Trip Report, Green River Utah, May 2013
Trip Report, Green River Utah, May 2013
(Very long)
We left Maryland on the morning of April 29[SUP]th[/SUP] and headed west for 2000 mile on I-70. The Swamper had thoughtfully brought a large vehicle GPS unit, in case we somehow got lost in Breezewood PA or going around the Indianapolis beltway.
The big Ford E-150 van had three boats racked – two soloized OT Penobscots and one Wenonah Sundowner – gear for four people stored inside and, with some finagling, room to sleep on a foam mattress in the back.
Non-stop shift driving saw us in western Kansas 24 hours later for a layover day. The sidewinds across Kansas were fierce. With a tall roof line, 3 boats racked and a prairie Beaufort Scale of Oh Crap, where it was necessary to hold the steering wheel 15 degree to starboard to go straight (and remember to counter steer when going through an underpass).
The canoes were racked on four crossbars spaced along the van’s 11 foot roofline, each boat with at least two belly lines, bow & stern lines and solidly captured between ash gunwale chalks fore and aft. Still the best speed we could manage is 60mph along the posted 75. Even at that cautionary speed a gust of wind destroyed one of the gunwale chalks and the Sundowner began to dance wildly before we pulled over to apply some additional ropeage.
The Swamper had researched places to camp east of Denver and came up with a beautiful site – Lake Scott State Park
http://www.kdwpt.state.ks.us/news/State-Parks/Locations/Scott
Bluffs, canyons, springs and lots of history, including the easternmost Pueblo in the US. Our visit to an otherwise empty park featured a bizarre encounter with 6 local teenagers, including one riding in the trunk of their tiny kid car, out of the trunk and back in, now toting an assault rifle that we watched him fetch from a hiding place back in Timber Canyon.
I will be bringing the 12 gauge next trip.
After a restless night’s sleep, during which the teenagers returned at midnight only to find the ballsy but unarmed Swamper out of bed and scowling at them as they drove past eyeballing him, we packed up and headed to Denver.
Maybe. A spring snowstorm overnight had dumped 12” wet heavy snow on Denver and more on the mountain passes. Portions of I-70 were still closed beyond Denver.
Fortunately the Swamper had arranged overnight accommodations with friends Rocky and Cathy in the foothills. Walking into our host’s home the first thing I noticed was a framed photo on the wall. A photo of Titcomb Basin in the Wind River Ranger, one of my favorite places on earth.
I don’t much like staying in other people’s houses, but I was mighty comfy there.
The next morning Willy and the Sprite picked up Cap’t K at the Denver airport, using Rocky’s 4WD Daihatsu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daihatsu_Rocky
Yes, Rocky has a Rocky.
With Cap’t K aboard we headed over the still slick passes into Utah, down into the desert and onto scenic route 128 alongside the Colorado into Moab.
Holy crikies, once sleepy Moab is now quite the hopping town. I was in Moab on cross country trips in 1976 and ’78, and several times in the 80’s. But not since a family trip in the mid-90’s.
Outdoor recreation has consumed Moab. Biking and Mt biking have exploded. So has off-roading in everything from Jeeps and buggies to quads and other contraptions. When I saw the billboard for a zipline I tasted a little vomit.
Next morning we were at Texs Riverways unloading boats and gear for the long shuttle ride into Ruby Ranch.
http://www.texsriverways.com/
We were accompanied on the shuttle by Lucjusz and Ursula, expat Poles living in Seattle that rent a canoe from Texas and do this trip routinely. We would pass and be passed by them over the course of the next 10 days.
Our shuttle driver Kenny did a commendable job of piloting the trailer and keeping up a practiced stream of informational patter, although his peculiar instructions for unloading the canoes – “Stand like me and lift the boat off with your right hand like this….no, like me…no, no, your other right hand…no, like me…” made me wonder how I had managed to unload canoes for the past 40 years.
I gave up following Kenny’s instruction and motioned for The Swamper to take over; he is better at following brusque instruction and has been unloading canoe trailers for 30 years.
A quick packing job and I was afloat. Afloat and alone. Briefly, as I waited in an eddy just below the confluence with the San Rafael. The Swamper was carrying much of the required, common or necessary gear in his boat – extra PFD, fire pan, toilet system and wag bags, tarp, poles and stakes, fire-in-a-can, extra chairs, 2 cases of beer, 20L of water - and I wanted to be close by in case I got thirsty.
