Grand Canyon

"1. I will need to filter H2O from the River. What is the best way to use Alum?"

Overnight. But doing (no alum) works overnight. Alum does a lot in tens of minutes. On raft trips, 5-gallon plastic buckets are easy. I assume you're hiking. There are collapsable buckets. Pour the water out SLOWLY. A piece of plastic sheeting makes a sink/trough/basin in a hole in the sand. The tricky bit is, after settling, to SLOWLY lower your transfer scoop / bowl and SLOWLY remove it so as not to disturb the silt at the bottom. Slightly more sophisticated is to put an inch or two of gravel or sand in the bottom of the basin so when the alum causes the silt to settle, it settles into the sand/gravel and isn't so prone to getting stirred up with the slightest movement.

Of course, when there is a side canyon nearby, go there for water rather than from the River.

1. Alum.
I take multiple 70oz collapsible Platypus bottles. They are light to carry for a hiker, and I find them much easier to use than a collapsible bucket. You only need an unbelievably tiny pinch of alum, but it's important to homogenize the solution thoroughly. Shaking an 80%-full Platypus is a much more effective way to do this than stirring a bucket. If it's windy, a full Platypus is quite easy to stabilize for the settlement process with either a couple of rocks or a hole in the sand. You will go from mud to quite acceptably clear water within an hour or two. To get crystal-clear may takes quite a while longer, because the rate of flocculation drops off as the concentration of sediment falls. The Platypus is narrow and tall, which makes it easy to pour off the clear water without disturbing the settled sediment. Just make sure you have enough containers – a 70oz Platypus only weighs 1.3oz, so the weight penalty is minimal.

2. The "Gems" – I assume you mean Tonto between Boucher and Bass? I did this last April – I hiked down Boucher and out to Elves Chasm, then back the same way exploring most of the side canyons. I posted up a water report in the Grand Canyon yahoo group here:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Grand_Canyon_Hikers/conversations/messages/77202

That report also tells you where I know there's river access without rope or anything beyond class 3.
If you need any more detailed info, feel free to PM me. I kept quite careful notes of times and distances between canyons.

all the best
Ralph

"You only need an unbelievably tiny pinch of alum, but it's important to homogenize the solution thoroughly."

Ah. Maybe that's why alum didn't work that well for me in the Grand Canyon last year. I only stirred it in a bit. I mostly used a Platypus Gravity filter that I backwashed every 2L. We had another filter in the group so I wasn't too worried about one failing.

Ralph has a good trip report there. I did the gems a year ago and attempted most of the canyons with a 60 foot rope and a handline (fixing them and jugging/climbing back up). If I hadn't gotten H1N1, we would've tried all of them…that was a rough trip.

In Sapphire we fixed both ropes and ended up at another pouroff and were turned back.

As for Slate, there's a way into the canyon that bypasses all of the technical bits – continue on the Tonto (Eastbound) out of the canyon, then drop in at a prominent Tapeats spire within the canyon. It's on Harvey Butchart's map at the backcountry office. That said, if you decide to descend the watercourse instead, you can do a really cool pouroff bypass by walking overhanging ledges of conglomerate that are adhered to the Vishnu schist. Not for the faint of heart.

Oh, and camp out on the points, not in the drainages. It'll be at least 10 degrees warmer, and probably more.