River Rat!

Jeez, I'm behind on this thing. It's been a busy 30 days, for sure. I finished hard snow day with no crampon mishaps, and even got to do some bona fide ice climbing up a short frozen waterfall up on Mt. Lincoln. Next season, Ouray for sure! I finished my exam, am STILL waiting on results (how long can it take to score exams for 7 people? Seriously.) I finished my high peak and routefinding trips and graduated from BMS. I got a new job up in Loveland 3 days/week. I got a new kitten who is so cute it makes my teeth hurt. I made some new climbing and riding friends. This post, however, will focus on the week I spent on the San Juan River around Memorial Day.

Jen and her brother Aubrey put their heads together last Christmas and decided to put their names in for permits to celebrate his graduation in the spring. Yampa was denied, which is a bummer 'cuz I hear it's a pretty awesome river. San Juan, however, was granted, for 20 people. We started with 17: Jen, Aubrey, my brother Craig, Jen's cousin Jess and her boyfriend Chris, Jen's friend Abbey, Jen's mum Mary and her friend Marguerite, plus various Outward Bound connections (Sara, Diana, Bayley and her partner Jeff) and family friends (Bakers and his friend Dave and his 7-year-old son Andy) and Craig's friend Nate from VLS who is doing an internship in Telluride this summer. Craig, Abbey, Chris, Jess, Sara, Jeff, and Nate took out on the 3rd day in Mexican Hat, the rest of us continued the adventure to the takeout at Clay Hills.

The trip began in the rain. I left Denver in the rain, drove all the way to Bluff, UT in the pouring rain trying not to be killed by insane truckers and stupid people trying to make good time to Moab. I arrived in rain, set up my tent in the rain, etc. The morning was overcast but dry until we shoved off, and then it rained/poured the rest of the day until we set up camp in the evening. Blessedly, it stayed dry until the middle of the night when it rained again. It made the first day kind of a bummer, cold and shivery, not conducive to hanging out. At least I was on Diana's boat with the Gay Pride Umbrella! We set up the shelter tarp to eat lunch, and continued to huddle under it or the umbrella for at least an hour after we were ready to go, waiting for the rain to abate. 'Cuz that's how it's supposed to rain in the desert, right? Short, fierce, and sweet.

We gave up and moved on. We stopped to see these cool petroglyphs.

Later on we stopped to see these house ruins. What a view they had!

Once we got to camp I began to get the full sense of what a river trip is like. Since the boats were largely loaded and rigged by the time I got there, I had no idea how much we actually had until it came time to unload in camp. Everyone's dry bags, kitchen dry box, giant stove, propane bomb, several jugs of water, the groover, the food and beer coolers, etc. Plus, I got the full idea of just how well we were going to eat on this trip--fresh food just about every meal, lots of stuff, even wine and Diana's gin and tonics. Yes it was kind of a shit show, but it was an awesomely enjoyable shit show.

And the beer--I don't think I've ever seen so much beer in one place outside a liquor store. Coolers full, and mesh bags full dragged behind the boats in the water. I think we started drinking at about 10AM every day and didn't really stop until bedtime. After the first day the weather behaved and we felt more like drinking them in the intense, hot sun. We got a couple of afternoon thundershowers with spectacular lighting shows. The day we stayed at Lime Creek a couple of hours afterward we heard a strange kind of roar, and then suddenly a current of dark brown water filled with what looked like small bits of log came rushing down the practically stagnant Lime Creek--a flash flood, started miles away.

As the sun was coming up on our 4th day, Jen got us up early to hike the Honecker Trail to the rim. We got up there just as the sun was rising and the light golden-orange. You could see all the way to Monument Valley, AZ (read: hundreds of miles). Someone had built a tiny Stonehenge. The trail blends into the canyon wall perfectly--unless you knew about it you'd never know about it. We got down and Dave (who used to be a chef before he retired) and Bakers and Mary got to work making an awesome breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, fruit, etc. I think we finally got on the water close to noon.

I had been in the ducky with the kayakers and Bakers in his canoe the day before, but I chose to ride with Diana this day so she could start teaching me how to oar. I started getting how to move the boat, but still have no clue how to go through rougher water or water with lots of obstacles--this trip the water was so high all the rocks were covered and it was easy. Of course, so were the sandbars, which make it a little treacherous toward the end where the river is so silted up and backing up from Lake Powell. It gave me a new appreciation for Edward Abbey, that part.