Cap’t K, The Sprite, and Willy soon appeared and we began the journey. A party setting a self-shuttle with rental Grummans had been prepping at Ruby Ranch (mile 97) while we left, and hearing that they hoped to camp for the night at Three Canyon/Trin-Alcove (mile 90) we mucked up to let them (eventually) pass and continued downstream to Slaughter Canyon/F Bottom (mile 85.5).
The Swamper had paddled Labyrinth and Stillwater canyons several times before, and knew the best of the ledge and plateau sites for accessibility, tent space, shade and side canyon hikes.
Slaughter Canyon was worthy of a 2 night stay. An A+ site, with an easy sandy landing and a short, steep, sandy climb up to a cottonwoody plateau with room for 4+ tents and a common/kitchen area. For our dining pleasure The Swamper had brought not one, not two, but three folding side tables.
Slaughter Canyon was a harbinger of all sites to come, and they just got better and better. The Swamper knew where he was aiming each day downriver, and four of the side-canyon sites selected would be in my lifetime top ten.
The Swamper provided the day’s GPS tally:
Ruby Ranch to Slaughter Canyon/F Bottom
10.6 river miles paddled.
2:59 hours paddling time
3.6 MPH average paddling speed
1:24 hours stop time
Cottonwood trees seemed to be a good indicator of open tent space on plateau sites, much like stands of Pine are a dry ground beacon when camping on swamp rivers. Such sites are routinely used and typically have a path through the Tamarisk
http://www.discovermoab.com/tamarisk.htm
Or, thanks to the Tamarisk Leaf Beetle, a border of dead stabby tammys
http://www.tamariskcoalition.org/BeetleMonitoring.html
How to get rid of dead Tamarisk trees is another question, a task akin to building the pyramids, but perhaps someday the willows will return in natural abundance. The beaver and paddlers will equally rejoice.
The Swamper produced a spooky flamed fire-in-a can for night one, and a regular tammy twig fire-in-a-pan on night two as we burned accumulated paper waste. The ashes went into used wag bags before sealing and storing.
Slaughter Canyon was awesome in every meaning of the word; in a 360 degree slow pirouette view there were displays of something spectacular in every field of view.
Late at night, under one fire or another, The Swamper would pull out his Martin Backpacker or Little Plucky banjo and quietly fingerpick. The Swamper is the rare picker who can make a banjo sound soothing.
Two days of canyon hiking, relaxing and shaking the skeen of syphilization and we were once again afloat. The sun was blazing, so the warming desert winds were blowing upriver. We were headed for Twomile Canyon at mile 61, just below Bowknot Bend.
A 25 mile day into the wind would seem ambitious, but the current was moving along at 3 or 4 MPH. Piece of cake for us, but we passed a beached group paddling two rafts and four paddleboards whose day was likely more trying.
The wind in canyon is almost always oppositional. As the sun rises and heats the surrounding desert floor above the warming air fills the canyon and rushes upriver. We made a practice of breaking camp early(ish) and being on the water by 8:00 or 9:00.
The Swamper provided the following beta for the day:
Slaughter Canyon to Twomile Canyon
25.3 river miles paddled
6 hours paddling time
3.7 mph with a few muckles thrown in
Twomile again offered a good sandbar landing and multiple tent spaces atop a rocky plateau with shade from both the western cliff face and cottonwoods overhead.
We were the next day to meet up with Rocky, courtesy of a Texs shuttle to Mineral Bottom (mile 52), where he will join us for the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] half of the trip. Rocky would be toting several gallons of replenishment water and two dry bags of cold beer and extra foodstuff goodies for the Swamper.
The plan was to meet Texs, as instructed, at Mineral Bottom between 10:30 and 11:30. They too would be bringing us water and had offered (think generous tip) to carry out our accumulated trash and wag bags.
We arrived at Mineral Bottom at 10:15 to find Texs already come and gone. No matter, Rocky had extra water to fill our depleted dromedaries, and goodie bags for The Swamper.
We loaded Rocky’s 10 foot kayak with his necessities. Fortunately he was toting gear in backpacker mode, and everything fit inside a Liquid Logic Remix XP10
http://www.liquidlogickayaks.com/remix_xp10.cfm
His wee craft took me back to the 80’s and doing long trips in an Old Town Pack, purchased from The Sprite back in the days when he loved retail. More power too ya Rocky, but The Swamper muttered a prediction that you will soon be soloing a rental tandem barge down the Green in support of Cathy’s Remix XP9.
Below Mineral Bottom the wind commenced to howl, and a small riffle offered standing waves and whitecaps as the wind blew hard upstream against the current. Rocky’s 10’ kayak was the boat choice of the day.
