center area of the Spooner Pod.
The date is June 21, 2007.