# Grand Canyon Flash Flood/ microburst @ Fern Glen 8/11/2018



## mm1234 (Jul 11, 2019)

Give us an update. Was everyone one? Annie and her arm? What about Sean and his kids?!


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

That would be the latest information I have.


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## zaczac4fun (Mar 21, 2018)

This brings up a point I've been pondering with these recent reports. What are guidelines you follow for establishing safer camps along the rivers? I am familiar with a whole list of where to avoid camping in the mountains from my time climbing, is there a similar resource for river runners?

I'll start with some obvious places to avoid:
-An obvious wash
-Under/around a dead tree


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## Zz_ (Jul 23, 2020)

The video was uploaded to YouTube in 2018. Sami Richins the OP on there never told us what happened to Sean and his kids. I assume since it was aired on weather channel everyone was ok.


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## MNichols (Nov 20, 2015)

zaczac4fun said:


> This brings up a point I've been pondering with these recent reports. What are guidelines you follow for establishing safer camps along the rivers? I am familiar with a whole list of where to avoid camping in the mountains from my time climbing, is there a similar resource for river runners?
> 
> I'll start with some obvious places to avoid:
> -An obvious wash
> -Under/around a dead tree


Don't camp in drainages, and be aware of your surroundings. In places like Grand Canyon it can always be a crap shoot, but some sites are less prone than others due to the topography


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## Paco (Aug 3, 2007)

mm1234 said:


> Give us an update. Was everyone one? Annie and her arm? What about Sean and his kids?!


If you go to the youtube comments, there's a link to a trip report/debrief on facebook. It's a good read.
Short version: a few folks were evac-ed but everyone seems to have been relatively okay. Broken arm the worst of it.


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## hooligan shmulligan (Jan 31, 2020)

What an absolute cluster fuck. Let's just mill about while someone has a broken arm and people are missing. Dude in yellow shirt seemed to be about the only person to have some direction and urgency. Beared dude in camo rain gear needs drowned, yeah let's just stand here bro and drag a ducky around.


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## Blade&Shaft (May 23, 2009)

I was guiding a commercial trip during that storm and we were camped upriver at Tuckup. HANDS DOWN the worst storm I have been a part of in my 14 years of guiding. The video posted was dramatic, but it doesn't hold a flame to what actually went down that night. 

We watched the wall of weather coming at us from upstream, and it was clear it was going to be bad. It was a vertical black line inundated with golfball size hail and torrential rain and wind. About two minutes later it hit us and within five minutes after that our entire kitchen got washed away from a waterfall spewing off the river-right wall. We managed to salvage most of what was swept into the river, but dinner was obviously cased and we started mobilizing our trip into the rafts and were ready to take off if things got any worse. Several tents were blown into the river, countless customer bags and personal gear were lost, but fortunately no one from our trip was injured. I distinctly remember running from tent to tent to check on people with a pot lid over my head for protection. The hail would occasionally hit my knuckles and it fucking hurt, otherwise I just heard the constant "ping, bang, ping" and hail would ricochet of the pot lid. It felt like I was under fire from a barrage of enemy bullets.

We counted our losses, made some soup, and called it a night. We passed a bottle around on the boats and collectively wondered how any trips camped below us at National or Fern Glen fared....

The next morning over breakfast, a park service helicopter came and hovered over our camp. We could see the pilot tapping his head, asking if we were "OK?" We tapped back and he turned and continued down stream. We packed up and hit the river. When we came to National, we saw that we had had it easy. National had blown out fucking huge... the once in a decade flash flood that we were all aware could occur at National, but had only heard about. The beach was ravaged. There were tents in the water, upside down on the beach, gear all over the place, dry bags floating in the lower eddy, cots, tables and cookware strewn about all over the place. We started to think that maybe we should be looking for bodies. Whatever trip had been there was no longer there. It was eerie and quiet and looked like a war had been had the night before. We carried on downstream towards Fern Glen. 

When we got to Fern Glen, some of the private trip (from the video) was still there, picking up the pieces. They informed us of what had went down - to the best of my memory, they had a head injury, a broken arm, and compound clavicle fracture (I wasn't able to find the trip report from the video, so I may be wrong here). The park service bird we had seen earlier was able to get in that morning and med-evac the injured up to the Rim for definitive care. 

As for the trip that had been at National, it was a two boat motor trip and they had been run off that night after a river descended from National Canyon and into their camp. They quickly decided to get the hell out of there, left all their gear, and beat feet to the safety of the river. I believe they then double-camped at Fern Glen with the private trip, helped out with injuries, food, etc., and decided to complete the rest of their river trip that day and get their passengers out of the Canyon. 

I was stoked to be a part of that storm, especially considering no one from our group got hurt. I think gnarly weather is rad, it's nice to suffer sometimes, and it puts the lesser bad times in perspective. I'll have to have one helluva storm to beat that, so now when it's windy or rainy, or really windy or really rainy, I can always say, "Well, ya know, there was this one time at Tuckup..."


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## Paco (Aug 3, 2007)

The trip report mentions the commercial motor trip coming in. Commercial trip provided the trauma doc. Private crew proved the food. Working together.


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