Hailing from Arizona

[JagDaddy]

Via Wyoming and Montana and stint in Wisconsin haha

The wife and I are long time whitewater rafters. We private party the Grand Canyon almost every year, the San Jaun, Yampa, Salt, Verde and Rio Grande.

We lived in Bozeman, MT and did all those rivers as well, tripping the Smith most years and hit all the whitewater runs. In WI did many BWCA and Quietico trips.

A funny thing happened on a San Jaun trip last year :- ) A lone canoeist slid by our camp one morning while the sun was just coming up. Everyone was still sleeping and I was watching the water go by drinking coffee.

I realized I needed a solo canoe. I enjoy the social aspects of the long raft trips, but sometimes I need some 'me' time.

Last canoes I've had are a Wenona Spirit II in Toughweave. That was our trip boat, I was running a Dagger Genesis as my play/ww trip boat.

Well now I have a Nova Craft Supernova in Ex Tough Stuff :- ) Great solo ww trip boat on our big water and the local seasonal runs.

Im getting twitchy already, lots of water for us SW boaters. We haven't got on a Grand Canyon trip this year (we will), but there's going to be a glorified fiberglass Canadian boat in the big water this year :- )

Great forum, I'll post up a date when I get San Jaun launch date. See if anyone wants to jump in :- ) It's ironic some of the best wilderness river trips in the lower 48 are in the desert haha

Great forum and I'm glad to be here!

 

[yellowcanoe]

"It's ironic some of the best wilderness river trips in the lower 48 are in the desert haha" . True. To me in the East the permitting process is confounding though.

We may be back on the Green.

 

[JagDaddy]

It is LOL, but its not too hard to pick up 'left overs' and cancellations if you can move on short notice. That's why I got back into solo boating!

That and sometimes I feel like an unlicensed, unpaid guide and outfitter haha

The good news is SW boaters are game to let folks jump in on their permits. We generaly don't meet most of the party on a Grand Canyon till we're rigging boats at Lee's Ferry. There's a lot of logistics involved in a GC trip and it gets done with emails haha Kind of like a blind date.

But by the time folks have done a few GC trips and are geared up it goes pretty smooth. Its just a matter of feeling out folks boating style.

Way different river culture than BWCA or MT for sure.

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[Uncle_Skwid]

Hey Jag --

This sounds like possibility to me. (Hope you were serious about sharing the San Juan...) This year we've put in lottery apps for the Salt, Middle Salmon, Selway, Rogue, and of course every year the Grand Canyon. (We hail from the rocky streams of the east coast and try to get West once a year.) I have yet to win a trip through the Grand, though I'm in all the follow up lotteries etc... And fully prepared to go when the going gets going and if necessary, boat the canyon alone. Would love to get some contact info or get tapped into these SW boaters with permits and share space on a ticket. Good to hear from you and hope to get in on a blind date soon!

Peace.

Joe

 

[JagDaddy]

I haven't got a San Jaun permit yet. My son just got out of the USMC and has a friend suppose to be home from a deployment and getting out in March sometime.

I won't poach a permit till his schedule is nailed down, likely will May/June. I will give as much notice as I can when permit is in hand.

You might be better off jumping in on the San Francisco/Blue/Gila trip I'm doing in late March.

It doesn't require a permit and the dates can be firmed up easily. Right now im the only one going :- )

Water is going to be good this year and the trip cuts right though some excellent SW country. Google it up!

It's a Class II-III run with the III's being manuvering to miss tree strainers and stay off cliff faces in tight corners. Good ferry and eddy out skills are helpfull haha Sounds like the SW version of your NE creek runs :- )

Nice camping, off river hikes and good clearwater streams for drinking. I'm working on the archeology right now for runins and rock art. Much more remote and less traffic than the San Jaun but the San Jaun is iconic for a reason.

Keep us in mind for a GC trip my wife and I play the lotto and so do our friends :- ) We'll keep you in mind as well. Half the fun of a GC trip is boating with new folks.

If your planning on a self supported canoe trip I'm interested. It you need raft support I'm geared up for it and have bro's that would likely support as well. A mix of boats makes a safe and fun trip. Nothing like ribeyes, fajitas and dutch oven cobbler and cakes in the third and forth week :- )

When we get on a trip this year the wife and I will take both boats. My wife can row our cataraft though a lot of the canyon and I'll get some OC1ness with my Supernova yee-ha

If my wife feels froggy and runs the big water I'll canoe them. That will depend on the folks were with though. If they got the river skills and are game to back us. Other wise we'll strap the Nova to one tube of the cataraft and I'll row the big water conservatively. Semper Gumbi :- )

Makes me giddy thinking about the GC :- )

Anyway I'm serious haha

 

[JagDaddy]

To add to this, the San Jaun from Montezuma down is 110 miles or so. We like to stretch the trip out to 10 to 14 days because the off river hiking is excellent. My wife is the shuttle :- )

If she decides to go (sometimes she feels left out at the last minute haha) she'll row our cataraft and we'll hire a shuttle. My son and his bro will paddle IK's or my son and I will row the cataraft and switch out in a small boat.

