^ On the first day everyone was busy figuring out how to make the rafts go the way we wanted them to go, specifically, downstream. Not as easy as you might think.

^ Day One - Almost immediately after the start, the walls start to close in and you realise that once you're in there, you're really in there for the duration.

^ The milky water of the Little Colorado at its confluence with the main river. The sediments in the joining stream change the chemical makeup of the river from this point onwards. One consequence is that there are no fish to be found downstream of here. Last chance for a fish supper.

^ Hugh poses shirtless in the tunnel to the suspension bridge at Phantom Ranch. This is the halfway point, about a week in. From here it is possible to hike out.

^ Karen and Donnie - Captain Sideways 'steers' his raft through a rapid as Karen, on lookout, fears for the direction they are taking. Her fears would prove to be well founded before the trip was out.

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^ Angie at the prow appears to be travelling solo here, but Hugh is back there somewhere manning the oars, steering a steady course.

^ Kipper - Kipper McGuire storms the line - no wave high enough, no hole deep enough to stop him.

^ More Kipper - You can tell that Kipper learned his kayaking the proper way. Textbook style all day, every day.

^ Cuan - Cuan McCarrick, sitting in a wavetrain, waving.

^ Ninja Kevin - Kevin Power showing off his ninja prowess to the amusement of myself and Lorna.

^ Splash - Hugh dive-bombs into a pool on our of the side hikes.

^ Kipper surfs - Kipper catches a surf on the way down somewhere. Longer flat-hulled boats are the weapon of choice for the shallow waves on the river. Shorter playboats can't catch them, and they're a pig to paddle for all the flatwater.

^ Snowy top - A snowy covering all across the top, and that's just Brian. Note also the snowy covering all across the top of the canyon.

^ Coran - Trip organiser Coran Kelly, a study in hues of yellow and orange.

^ Side canyon - There were plenty of interesting side-hikes up little canyons carved in strata out by streams. Beautiful as they are, these places can be lethal as flashfloods from rainfall miles away can rage down in seconds. Not that any of that would put you off exploring.

^ Brian again - Such magnificent peaks, such rugged handsome contoured lines, such . . . oh, wait, I've done that joke already.

^ Oar work - Kipper leans into the oars, while John catches some sleep in a patch of winter sunshine. Rowing the raft was the best way to keep warm.

^ Dots in ruins - Daithi sitting in the ancient Native American ruins high above the water. People used to live here, subsisting by herding animals and fishing in the river.

^ Contemplation - At Phantom Ranch Dearbhail hiked out as she only had so many holiday days to take. That's why Brian is looking glum, presumably. I don't know what's wrong with Hugh though.

^ Lee's Ferry - This is the scene at the start point, where the entire contents of the blue bus were loaded on the rafts. Everything for the two week trip is either here or it's not coming. Here the canyon hasn't begun and there is road access, the last road until the end, 225 miles downstream.

^ Packing break - Angie takes a beer break from loading the rafts at Lee's Ferry.

^ Ladies - Dearbhail, Karen, and Angie having a laugh and a beer at Lee's Ferry before we set off. Loading 3,000 cans of beer is thirsty work.

^ Raft flip - When Captain Sideways flips a raft, he flips it good. It took eight men to right this fully laden raft. Karen has still not completely forgiven Donnie for the quarter-mile swim she took as a result of his helmsmanship.

^ Zen Jim - Taking a time-out for meditation.

^ Rock wall - This is a fairly typical section of canyon, although the wall colour changes greatly depending on what the rock strata is at that spot. The river meanders constantly and you're always rowing towards a slow bend. It draws you on.

^ Lovely couple - Brian and Dearbhail in the evening sunshine. Once you were off the water, the priority was making camp, getting the fire going, and having dinner. After that it was all about sitting around having a beer and enjoying the sunset.

^ Grizzly Jim - This trip was probably the longest time I've ever gone without shaving. Scary beardy man in the wilderness. No wonder we never saw any mountain lions.

^ Stylish raft flip - The white helmet at the back of the raft is Karen being dumped unceremoniously into the river after Captain Sideways hit the hole in a full-on broadside fashion. Note that the good captain is not pictured, having abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble.

^ Campsite - A typical campsite with gear hanging up to dry and tents pitched all around. Most of the campsites are beaches created by fast-flowing side rivers dumping their sediment on joining the slower Colorado river.

^ Donnie poses - A stream comes in at one of the side canyons. Despite the arid environment of the desert, a constant supply of water in places like this provides opportunity for plants to grow.

^ Lorna - Lorna looks lost in thought here.

^ Cooking pot - A pair of Dutch Ovens like the one shown here were used variously for cooking Chicken Kiev and baking sponge cake. We ate well on this trip, thanks to American quantities of snacks and catering supplies.

^ Jim works - On Lava Rapid, I work to get through the waves. This is the biggest rapid on the river, at the 179 mile mark. It's one of those rapids where you lose your bearings when all the horizon lines show nothing but whitewater. This ended badly for me.

^ Hugh in shades - Hugh looking beardy, posing with shades.

^ Grizzly John - As the trip went on, the menfolk started to look more and more part of the old west. John looked even more the part with his cowboy hat and a cigarette.

^ Grizzly Brian - In the woolly hat and shades, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard, Brian started to resemble a certain Irish comedian.

