Our
Green River trip was meant to be a leisurely spring break float down a gentle
section of the river while soaking up warmth and sunshine. The goal was to be
family friendly, with Buddy and Frank bringing their small kids along. Buddy,
Frank, and James did the planning, Buddy and Frank in particular were
experienced with rafting and paddling trips. I was tagging along, and would
paddle a canoe with Catherine in the bow. I’d done some previous canoeing, but
nothing approaching a weeklong trip. We would be floating 52 miles of flatwater
from Mineral Bottom to Spanish Bottom on the Green River through Canyonlands
National Park to its confluence with the Colorado River. Ideally, there would plenty of time to explore the side canyons
on foot and to enjoy the warmth of spring..jpg)
NPS Canyonlands map for Stillwater Canyon.
4-22-94
I flew to Denver from Knoxville, and met the Koonces and Mike at the airport. We picked up James, Mary, and Catherine at a brewpub in Denver, and then drove up to Evergreen to stay the night with Frank, Sandy, Jordan, and Alex Weber. Beer and soaking in Frank’s hot tub eased the pretrip jitters.
4-23-94
We spent most of the morning in Evergreen buying and repacking food. We split into three food pods, the Koonces, the Webers, and me with James, Mary, and Catherine. Next was the long drive to Moab, which we partly short cutted thru Cisco. Our crew got to Moab a little early, so we took a short walk on the Courthouse Overlook in Arches, then headed to the brewpub. The food and beer were good, but we waited for the rest of our group, eventually napping in the parking lot. Eventually, Frank and Mike showed up, they’d already been in the hotel for a couple hours. Frank shuttled us to a camping spot on the outskirts of town where we crashed in a dry wash.
4-24-94
Fort Bottom
In
the morning we drove to Frank’s motel and frantically repacked all our gear.
Then we went to Tex’s Riverways and loaded our stuff in an old school bus that
was pulling a canoe trailer. We were required to haul out all our waste, so we
had rented a groover (essentially a bucket with a seat) from Tex’s. We also got
the canoes and at least one raft from Tex’s. The shuttle took 1 ½ hours, but
all we’ll ever remember was the perilous descent from the rim to the canyon floor, a narrow
steep hairpin descent covered by a string of mountain bikers who didn’t like
having to edge off the road for a bus.
Prepping for launch at Mineral Bottom.
At
the bottom we unloaded into our canoes, and got a lengthy review of the river
highlights from our driver. A guided party, with some members in wheelchairs,
took off just ahead of us, but finally we were on the river. The Koonces and
Webers were in small rafts, with James and Mary plus Catherine and I in two canoes.
I had my gear in a large dry bag, and had a smaller day bag with me near my
seat in the stern.
We
soon learned that the afternoon was not the best time for paddling. Cold wind
was blowing, and we quickly had to pull over and put on extra clothing on top
of our swim gear. For some of the kids that first day bathing suit ended up as
their base layer for the entire trip. It was sweatshirt time for me. The wind
was blowing hard up the canyon, cancelling out the river current. Catherine and
I struggled to keep the canoe upwind into the whitecaps. I had canoed modestly
before the trip, but my skill level wasn’t quite up to handling a heavily
loaded canoe in wind and a light chop.
Our plan included a side hike to Upheaval Dome, but we didn’t have enough time, and pushed on to an island near Fort Bottom. We called that section the Canyon of Doom for our struggle with the wind. We abandoned the exposed island for a sandy beach, and camped. The kids were cooped up in the rafts most of the day, and seemed to enjoy the playing on the beach in the evenings as much as any other part of the trip. Frank’s kids especially enjoyed “the head plow,” pushing furrows in the sand with their noggins.
4-25-94
Anderson Bottom
The
next day brought a more open section of Stillwater Canyon. The White Rim
Formation, a white, cross-bedded, sandstone was close to the canyon rim, and
the well-known trail named for it followed alongside. We saw mountain bikers
and a few vehicles. Though it wasn’t the complete getaway we were looking for,
it was nice to see a bit of a trail that had been on the edge of my “to do”
list for a while.