We made camp for the night at one of my favorite sites, Horsethief Canyon. The Swamper provided the following beta for the day:
Twomile Canyon to Horsethief Canyon
16.4 river miles paddled
3:58 hours paddling time
4.1 MPH paddling speed
53 minutes stop time.
Horsethief Canyon (mile 46) had it all. A relatively easy landing, short gear carry, astounding views in every direction, great canyon hiking and multiple level tent spots and shaded nooks and overhangs.
Nooks and overhangs that have been used for thousands of years, as evidenced by the petroglyphs on rocky overhangs in camp and the field of knapped chert on the cliffs above. Horsethief needs at least a 2-day stay.
Our party hiked off into the canyon early on the second day, leaving The Swamper to hold down camp. The Swamper later told tales of encountering Girl 1 and Girl 2, and soundly defeating them with his all-terrain bocce set. In The Swamper’s telling various favors were bestowed in honor of his bocce prowess, but veracity of The Swamper’s tales are typically calculated by the number of Guinness cans he has emptied.
Fortunately we had erected the parawing (mostly for shade) the day before, because as the canyoneers scrambled ever upwards a spring storm blew over with thunder, rain and sleet. The Swamper scurried to close the party’s open tent vestibules and secure wettable gear, and soon rain and sleet were pouring off the low corners of the parawing.
Pouring off the parawing and filling buckets, pans and coolers with cold fresh water. Once the canyoneers returned a bit of Tom Sawyer fence whitewashing convinced Willy and Rocky to hang the gravity filter and replenish our water supplies. And to chill The Swamper’s beer supply in a cooler of sleet water to be filtered later.
Happy days; plenty of freshwater and cold beer at mile 46. Life is good.
The rare desert clouds and sprinkles lasted on and off for 3 days, and The Swamper deemed it weather of the finest kind. The cooler days largely eliminate the upriver winds, allow the opportunity to position the canoe mid-canyon, away from the tammys on the inside turns and the cliff faces on the outside turns and simply drift inattentively in the 3 to 4 mph current.
A most delightful way to travel.
Those cloudy skies also provided major relief from the blazing desert sun and heat, and of course brought the desert flowers to bloom. I may never see such weather again in that place, but I’ll take it when I get it.
Two relaxing days at Horsethief and we were back afloat. Destination – Anderson Bottom/Bonita Bend at mile 31, after a mid-day stop to hike to the ruins and cabin at Fort Bottom (mile 40).
A natural amphitheatre a mile downstream of Ft Bottom creates an aural oddity; for 60 seconds or so the voices of our party hiking up to the ruins were as distinct as if they were standing alongside.
The visual oddity of the Green is the usual big canyon phenomenon; it takes a while to become accustomed to judging river distance when the backdrop scale is massive cliff faces far in the distance. What seems like a few hundred yards to an easterner’s unpracticed eye turns out to be a mile or more away.
Along the way I passed the Grummaniers packing their canoes, but being far in front of our group didn’t feel it ethical to frontrun them to secure a choice site, and so pulled over on a sandy beach a mile past their site until they had finished packing and paddle past.
The management practices on this stretch of the Green, perhaps driven by the availability of jetboat pick up at the confluence with the Colorado, meant that we saw very few people over the course of the trip, especially below Mineral Bottom.
One possibility that intrigues me for a future group trip would be to secure two permits, allowing a split group to leapfrog, sometimes camping together and sometimes camping apart. That kind of change in pace and group dichotomy appeals to me.
Our group coalesced and we camped for the night at Anderson Bottom/Bonita Bend; a large cottonwooded meadow on an expansive bottomland with an easy beach landing. My least favorite of the sites we camped and not in my top 10. But still in my top 20 – gobs of tent and kitchen space and easy hiking across the bottom to granieries, old cabin sites and storage areas.
The Swamper performed his nightly ablutions of settling silty Green River water in collapsible buckets using alum. His formula to flocculate silty water:
2 teaspoons of alum in a 1 liter Nalgene type bottle. Fill with water and shake it up. Fill your settling bucket with river water. Add 2-3 capfuls of alum mix to the settling bucket. Vigorously stir 15 seconds in one direction using a circular motion to create a center whirlpool. Stir in the other direction 15 seconds. Sediment should mostly settle out in 45-60 minutes.
The Swamper neglected to cover the setting buckets, and the next morning two drowned mice stared up accusingly from the bottom. Word travels fast and the surviving mice had their revenge by eating holes in several of The Swamper’s dry bags.
