By now, if you’re booked on one of our Grand Canyon trips, you’ve probably heard that we provide a camera charger on the river. What in the what? How the heck do we charge cameras, when everyone knows there aren’t any electrical outlets in the primitive Grand Canyon campsites? Well, get this. We’ve got these really cool little chargers, called Yeti Goal Zero chargers, that are about the size of a 12-volt battery. We bring one of these chargers on all of our trips. The Yetis have a bunch of outlets on them — for AC  (wall) plugins, USB devices, and even car chargers. These chargers usually last for the duration of your trip, but if you’re expecting to use your camera a lot and you’re nervous about it, bring extra batteries and maybe a personal solar charger — those are neat to have on trips!

There is, though, a catch with the Yeti. We ask that you please be considerate of your fellow River Rats and share the Yeti. Because it can only charge a handful of devices each night, and because there are probably going to be more than 30 other people on your trip (counting our guides, who use the Yetis to charge their cameras too), we ask that you not monopolize the charger.  We ask you to limit your use of it to just once on your trip. In other words, turn off your camera when you’re not using it, bring some spare batteries, and only ask to use the Yeti one time.

The other thing we request is that you not ask to use the Yeti to charge devices other than cameras. That means, if your Kindle runs out of juice midway through your trip, the guides will be more than happy to let you borrow a book to read. But please don’t ask them to charge your electronic readers, or your kids’ handheld games (In fact, if you bring a handheld game on your Grand Canyon trip, you’re probably not going to want to admit that to any of the guides.), or anything but your camera. If you’re using your cell phone as a camera on your trip, that’s cool! We expect that these days. You definitely can ask to recharge your cell phone if you’ve been using it as your camera. But, again, power off your cell phone when you’re not using it, to try to preserve the battery as long as you can.

Got questions? Give us a call! That’s what we’re here for.