We
took one side hike in the morning to look at a cabin associated with Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I’m not sure what we were using for guidebooks or
maps, I had only the Trails Illustrated Canyonlands NP map, which was skimpy on
river information, but clear enough to follow our progress and map our
campsites. I had no way to track our mileage.
The
wind came up early in the morning and some of the gusts were hard to fight. I
suspect Buddy and Frank had a tougher time in the rafts than we did in the
canoes. The trip was colder and windier that we expected, but at least we weren’t
all sunburned or baked by the heat. We decided to camp at Anderson Bottom,
where a raft trip from Crested Butte had stopped for lunch. We lounged around
camp and looked a petroglyph at the top of a nearby sand dune. I did a short
hike with Mike to the first fork at the head of the canyon, then right to a
cattle guard where the faint old trail headed to the rim. 
James and Mary paddling.
Later, part of the raft group sprinted back, frantically unpacked a boat, grabbed a backboard, and sprinted away. It seemed one of the party had been scrambling on the rocks, fell, slid down the slope, and fell over a ledge. The group included an EMT who was able to stabilize him. It seemed to take a while for them to work out a plan, but it turned out that there was a ranger patrol just upstream. Both groups ended up camping with us. For a while a helicopter was on the way, and it looked like we’d see another airlift (our first was on Mt Ranier in 1992). However, the guy who fell eventually recovered, and even planned to finish the trip.
4-26-94
Below Deadhorse Canyon
This
was a short day on the river to our camp below Desolation Canyon. We had an
easy paddle out to Turks Head where James, Catherine, and I climbed onto a
plateau where the whole shelf must have been a single layer of jasper. Mary had
stayed back in camp and got pelted with hail. 
Frank and Ellen in Frank's raft.
We
then had a quick paddle down to Deadhorse Canyon, but another party had already
claimed the site for the night. We continued downriver to the next site at a
small side canyon. James and I took a short scramble to climb to the rim above
our camp.
A
major difference between paddling and backpacking is gear. With a boat you can
take most anything, but while backpacking you pay the price for everything you
take. Food, comfort, and drinks are the main priority, though not always in
that order. After dinner we all drank some beers, but Frank outdid himself. The
next morning, I was looking at the amount of water in my boat when he walked
over and asked me if anything was missing. He confessed that after the rest of us
had retired, he’d gotten naked, took a midnight canoe trip, and then hiked up a
side canyon. On the return he’d been singing while standing on the canoe, and
turned the boat over. He told us “You have to stand to hit the high notes.”
He’d rescued the cooler, but lost two paddles and two jugs of drinking water.
He’d already lost two maps earlier in the trip, and we let him believe he’d
lost our last river map in the tip over.
I assume we had spare paddles, or the rest of the trip would have been much more of an ordeal than it was. I also have a faint memory of recovering one paddle from an eddy early the next day. The water loss was serious as well. The Green River flowed soupy brown, far too silty to be able to filter for drinking water.
4-27-94
Water Canyon
During
the night, after Frank’s voyage, it rained hard, driving me into the tent and
sending us all scrambling to put up our rainflies. The weather after breakfast
was little better. We’d been fighting headwinds the entire trip, and now
encountered a wind blast loaded with hail, then rain. All we could do was put
our heads down and paddle hard. Eventually we pulled into a side slot canyon
and took shelter so that the kids could get in tents. After an hour or so,
things had improved, and we headed off for Water Canyon.
Our canoe in a small lagoon.
As
seems to happen, immediately after a low point comes a highlight of the trip.
We’d been a little disappointed with Stillwater Canyon, albeit with our
benchmarks being the Escalante and Grand canyons. Water Canyon had more natural
vegetation, less sagebrush, and more cactus, plus cryptographic soil. Just
beyond our camp was a small Anasazi granary. James and I walked to the granary,
and then up the canyon. There were lots of small pools and waterfalls. The
bedrock was an intensely fossilized limestone. James was able to identify many
of the fossil types.
