![]() Inside the Subie, we packed bike gear, a toolbox full of bike tools and supplies, a big ice chest and clothes for two people for five days. Packing, for once, was actually less of a chore because we had extra room.Īn Ibis Mojo and a Pivot 5.7 were attached to the hitch-mounted bike rack. That meant a load of gear needed to hauled 7.5 hours from Minneapolis and back. My Subie Outback consistently averages 27 MPG so a road trip was in order. Copper Harbor, situated on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, is known for its world-class bike trails and sea kayaking on Lake Superior. However, the real value test came with how much the Rocketbox’s presence would affect gas mileage. We needed something long enough to hold my husband’s 210cm cross-country skis (mine are just measly 180cm’s) and our kayak paddles. The reason I went with the Pro 11 over the Pro 12 or Pro 14 is size. The Yakima RocketBox Pro 11 may look like car-top coffin but it has eleven cubic feet of waterproof storage capacity. In the back of my squeaky-clean Subaru Outback? Nyet! Mountain biking, kayaking, backpacking and skiing bring the dilemma of where to stash the smelly, cheesy, wet gear when you get off the trail, river or slopes. (SOUNDBITE OF BILLY STRINGS SONG, "HIDE AND SEEK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.Check out this review of the RocketBox 11 from. RUNYON: A trip where no one has to hug a bucket.įor NPR News, I'm Luke Runyon in Grand Junction, Colo. I, like - I am chomping at the bit to go back down and have a different experience. Even with all of this stomach trouble, would it keep her away from another Grand Canyon trip? RUNYON: By the time Jacquie King's group of 15 people got off the river, all but four in her group had come down with norovirus. ![]() You know, it got more and more strict, making sure the water was always purified. As the number of tourists visiting the national park has grown and outbreaks have become more frequent over the years, Hester says raft companies have been forced to change protocols. The CDC report says the virus can even survive in beach sand, where rafters set up camps, allowing it to spread between trips. The virus can live in the river's tepid water and then easily spread among groups who all use the same toilets and eat communally. RUNYON: Hester says norovirus has been a problem in the canyon for years. Or if there's, you know, someone else sick, it would be the sick boat where everybody would try to stay away. SHARON HESTER: What they do is try to put them in a boat where they're the only one rowing or they're the only person in that boat. And it can be tough to keep germs from spreading even in the great outdoors. She says a few of their guides got sick this spring. Sharon Hester is with Arizona Raft Adventures, which outfits trips in the canyon. From April to June of this year, there were more than 200 confirmed cases and likely a lot more that went uncounted. RUNYON: Both King and Burkit were part of what a new CDC report calls the largest documented outbreak of norovirus in the Grand Canyon backcountry. Like, it felt like there was, like, a balloon being blown up from inside of me that was, like, being overfilled. JUSTUS BURKIT: I would say about two hours after I started drinking the water from the river my stomach was in tremendous pain. Justus Burkit and his wife backpacked the canyon two weeks after King floated through. RUNYON: King's group wasn't alone in its misery. And it's - I mean, it's about as uncomfortable as you can imagine. KING: You're sitting on a rocket box in the outdoors in the middle of nowhere, hugging a bucket. That's required of all rafters to store human waste from the three-week-long trip. Her group had a military-grade metal rocket box to use as a toilet. KING: And we had three people go down almost instantly after we got through the rapid - people vomiting over the side of the boat, just couldn't hold anything in. RUNYON: Upset is a huge, roiling whitewater rapid right in the middle of the canyon. Our worst day was when we ran Upset Rapid. JACQUIE KING: After patient zero, it was one to two people a day going down. By Day 9, one person in King's group was sick - stomach troubles. Norovirus was sweeping through the canyon. But when they ran into other rafters, they were warned. The trip started smoothly, other than it being unseasonably warm. ![]() LUKE RUNYON, BYLINE: Jacquie King and a group of 14 friends launched their rafts into the Colorado River in early May. Luke Runyon of member station KUNC spoke with some of the unlucky travelers. There were so many cases the National Park Service asked for help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A record number of norovirus cases hit the park's backcountry. Hundreds of visitors to the Grand Canyon took home more than selfies and prickly pear candy this summer. ![]()
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