Is a Grand Canyon River Trip on your bucket list?

5 questions we wanted answers to before we went on our amazing 7 day rafting trip with Hatch River Expeditions!

Planning our 7 day Hatch River Expeditions Grand Canyon river trip

We just got back from our second Hatch River Expeditions Grand Canyon river trip. It was just as great the second time around. I remember being a little nervous about all the details before our first trip. After two trips through the canyon with Hatch, I felt like I could share a few of the things I learned along the way that will make your Grand Canyon river trip even more easy and fun! This adventure is amazing and so well planned and organized. All you need to do is make your reservation, show up and enjoy this bucket list adventure.

1. How will we pack everything we need? Isn’t it a lot to bring?

Packing for your Grand Canyon river trip is a piece of cake. Hatch takes care of just about everything for you. They bring the tent, cots, chairs, sleeping bags/pillows and dry bags for you to keep it all in. All you need is to pack your own clothing and toiletries. You can bring up to 25 pounds. It was so nice that they brought all the essentials. You definitely need to pack gear for hot weather and cold because you never know what will happen in the canyon weather wise. Bring rain gear for those pop up storms and if you don’t want to get too wet in the rapids.

Don’t OVERPACK. You aren’t going to need a lot. You will be a little dirty and that’s ok. The one thing I highly recommend is Combat Wipes to clean up with. Perfect for our evening routine. We washed things out in the river so it was easy to just bring a few things. We used this Biodegradable gel & wash for washing ourselves and clothes. I added a few snacks in my bag but didn’t even need them. See #2 about the food.

2. So, how is the food on a Hatch Grand Canyon River Trip?

In a word?? Fantastic. Really! You never find yourself hungry on your Hatch River Expedition trip. All those snacks I mentioned above? I didn’t need them and ended up giving them to our guide Josh along with our tip.

Every morning you wake to coffee ready to go as well as hot tea if that is more your thing. Cold breakfast items are available every day as well as made to order eggs and other yummy breakfast goodies. So much bacon! We were told our trip started with 440 eggs. Wow!

Lunch is all sorts of meats, salad spreads and the always dependable peanut butter and jelly. Every lunch features lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles as well as tons of condiments. They truly think of everything, There are chips, cookies and candies to top it all off.

While you are rafting there are salty snacks and fruit on board and every once in a while candy bars or sweet snacks are passed out in the afternoon. You never go hungry. Once camp is set up the crew puts out appetizers. You know, just in case you are still hungry. We never were but also wouldn’t pass up appetizer time. Then, the big meal of the day. Yummy dinners which always included dessert. We had steaks, hamburgers, tortellini, salmon, fajitas and more during our trip. Cakes or brownies out of a dutch oven would end the day. You gain weight on your Grand Canyon river trip even with all the hiking.

One of my favorite meals this time was the Cinco de Mayo dinner. All the fixings to celebrate May 5th even far away from the rest of the world. Check out the spread in the pics below.

3. Can we bring our own drinks?

Yes, you sure can. You can bring drinks to come along on the trip and even better you can order in advance and they will have them there waiting for you. They have a whole area of the raft with all the drinks and each morning we could pick out sodas or other canned drinks to add to the drag bag. The drag bag hangs off the end of each raft to keep the drinks cold and you could access them anytime. Nice treat to get a cold Diet Coke during the day.

For a girl with a Diet Coke habit this was definitely something that I was worried about in advance.

4. So, where do you pee on your Grand Canyon river trip?

WARNING- Potty talk ahead. When we were reading up on this adventure my biggest concern by far was peeing in the river. You cannot pee in the canyon because it gets very little rain and there are very few beaches. The bottom line is that if everyone pees in the canyon it stinks. So, no peeing in the canyon. This is much more stressful for women than men. 

The first day or two you are self-conscious and trying to figure out how to accomplish this without getting all wet and having some privacy. By day 3 you literally walked into the river and peed. Right there in front of the world. You just need to get it done. Everyone is in the same boat (pun intended) so you just do what you need to do. 

Call me crazy but I brought along a large, plastic McDonalds soda cup with lid in my bag. If I needed to go at night I just went right there by our camp in my cup. It saved me a lot of stress and worry. In the morning I would head down to the river to dispose of it, rinse and tuck it back away wrapped in my towel in my bag. You could use any type of container with a lid but I highly recommend bringing something. At the beginning I was embarrassed but once word got around, I was looked at as genius. Ha!

5. What about other potty needs?

Groover was not a word that was in my vocabulary until I signed up for a Hatch Grand Canyon river rafting trip. Think primitive can with a toilet seat on it. Bless the hearts of the river guides who take the groovers on and off the raft and set it up each time we made camp. Not a job anyone would enjoy.

Once the rafts are unloaded at camp the guides set up the groover first. We actually had two of them and they put them at the far ends of each camp. They try and tuck them away so that no one can see you but even still, you are using the facilities right out there in front of God and the world. It’s disconcerting for sure. Honestly, it’s one of the things I worried about the most in the year before the trip. But, it’s really not an issue.

They set up the groovers, some toilet paper and a bucket. You take the bucket from the end of the path to the groover so that everyone knows it’s in use. If you think you need to pee first, you go in the bucket and do the rest of your business in the groover. All toilet paper goes in the groover. Then you bring the bucket back out, dump the pee in the river and use the hand washing system they have set up. 

There is often a line for the groover which makes it a little more stressful. I mentioned that peeing in the river was easier than I thought it would be? Using the groover takes a lot more time to get used to. But, I will say that I’ve never had a better view while using a potty! Your Grand Canyon river trip will give you the most amazing views at all times!

If you have a Grand Canyon river trip on your bucket list you need to go with Hatch River Expeditions. Check their website for availability this year or start your planning for next year. It’s one of the most amazing trips we have ever taken. We’ve now been twice and we will do it again. Life is short. Take the trip. Do the things.

To see our daily adventures on our first trip check out my blog post from two years ago on our 2023 Grand Canyon river trip.

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Keep exploring,

Stephanie

seymoreoftheworldwithme

I was hosted by Hatch River Expeditions for this Grand Canyon river tour. All opinions are my own.