- Joined
- Aug 9, 2007
- Messages
- 12,955
Towards the end of August, @Dave, @Smokey, Sage and I took the raft down the Green River Daily in Grey Canyon. This is the final stretch of the multi-day Desolation/Grey Canyon trip that I hope to do soon and it makes a good practice run for warming up to larger rapids found upstream.
Taylor and I made it down the night before and spent a night car camping near the river between the take out and the put in. After some trial and error, we found a sweet spot amongst some massive cottonwoods to spend the night. I loved that campsite, but neglected to take a photo of it.
The next day we finished the drive to Neferitit where we would start our float. The 'ramp' there wasn't much of a ramp as much as it was a drop off, which made getting the completely rigged raft from the top of my trailer into the water a bit of a challenge. But soon enough it was in the water and Dave and I were running shuttle while Taylor finished rigging the raft and inflating the IK.
We got started a little later than we'd planned. After running Nefertiti Rapid, we were immediately hit in the face with upstream winds. Down goes the bimini and time to start rowing.
The aptly named Nefertiti Rock.
The first half of the roughly 8.5 mile run is mostly flat water with the exception of Nefertiti Rapid and a few fun little riffles. We stopped after a couple of miles near the confluence with the Price River to look for some rock art.
Success!
The river was unusually red/brown this day. The area had received significant rain the night before on our drive down so something must have flashed and sent some extra sediment downstream. By the following day, it was already turning back to a more transluscent green/brown.
Back on the river with the Price in the background. The thing about rafting is that none of the fun parts seem to get photos taken since you're actively dealing with it in the boat. We got stuck on a rock shortly after this was taken. It took Dave and I a good 5 or 10 minutes to un-stick. That water was so brown that we never even saw it.
We had originally planned to do one full run, then start a second run, but as we approached the lower half with all the rapids, we realized we only had a couple hours of daylight left. After running the first of a series of rapids, we decided to claim this fine campsite for the night.
We had a nice light show after dinner.
F&@king Fotografers.
That night we gathered around the microphones and did some recording with our old friend @Ezra.
The next day was tons of fun. I think 5 named rapids and some other minor riffles. One of them had the biggest hole I've yet to float past in my new raft. The funny thing about it is that none of this stuff even begins to phase my raft. I could ship the oars and go through all of it in any direction. It makes me very eager to try some more challenging rapids. Or perhaps just go hop in the IK. They looked like TONS of fun in the IK. I got pretty much no photos of any of this though, so hopefully @Dave will post some. I find that rowing a raft makes capturing the experience on camera very difficult. I need to find a way to remedy this.
After the rapid in the distance we jumped overboard and drifted around in a recirculating current for a while. It felt awesome. A little further down we went through Swasey's Rapid. Another super fun one that was basically just a really long series of waves. No challenge, but tons of fun. By the time we took off it was already mid afternoon so it was time to pack things up and head home. Not a bad way to spend a short weekend.
Taylor and I made it down the night before and spent a night car camping near the river between the take out and the put in. After some trial and error, we found a sweet spot amongst some massive cottonwoods to spend the night. I loved that campsite, but neglected to take a photo of it.
The next day we finished the drive to Neferitit where we would start our float. The 'ramp' there wasn't much of a ramp as much as it was a drop off, which made getting the completely rigged raft from the top of my trailer into the water a bit of a challenge. But soon enough it was in the water and Dave and I were running shuttle while Taylor finished rigging the raft and inflating the IK.
We got started a little later than we'd planned. After running Nefertiti Rapid, we were immediately hit in the face with upstream winds. Down goes the bimini and time to start rowing.
The aptly named Nefertiti Rock.
The first half of the roughly 8.5 mile run is mostly flat water with the exception of Nefertiti Rapid and a few fun little riffles. We stopped after a couple of miles near the confluence with the Price River to look for some rock art.
Success!
The river was unusually red/brown this day. The area had received significant rain the night before on our drive down so something must have flashed and sent some extra sediment downstream. By the following day, it was already turning back to a more transluscent green/brown.
Back on the river with the Price in the background. The thing about rafting is that none of the fun parts seem to get photos taken since you're actively dealing with it in the boat. We got stuck on a rock shortly after this was taken. It took Dave and I a good 5 or 10 minutes to un-stick. That water was so brown that we never even saw it.
We had originally planned to do one full run, then start a second run, but as we approached the lower half with all the rapids, we realized we only had a couple hours of daylight left. After running the first of a series of rapids, we decided to claim this fine campsite for the night.
We had a nice light show after dinner.
F&@king Fotografers.
That night we gathered around the microphones and did some recording with our old friend @Ezra.
The next day was tons of fun. I think 5 named rapids and some other minor riffles. One of them had the biggest hole I've yet to float past in my new raft. The funny thing about it is that none of this stuff even begins to phase my raft. I could ship the oars and go through all of it in any direction. It makes me very eager to try some more challenging rapids. Or perhaps just go hop in the IK. They looked like TONS of fun in the IK. I got pretty much no photos of any of this though, so hopefully @Dave will post some. I find that rowing a raft makes capturing the experience on camera very difficult. I need to find a way to remedy this.
After the rapid in the distance we jumped overboard and drifted around in a recirculating current for a while. It felt awesome. A little further down we went through Swasey's Rapid. Another super fun one that was basically just a really long series of waves. No challenge, but tons of fun. By the time we took off it was already mid afternoon so it was time to pack things up and head home. Not a bad way to spend a short weekend.