^ Lorna on the bus - On the bus out from Diamond Creek, Lorna looks relaxed.

^ Grizzly Jim - The latent red-hair gene is always there, lurking in every Irish man. It comes out when you don't shave for weeks and particularly when you go to America.

^ Kipper paddles hard - All the good kayaking shots are of Kipper, probably because he paddles in a new school style - all vertical paddle action and aggressive forward-leaning posture. The rest of us are old school; we don't do vertical or aggressive.

^ Angie suited - Helmet, check. Buoyancy aid, check. Drysuit, check.

^ Bren prepares - Above Lava Rapid, Bren shows the fear, or maybe he's just warming his hands.

^ Hugh ponders - Stroking his chin, Hugh ponders his options.

^ Moon - The moon rises over the bluff on a typically cloudless night. In the darkness of the deep canyon, the moonrise was always dramatic

^ Jim on the lip - Each rapid begins in the same way - a green tongue funneling down into a wavetrain, with each wave being higher and steeper than the previous one. The trick, more so for rafts rather than kayaks, is to pick your starting spot carefully. I plot my course.

^ Kipper picks his line - Looking downstream at the start of a rapid, Kipper figures out where he's going to go next.

^ Kipper on the tongue - Having got his setup right, Kipper charges down the line into the wavetrain.

^ Cuan paddles - A little new-school action from Cuan, getting that paddle up there in the air.

^ Solo boater - Taylor was running the river solo and intending to spend 25 days in the canyon; for a change of pace he elected to hang out with us for a few days. Of necessity, he was travelling light and had no beer. We swapped him some cans in return for some of his, eh, exotic tobacco, for which we found space in one of our cakes.

^ Pink Panther posing - Looking very 70s here, Pink Panther lounges against a board. He's quite the hipster snowboarder, with the bored, louche attitude. All he needs are some baggy snowboard pants around his knees. Well, if he had knees.

^ Cave man and his paintings - A short distance from Whitmore Wash, Kevin checks out the ancient cave art painted by the Native American tribes who lived in the canyon.

^ Diamond Creek - At the take-out, the last raft gets dismantled and loaded onto the truck for the steep climb out through the Indian reservation and back to Flagstaff.

^ Light writing - Just in case you were wondering where you are, Donnie writes it out for you in big bright letters in the sand.

^ Laden raft - Angie at the prow, Brian mans the oars, and Hugh rummages for biscuits on a laden raft. We had four rafts like this one. This one is packed with sleeping pads, a spare set of oars, a stack of personal drybags behind the seat. Buried underneath all that are tables, chairs, food boxes, a toilet, tents, first aid box, and the kitchen sink.

^ Moon over the mesa - The early evening when the sun sets and the moon starts to rise is the time when the canyon really comes into its own. The light changes continually and the shifting hues of the rock colour make the hardship and work all worth it.

^ Breakfast - Chef Donnie, in his baby-grow thermals, serves up breakfast, while others begin the process of packing the rafts for the day. A hot breakfast was a vital component of the morning's activities.

^ Truck out - A happy but mostly grizzly crew on the back of the truck hauling up out of the canyon at Diamond Creek on the last day. Looking forward to showers, shaves, and comfortable beds.

^ Cuan on the plateau - As we approached the final stages, climbing out of the first few terraces of the canyon revealed a widening plateau. Here, Cuan goes exploring.

^ Bridge - The bridge at Phantom Ranch is the first sign of human activity after a week of being in the canyon. Meeting other people at the ranger station was an edgy experience. They seemed so loud and overbearing, but also curiously fragrant.

^ Fruit and vegetables - The oarsman in each raft sat on top of sleeping pads stacked on iceboxes - this one was a store of fresh fruit and veg. The bottom of the icebox sat on the floor of the raft in constant thermal contact with the river. At the end of the trip, there were still slabs of ice underneath them.

^ Loading beer - The most organised aspect of this trip was the beer. Many things were left to chance, such as learning to raft, cook, and survive in the wild, but the beer logistics had its own spreadsheet from months ahead of time.

^ Norbert - The old-timer in the centre is a legend of the Grand Canyon. Between professional raft guiding and personal trips, Norbert has probably been down the canyon more times than anyone. He marked up our guidebook with helpful advice on the best campsites for winter sunshine and where to find firewood. His longest trip was a six-week adventure - as he said himself: "Hey, it was the sixties; none of us had jobs."

^ Ranger Peggy - The Park Ranger's checklist included equipment check, cursory contraband search, explanation of the park regulations, as well as passport control, seen here.

^ Kayaks on the beach - We had a flotilla of five kayaks accompanying the rafts. Kayaking was a good way to keep warm but it was often more tempting to clamber into a raft and stow the kayak on the back.

^ Volleyball in the cave - We didn't have an orchestra to fit in the huge cave, so we set up a volleyball court instead, using two oars and a safety rope. We played a lot of evening volleyball on this trip.

^ Incident at Bedrock Rapid - This is Kevin, Lorna, and I unintentionally running the left channel of Bedrock Rapid, a rapid sometimes called 'Go Right Or Die.' The raft pinballed off every available rockwall and we had to scramble to keep it upright, to the amusement of all but ourselves.

^ Jim takes off - Launching off the top of a wave, I get a little air going into the whitewater below.