If my son and his bro bail on the SJ I'll do it anyway solo canoe :- ) probably start up around Shiprock NM or higher and end at Clay Hills.

The trip in the Gila area is straight up wilderness canoe tripping on spring run off though the middle of the Blue Range Wilderness area. Several sections can be strung together to make the trip as long as wanted. I want to do a lot of off river hiking (archeology rich area) so im shooting for 75 to 100 miles. 7 to 10 days. That's flex if you need it to be, you got the road trip. I'm self-employed and everyone expects me to go missing a couple months out of the year haha

Water likely will be at it's best late March to late April. River gauges and local knowledge says its runnable right now.

Im thinking Blue River to San Fransisco River to Gila River. Could also do the San Francisco to the Gila River. It can change on the fly, my wife is the shuttle and is less than three hours away. I just call her when I've had enough :- )

There ya go :- )

 

[Uncle_Skwid]

Wow. Excellent. You sound like the power couple to know in terms of getting to and from desert rivers. And your line items all sound positive.

Let me see who wins what around my local circles and where this group of old geezers ends up going this year and play it out from there. We play quite a few lottoes and my old river mentor is now 74 and running out of time, so I of course have to make sure I help him get his oar rig to and from the Wild West. I work for the man--a small man, but nonethess a man--and have to temper and allocate my trips west.

I know now that I didn't win the Salt, unfortunately (or the Middle Fork, or the Selway, drag it all to Hades), as I tend to like my trips a little more white than many gear-laden canoeists, but I am most assuredly into the self-supported canoe trip down the Grand--down any river, when it comes right down to that place where the boat hits the water. I like the idea of putting the backpacker's penchant for minimalism with the oar rig's penchant for maximalism and marrying the two in an elegant sort of canoe parfait. Though of course I'll eat the heck out of some dutch oven cobbler.

I'll keep you posted on what we win.

 

[JagDaddy]

Sounds good, we've found the key to getting on the permitted rivers in the SW consistently is casting a wide net :- )

It took a little bit to get my head wrapped around to playing the permit thing, but one trip down the GC and I was hooked haha and while getting a permit is tough, getting on trips isn't if your geared for it and don't mind boating with strangers. Boating with strangers is another thing that takes getting ones head around, but we haven't had a bad experience yet. It just takes picking the trip with folks that share your boating style. If you are after a solo GC experience hunt the off season lotto, a guy could probably get one almost every year if he played it hard. Temp in the GC is about what they get in Phoenix AZ and the water is always cold haha definitely a dry suit gig.

Another option is do a Diamond Creek down to Pierce Ferry trip, requires no permit, you will get some pretty good whitewater (big water by most any other standard) and the GC experience. If you wanted to do that give me shout I'd do a canoe only trip with you if you wanted company.

The San Juan is pretty easy to get left over permits and cancellations if you can move on short notice, we live 3hrs away and I can plan a two week trip in about an hour haha San Juan is less whitewater and excellent off river hikes. I do it at least once a year and with over a 100 miles of side canyons it will never run out of interest to me rock atr and ruins are in almost every canyon. I'm going to permit the trip with my son in his name, if they bail in my wife's (she'll go), and likely a fall trip in my name. You can run the San Juan as many times a year as you can get trips on, but only permit one trip a year in your name.

All these permitted runs are so because of the traffic, the off season is the by far the best for solitude and a bonus is it isn't Africa hot for the off river hiking which is a big deal to me :- )

Take care,

There's an 18' cataraft under me with 30" tubes in the picture below and that's not even the big stuff haha the GC is pretty sporty :- )

 

[JagDaddy]

 

[Uncle_Skwid]

No Title

Hey now! Lookin good. I'm hoping the Grand is at least a little sporty what with the trouble I'm going through to get a trip! Looks a little different than the ELF boating we do out here in the East. I'm hoping to have the gumption to skirt the biggest of the monsters. Some professional organization was kind enough to snap a photo of a run through Pillow Rock this past season. (I'm unfortunately too much of a cheapskate to purchase any such photos, but nonetheless I like to take snippets of them with the watermark and critique my form.) My 14' Vertige X with camping gear for an over-nighter floats underneath me. We called this trip: "Training For The Grand."