We would like to go river rafting, but dont' want to take a helicopter or definitely not a mule.

How else do you get down there? Can you take the colorado river near boulder city or lake mead and travel into the canyon that way? How long would that take?

The first thing you need to do is start planning years in advance. Rafting permits are required for private parties, and my understanding is that the wait list is very long. You can join a commercial rafting trip, but again expect a long wait.

The Colorado is accessible by vehicle at the upper end at Lee's Ferry - this is where many rafting expeditions enter the water. I can't recall the name of the lower landing used to haul rafts out.

Some people do join or leave rafting parties at Phantom Ranch, which requires hiking into (or out of) the canyon, but this is not a necessary part of the journey.

We just took a trip down the Grand Canyon thru Outdoors Unlimited. We put in at Lee's Ferry, and had a 6 day raft trip to Bright Angel Trail. We then had to walk up the canyon (took all of the last day for us) It is a 10 mile walk out (1 mile vertical, generally is to take 6-8 hours)...unless you are in fairly decent shape I would not recommend doing the upper river raft.

While the rafting was awesome, I think If I were to do it again, and could afford a couple extra days, I would walk down the trail on Bright Angel, and pick up the raft there. It will be a 9 day trip, but from what I was told from the guests on my trip that took the full-raft trip, the rapids were much greater, and many more canyons to visit.

If you are in good shape, the 6-day river raft trip was just the right amount of time. We took 45 minute to 2 hour hikes every day, and for that alone, was worth the trip.

The following is a pretty good pre-planning guide site...

http://www.gcroa.org/Pages/guidebook.htm

You will definately need to pre-plan what you bring in...I would definately not plan a July or August raft trip, as it can get dreadfully hot...We went on a last minute trip September 15th, 2002. It was just the right temperatures...in the 90's during the day, and in the 60's at night.

Good Luck!

All trips start up river. You have three options.
1. Ending trip at the Phantom Ranch - you have to hike out of the canyon.
2. Beginning the trip at the Phantom Ranch - you have to hike down into the canyon.
3. Take a trip that startsd upriver of the canyon and ends downriver of the canyon.

Hiked down the Bright angel path and it wasn`t bad at all. I wouldn`t want to hike UP it though. Just to make things easier, we had mules take down our packs so it made it easier. You can take a motorized raft (big) or go on a oarboat, which is what we did. They hold maybe 6 people. We had a great time and will never forget it.

'z' is right, those are the choices, unless you want to do a 50 mile-ish day trip, which starts out in the lower Canyon at Diamond Creek, then goes to Lake Mead. Some raft trips, particujlarly oar-powered ones take out at Diamond Creek instead of Lake Mead.