We continued up toward the rim and met a couple who told us the canyon didn’t give access to the rim, so we turned back.
4-28-94
Spanish Bottom
Another
ominous start to the day. Just as we started breakfast another mini hailstorm
blew into camp. I hid in my tent and the others hid in theirs as well. These
storms seemed to last only an hour or so, and after that we were back on the
river. Thankfully, it was a calm easy paddle to the confluence of the Green and
the Colorado. Catherine and I were watching the birds and the geology as the
canyon slowly deepened. We had dropped far down section, starting in the White
Rim Formation that was now a thousand feet above us.
The Green River at the confluence with the Colorado River.
We
would head down to a larger camping area at Spanish Bottom, where we would be
picked up by Tex’s the next day, and taken back to Moab by jetboat.
This
section was the easiest paddling of the trip. Even so, just before a sandbar at
the confluence we got hit with another windstorm and we ate a lot of sand with
our final river lunch. We’d pull over one more time before Spanish Bottom to
avoid another storm. Besides an increase in the current, the river seemed
little different below the confluence despite taking in the flow of another
whole major river.
Stopover on the Colorado River.
Once
at Spanish Bottom, Buddy and Hannah walked downstream to the first rapid in
Cataract Canyon, but I missed that chance to see that with them.
This
would be our last camp, and probably prettiest. The Doll House lies on top off
the canyon in the White Rim Formation. For a switch we had a clear starlit
night and I stayed up watching the falling stars.
The Doll House above Spanish Bottom.
I
was surprised that the trip had worked as well as it did. The kids had been
great, and we all survived the unexpected wind and cold with barely a whimper
(except from me). I would have liked more time for hiking, but that is almost
always the case. Catherine was great to paddle with. With such a large group
things are always hectic, as each one tends to do their own thing. For example,
the Webers had decided to stay at Water Canyon that night, and would meet us
the next day at the takeout. 
Campsite at Spanish Bottom.
4-29-94
Glenwood Springs
We
woke early (the river trip having officially ended) to have time to hike up to
the rim and visit the Doll House, one of the landmarks of the Canyonlands NP’s
Maze District. Hannah was the star of the day, making most of the ~ 2.8 mile
roundtrip, 1,200’ climb on her own. The Doll House is a series of Spires of
White Rim sandstone, and known for Anasazi granaries. We had little time to
walk around, instead hiking out to a tremendous overlook by the campsites, and
taking a loop to the granaries, with unusual stick frames and adobe shells.
The Doll House.
Tex’s
jetboat picked us up for the long cold ride home. High speed and occasional
spray kept us wishing for a short ride. The Green below the confluence, and the
lower Colorado are motorized so we saw only a single canoe party.
HR and Buddy at the Doll House.
Tex
pulled out before Moab, and hauled us by bus and truck back into town. We made
a quick brewpub stop, and then drove to a motel in Glenwood Springs for badly
needed showers.
Catherine at a Doll House granary.
4-30-94
First
off was a 9AM soak in hot spring at Glenwood, then a stop at a brew pub in
Breckenridge, where we found out the entire Colorado Plateau had been suffering
with us all week in cold blustery weather. All but the Webers ended up staying
in Denver by the airport, too tired to have more fun. The only excitement of
the drive back was running out of gas on a snowy Vail Pass, the product of
inattention to the gas gauge, and a lot of water in the tank.
This
would prove to be my only long river trip, and one of only two overnight paddle
trips I ever took after going to summer camp in my teens. There is much to say
about the pleasure of just sitting back and letting the scenery go by, and
about the luxury of carrying all the food, clothing, and shelter one would desire.
But there is also the contrary winds and willful power of the river to contend
for paddlers to contend with.
I
would soon transition from trips with Buddy and other friends, to trips with
Jean. Together we’d find a good mix of trips on the ground from long
backpacking trips to multiday visits to the national parks. 
Our Green River Route.
