Green River Through Desolation Canyon

We really want to thank friends Amy & Taylor for putting this trip together and Juan and Amber for bringing rafts and everything that goes with them.

We wrangled our supplies in Vernal, Utah and then headed for the put-in at Sand Wash where we were meeting with friends coming from all over the country.  Apparently this is supposed to be a VERY buggy place, but due to our late spring we were completely bug free!  The northern Utah area had been experiencing a lot of flooding lately and the river was flowing at about 27,000 cfs.  Due to the recent cold temperatures the snow pack had not been melting and the river was expected to stay at about the same level while we were rafting.  It was predicted to reach 50,000 cfs once things warm up.

  

With people coming from everywhere it took a bit of organizing to pull it all together.  We got on the river at the crack of noon with a wide variety of vessels comprising our flotilla.  We had four rafts (18', 15.5', 14', 10') a kayak, a ducky, and a river board.  The first day was warm and sunny with really calm water.  The water was moving so quickly that we did not even have to row!  We did a couple short hikes to see some petroglyphs, an arch, and even found a sweet turtle fossil.

  

After that first day the canyon really started to enclose around us and the water became more exciting.  A lot of the rapids were mostly washed out but we did manage to find some big waves that were a lot of fun.  One of the most exciting was Joe Hutch rapid which was modified by a debris flow in 2008.  We stopped to scout the rapid prior to running it and got to see a dory and a cataraft go through the big waves.  We got to watch the others run the rapid first as Ron was manning the party barge (the 18' raft) with me and Eva as passengers.  Both our ducky and mini-me (the 10' raft) braved the waves and got to go swimming.  It was really impressive to watch.  The party barge had no problems due to our enormous size! 

   

Ron and Taylor got to take a small airplane as a shuttle back to the put-in.  It was not the most organized shuttle as they did not even ask their names, just told them to hop on the plane.  The pilot flew them right over the Green River and they got to have an amazing areal view of everything we just rafted.  We are now going to slowly make our way to Moab where we will meet up with our friend Lisa and our wee godchild Leif.  It looks like we have finally found summer...or at least spring.