The Swamper again provided the daily beta:
Horsethief Canyon to Anderson Bottom/Bonita Bend
14.9 river miles paddled
3:46 hours paddling time
1:36 hours stop time
Average paddling speed 4.0 MPH
The Swampers GPS elevation notes had consistently shown us gaining altitude and were declared ignorable.
Anderson Bottom/Bonita Bend was a single night’s stay and we pushed on downriver the next morning. Out in front once again I took a long, lingering sandbar break at Valentine Bottom a few miles downstream of camp. A beautiful and expansive sandbar that stretched for along a river bend between mile 29 and 26.
Cap’t K and The Sprite passed by and I saw them reappear miles downstream of the bend, paddling past The Sphinx.
I did not especially miss sandbar camping, with the inherent challenges of boat and gear blowing in the wind and sand infiltrating the tent, but if the wind is not howling I’ll spend a night on the Valentine Bottom sandbar next time.
I followed our passing party down to the night’s site at Turks Head (mile 21). The Swamper provided the now standard daily totals:
Anderson Bottom to Turks Head
10.6 river miles paddled
2:38 hours paddling time
4 mph paddling speed
0:58 stop time
Turks Head was, yet again, another spectacular site. Long and linear, stretching along a high sandy ledge. Shade was scare until late afternoon, and the landing was difficult for unloading multiple boats.
The Swamper chickeed up, clambered into our canoes floating in an eddy 3 feet below the rock ledge and scampered from boat to boat passing up gear. How much longer he can do this at age 52 is questionable, but I’ll take him while I’ve got him.
The now customary canyon hiking, camp dawdling and evening fire-in-a-can and finger picking of stringed instruments ensued and we launched the next morning for our last site, Water/Shot Canyon.
The Swamper’s usually tally of the day:
Turks Head to Water/Shot Canyon
River miles paddled – 17.2
4:03 hours paddling time
4.2 mph paddling speed
1:07 hours stop time.
Water/Shot Canyon was the best site yet. An easy landing, multiple sites on different levels, shaded cliff faces to escape the sun, deep nooks and overhangs for napping in the cool and a challenging canyon hike that saw The Sprite and Rocky eventually overlooking the confluence 4 miles downstream. The Sprite performed an Abbey-esque bit of canyoneering that involved jumping from a higher boulder to a lower boulder, without fully considering how he was going to jump back.
Water/Shot Canyon was another 2 day stay, and the Swamper pulled out every bit of excess food stuff, including the now ubiquitous (and Wag Bag filling) Fig Newtons and dried fruit, Nutella, natural peanut butter, an unopened block of sharp white cheese, pickle packs, sundry snacks and the last of the bread.
A feast ensued as the load was lightened and the last of the now tepid Guinness were tapped, spraying faux draught foam over the unwary.
We were reluctant to depart, even after a 2 day stay, but needed to meet our scheduled jetboat pickup on the Colorado. The Swamper provided no paddling beta for the last day’s paddle, but the 4 ½ miles to the confluence passed too quickly.
Rather than paddle down to Spanish Bottom we beached our canoes on a large sandbar immediately at the confluence, having discerned that the depth was the jetboat-required 3’ deep a canoe length from shore.
The Swamper knew that Spanish Bottom was likely too heavily peopled with other folk waiting for the jetboat, and the confluence sandbar eased our uncrowded reentry into syphilization. Not camping at Spanish Bottom overnight as I had thought we would was a boon, especially after we learned that a couple of mountain lions, habituated to humans, have been prowling that area.
In addition to the mountain lions Spanish Bottom was also occupied by other paddlers awaiting pick up, and by a group of NPS volunteers who had been digging out dead tammys, a job that will take several lifetimes.
Waiting on the beach we calculated how may boats we had passed or been passed by since Mineral Bottom; Lucjusz and Ursula in a rental tandem, two rental Grummans with a party of 4, Girl 1 and Girl 2 in a rental Grumman, two sea kayakers, and two rafts heading beyond the confluence to run Cataract Canyon.
8 boats and 12 people, all seen but briefly. dang fine timing.
Texs pick up routine asks that the canoes be empty and clean of mud/sand, since they will be racked overhead on the jetboat, with gear staged and ready to transport. Kenny and Devin made short work of racking canoes and storing gear, almost like they do so for a living.