When we got to a big class 2 rapid called Government, we eddied out to scout. Dave ran it in his kayak while we watched. Bakers showed me how to find the tongue and just follow it around to ride the wave train through the rest. He and I hiked down to run it while the others watched. I got into the ducky and followed his line into the tongue, and sure enough I really didn't have to brace or steer much of anything--the current took me, swung me through the curve and then spat me into a really killer wave train with big haystacks that were a super fun up and down ride all the way to the end. I found Dave and Bakers and we eddied out to watch the rafts come through. Then we continued on to my favorite camp of the whole trip at the side canyon Slickhorn.

As we were pulling up to our beach, I noticed a guy on the other side of the river, in jeans and a green shirt and cowboy hat, and what appeared to be a bandana over his face and gold mirrored sunglasses (later when we got on shore Bakers pulled out his binocs and that's exactly what he was wearing). He seemed to be acting strangely--downclimbing and then scrambling up this ledge, pushing large babyhead boulders off down the bank, dancing around like he was on something that looked like it could have been fun or could have been terrifying. We noticed a kid around the corner from him messing about near the bank of the river. Tried to ignore them while we set up a shower made from a water jug baked all day in the hot sun and tried to scrub all the river sludge off of ourselves (the water was the color and consistency of cafe au lait--my day in the ducky yielded a dappled sunburn from where water splash washed away my protective coating of silt). As we were drying off we saw a man come from upriver and collect them, and realized it must have been some kind of solo experience, and those poor kids had probably been out all day.

Chef Dave helped us make the perfect garlic shrimp to go with fresh corn and black bean salsa in tacos. We sat around the beach in chairs drinking wine and watching the fire in the pan, while Andy experimented with the flammability of various materials found around camp. Jen warned us to enjoy our gorgeous camp, because the next night would be none to nice. Oh, she had no idea!

We hiked up Slickhorn Canyon a bit in the morning, with Diana pointing out various fossils and layers (she's a geologist!) and Andy challenging anyone who would humor him to race twigs and leaves down the trickle of water still running down the canyon.
We stopped again at another called Grand Gulch for a hike as well--super cool arch in this one, lots of desert varnish, humongous boulders that had obviously been rolled down quite a ways in the last big flood.

Back in the water, we were clearly hitting the slackwater portion. Lots of rowing to reach camp at the not so reasonable hour of 7:30PM. We got to the official site (saw that the last one upriver had been completely destroyed by a flood that produced a huge alluvial fan feature over the former site). Marguerite and Bakers had gone ashore ahead of us and came running out of the trees thrashing their arms like mad--mossies were EVERYWHERE. As soon as we got to shore they were all over us, too.
We debated whether or not to try and make it to the takeout, at least 2 hours away and hard to spot in the dark (and a big scary dangerous huge waterfall blocks the way into Powell) and decided to stay on the rock bench above the eddy we grabbed next to the Mosquito Swamp.

We covered ourselves in clothes and bug spray as best we could--Bayley and I had nets for our heads, the rest of the grrlz made hijabs of their sarongs. We unpacked hurriedly and tried to set a fire in the pan while Bayley and Jen made dinner. By the time we ate it was just about dark and they were nearly gone, but the air still hung heavy, muggy, and hot. No breeze at all, for the first time on the trip. We cleaned up and basically got ready to go as soon as we got up, early, hopefully before the mosquitos knew we were about.

We shoved off right as they were getting bad again. Bayley started cooking breakfast on the boat named Patches while Aubrey rowed. Breakfast sammies of veggie patties, leftover tater tots from last night's dinner, cheese, grilled onion I believe. Oh, and fresh brewed coffee too. Unbelievable. We got to eat soon before we hit the takeout, which fortunately because it was early was empty.

After that it was just work--unloading everything, breaking down the boats, sorting which gear needed to be returned to which rental facility and therefore would go in which car, etc. Aubrey, Bakers, Dave, Mary and I ran the shuttle to retrieve the rest of the cars, we finished loading while Andy played in the mud (that kid is unbelievably cool, not to mention a great boater of all craft) and hit the road. It was a long trip back to Denver with all the stops: return gear in Moab and Fruita, drop off Bayley in Grand Junction (Jeff made us some killer coffee--thanks guys!) and finally Diana's place in Silt. Totally worth missing my routefinding trip (and by extension high peak). I can't wait to do another one!