When it rains, it pours!

I am surprised, delighted, and thoroughly honored to have been offered a chance to raft the Grand Canyon as part of a team of amazing and inspiring folks with Rios to Rivers, an Aspen-based nonprofit that is bringing students from Colorado and Chile together for the common goal of raising awareness and support for conservation of rivers, especially those threatening some of the most pristine wildernesses in Patagonian Chile. A group of high schoolers, some from Carbondale and some from Cochrane in remote Patagonia, will have a chance to experience first-hand what a large scale damming project can do to a river ecosystem and the environment upstream.

The last time I was at the Grand Canyon was 2008 when a great friend from the Peace Corps and I did a four day backpacking trip down to the Colorado and back. The word spectacular is grossly inadequate to describe the experience. This trip will be three times longer and cover nearly 300 miles from Lee's ferry all the way to Lake Mead. I'm thrilled to be a part of this amazing exchange and hope that I can use my lenses to do a sliver of justice both to the location and to the special people with whom I'll be sharing it.

See you all on the flip side! -RBL