Green River Raft, Desolation-Gray Canyons

Original Trip Description: (July 23-30, 1996)
The Green River in central Utah provides boaters with access to spectacular canyons rich in scenery, geology, history, and prehistoric ruins. This raft trip has it all: spectacular redrock country, a 5000' deep canyon where it passes through the Tavaputs Plateau, large sandy beaches for camping, and challenging rapids which increase in difficulty as we travel downstream.
The fifty plus rapids make this eighty-six mile river trip the perfect leisurely vacation. We will hike up side canyons to ancient Indian ruins, visit a historic ranch frequented by Butch Cassidy, and hopefully spend a lay-over dayhiking at Rock Creek Ranch.
We'll meet at Green River State Park and drive as a group to the Sand Wash put-in, eat lunch there, and set up our raft gear that afternoon while the shuttle drivers return our vehicles to the take-out. The trip is rated leisurely to moderate (L/M).
Originates @ Green River State Park, Green River, UT.

Coal Creek Rapid

Above Sand Wash

Trip Report:

We met at Green River State Park which had changed substantially since our last visit. The entrance had been moved and a golf course added as part of a number of changes. Apparently, a local effort is being made to increase the income from this facility. All but one of our group arrived by early evening and everyone got a good night's sleep. The next morning most of the group went out for breakfast while we confirmed the air shuttle arrangements and tried unsuccessfully to find our missing participant. We finally gave up and left for the river using the shorter 9 Mile Canyon (Minnie Maude Creek) and backbone route. The road was in good shape this year and there were no tire mishaps. In 9 Mile Canyon we stopped to look at some petroglyphs we hadn't seen before.

At Sand Wash, we rapidly unloaded everything so Susie, Sandy, and Jackie could immediately shuttle the vehicles back to Green River while the rest of us rigged rafts and organized gear. Our hope was that they would be able to return that evening if the winds were calm and our vehicles didn't let us down. The river flow had declined substantially from spring peak run-off to 3500 cfs. This is a nice level for running the rapids but can be a bit slow on windy days with prevailing upstream winds. Since we opted to take-out at Swasey's rather than Green River, our shuttlers left a couple of vehicles there and still made it back to the airport in time for Redtail's last flight of the evening. Garreth landed them on the mesa top with his usual panache and skill, Susie's lunch still intact. They hiked down and joined us for an excellent spaghetti dinner which the cooks had been holding pending their arrival.

There were relatively few mosquitoes at Sand Wash compared to past years but still enough to get our attention. The first night's camp at Rockhouse was somewhat swampy near the boats and we were plagued with bugs. There seemed to be a different bug for each camp, mosquitoes, wasps, no-see-ums, flies, etc. but none were too bothersome. Rob tried his hand at paddle raft captaining the tomato and was a big hit with his crew. Ernie practiced rowing both the 16' and the 18' boat under Bob and Susie's tutelage. He is expecting to top the GC waitlist within the next decade and is hoping to gain enough experience to row. Wanda paddled her packcat fearlessly through all of the rapids. She made a beautiful, gutsy run down the middle at Coal Creek Rapid.

The wildlife was abundant: a wide variety of birds, snakes (none poisonous), lizards, bighorn sheep, a river otter, a spotted fawn, and a black widow spider. In our Rock Creek camp, we had a moaning noise that could have been an owl but could also have been a cat. We didn't determine what it was, as no one wanted to venture out of their tent to investigate. Some of the group suspect that the camp is haunted. Several people hiked up Rock Creek, and later over to McPherson Ranch, from our proximate campsites. It was a little hot for hiking but overcast skies made most of the trip more pleasant than it might have been. Seven of us managed the hike up the Golden Stairs to the highest point above Range Creek. It was a new type of hiking for Leslie and the occasional exposure unnerved Jackie somewhat, but they both did well, and we all made it to the top for the great views. It sprinkled a little during our hike and later that night we got our only notable rain storm. Luckily we had one more day on the river to dry out our gear.

Dean's video cam battery ran down right at the end of the trip but he shot a lot of footage. Living in northwestern Canada, he and Leslie hadn't seen the Southwest deserts before and both were impressed with the beautiful cliffs and rock layers. We celebrated Judy's birthday with candles in the Cherry Cheesecake, the ubiquitous birthday banner, songs, and a card from all of us. We threatened for several days to play butt darts but the game never materialized. Next time Judy! The last night of the trip we celebrated Rob and Jackie's recent marriage with a few bars of Here Comes the Bride, birdseed, and a card. We celebrated each day's river running with evening doses of Dean's "Toejama" Cognac, Judy's Cuervo Gold, Ernie's Old Fashioneds, and Rob & Jackie's Brandy. The full moon towards the end of our trip made for some beautiful moonrises and soft lighting on the surrounding cliffs. Our last camp, about two miles above Swasey's was one of the best for scenery and sand, although none of our camps was a disappointment.

Reports of more recent Green River rafting trips from our quarterly newsletters:

* July 30, 1998

* June 27, 2000