Ursula and Lucjusz were already aboard the jetboat when it arrived. The Swamper had given them two cold Chesterfield Ales at Ruby Ranch to start their trip, and they discussed their respective beer supplies. Both had Guinness; Lucjusz had 12 cans, The Swamper had 2 cases.
Both confessed to having harbored a plan to hand the other a Guinness for the jetboat ride upriver. And both confessed to having abandoned that plan as the last Guinness proved too tempting on the final night in canyon.
Not to worry. After Kenny and Devin and finished their cautions regarding the jetboat ride (at 30 mph your hat will blow off and we aren’t going back for it, sometimes the jets suck in a stick or other debris – don’t panic, this is normal, we need to see where we are going so please don’t wander around in the boat, etc) another passenger on the jetboat demonstrated a sterling shuttle trick, one that I will reprise next visit.
Said passenger stood up in front and announced that Texs had brought in a cooler for him. A cooler filled with ice cold beer. Each cold beer would cost $10, that amount to be added by the recipient to whatever they planned to tip Devin and Kenny.
Said passenger brought good beer. If he hadn’t been sitting two seats over I’d have hugged him. Never has a canned IPA tasted as fine, and our shuttle masters were handsomely rewarded.
The jetboat ride up the Colorado was impressive. This is a daily commute of sorts for the jetboat drivers, who know the location of every hidden sandbar and shallows. 30mph, zig zagging wildly from side to side around unseen obstacles, sometimes passing through narrow channels not much wider than the boat.
Texs was very observant and respectful of other paddlers and beached boats that we passed along the way, slowing from 30mph to a crawl without throwing a plowing wake. Once at Potash the passengers boarded a school bus, complete with kid-sized knee room between the seats, and the jetboat, still packed and racked with gear and boats, was loaded onto a trailer for the ride back to Moab.
Back in Moab Texs had our vehicles lined up out front (during the trip they are comfortingly locked in a fenced parking lot) and ready to go. Boats and gear come off the trailer in an expeditious routine and we were soon ready to hit the road.
We lay over for a night in Glenwood Springs, climbed the passes the next morning and dropped off Cap’t K at the Denver airport. One last serendipitous encounter ensued. The Sprite’s son Jeremy is a long haul trucker, plying his trade in the Pacific Northwest, Canada and the Rockies.
He was that very day dropping off a load at a construction site in Aurora. Just a few miles from the airport. At the same time we were delivering Cap’t K to catch her flight.
We found the (address-less) construction site in time to witness Jeremy backing a semi into a convoluted spot. All that practice backing up canoe trailers as a teenager finally paid off.
Father and son reunited through a chain link fence and we were soon on the road again, eastbound and down as Jeremy passed the word to his trucker brethren to keep an eye out for a canoe laden Ford van speeding across I-70
The return haul was a nonstop flight to Maryland, with a van rearrangement upgrade to first class travel – one sleeper, one navigator/sleeper and one driver. Gotta love eastern Colorado and Kansas for eating up miles; highway straight as an arrow, cruise control pegged at 76mph, thumbing it up to 80 or 85 to quickly pass the boat buffeting of double and sometimes triple semi rigs. Drive, he said, and drive we did.
Or almost a nonstop. After nearly 4000 miles of driving, avoiding snow, ice, road closures and somehow fortuitously passing every major city outside of morning or evening rush hour we came to an engine-off stop and sit on I-70 in western Maryland 100 miles from home.
The Swamper pulled out a cell phone and called a buddy at the Maryland Department of Transportation. Called him at home, on a Wednesday night. The Swamper’s source had received an alert of a tractor trailer on fire a few miles ahead, with all lanes shut down.
A lane eventually cleared and we wrapped up the adventure. The Swamper provided the following travel details:
17 days, 4384 road miles, 337.13 gallons of gas, 13 gas stops, 13.00 mpg average.
Dammit but I want a small diesel pick up. Like they have everywhere else in the world. Get with it Mr. Toyota. But we couldn’t have easily fit three boats, four people and a mountain of gear in a Tacoma.
The Clean up - there was a copious amount of red desert dust on everything. And in everything. Not just the tent and canoe, but inside and out on dry bags, barrels and stuff sacks. And now on the gear room rug.
The big blue van performed admirably, and it deserves a thorough wash, wax, vacuum and detail cleaning. The soloized Penobscot needs a bath as well; I couldn’t have picked big boy gear hauler for the Green.
I need to back wash the filter, rinse the dromedary bags, clean the toilet system, and wipe the dust from the blue barrel and dry bags inside and out. I see a full day of hose work in my future.
And I see a return to the Green sometime this fall.