Old connections come in very handy :) Rob, whom I met rafting Tana river in Alaska, through our mutual friend Todd, shot me an email saying some friends of his had a few open spaces on the Gates of Lodore trip. I wrote Linda and Riley and asked if they still had spots and wouldn't mind us tagging along. Linda replied that it was a family trip, and so there'd be no alcohol or nudity. No problem for us to do without either, and so we got invited!
Originally the trip was for the Yampa river, Deer Lodge to Echo Park, and then down the Green river to Split Mountain. But as the month of June progressed, the Yampa started dropping and Linda switched us to Gates of Lodore. As neither Lisa nor I knew either canyon, we were just happy to be invited on the trip.
We got our shopping list, prepared the propane tank, and Linda and Riley took care of everything else. It was a big project -- there were a total of 25 people in our group, and they ended up renting four oar rig setups in Vernal. In addition to those four we had our raft, and Riley's orange Rogue, Linda and their daughter Ashley paddled a two-person ducky, and their son Jake brought his kayak.
Everything worked out. Lisa and I drove to the put-in, unusually enough I didn't trace the path with my finger. We ended up driving some extra 100 miles, I guess I was on auto-pilot from driving to Vernal so often. We slept in the truck near Cross Mountain, and got to the put-in around 9am.
The four rental rafts were there, and Herm, a big bearded dude with a deep smoker's voice was unloading them. We unloaded our raft, pulled it off the to the side, and watched commercial groups from Adrift and from Holiday get set up. The ranger checked them out. The rest of our group arrived around 11:30am, and it took us a bit of time to load up the rafts. We got checked off by the range, Herm gave us a safety and groover-use talk, quick lunch, and we were on the water by 2pm or so.
The day was beautiful -- mostly sunny and warm, with intermittend rain clouds providing some shade. We floated some 8 miles to Kolb campsite. Fun small rapids along the way, we did well in all of them except Upper Disaster Falls. I stuck the line I wanted, but popped the downstream oar about halfway through. The water was slow enough that I could turn the raft with just the one oar I had, while Lisa and Paige retrieved the popped oar and put it back in the lock. It wasn't the smoothest ride, but nice.
Riley had a bucket boat, and with the extra water it picked up he got stuck on a rock at the beginning of the rapid. He was still stuck by the time we were done, so I grabbed a throw bag and started walking upstream to see if I could be of any assistance. I had to swim across a small river channel with a strainer, and of course as soon as I got to the other side he was free! It never fails. I swam through the channel again, and was at the boats shortly.
Kolb was a camp for a big group -- Lisa and I got a spot furthest downstream, in a hollow full of giant crickets. I was a bit uneasy about them at first, but they just jumped on our tent and hung outside.
Next day was an almost-layover day -- we only had a couple of miles to our next camp, the one above Triplet Falls rapid. Since we got switched to the Lodore section just a week before the trip, our camps weren't spaced out too evenly. We all enjoyed the day, starting with a Migas breakfast (eggs, ham, corn, on fried corn tortillas). I spent most of the day fly-fishing some and reading "The Fountainhead" by A. Rand. Fly-fishing was difficult -- I didn't see any fish besides a few carp under the rafts, and the current was swift.
We enjoyed the camp's shade until mid-afternoon, when we loaded up the rafts and continued the two miles to Triplet Falls. That camp was a huge beach with a shelf of campsites above it. Half the group camped on the beach near the rafts and the kitchen.
Triplet Falls rapid has three stages to it. The water was fairly low, and so there was a good possibility for getting stuck or popping an oar. The third stage had most of the water piling into a big rock on river right, and we were afraid that someone may get wrapped on it if they lost an oar earlier... All the boatmen scouted it, and everybody did fairly well.
Lory had the most exciting run -- he stayed on center current a bit longer and came in contact with some big boulders -- but through skillful raft rotation he glanced off the rock and sailed on through.
Like I wrote, everyone did well.
Without much break we had the most famous rapid of the trip, Hells' Half Mile. A longish bony rapid with a big entrance, the water went over a 3-4 foot drop with all the current concentrated in a narrow channel, accelerating to pile up on a big boulder in the middle of the river. We all scouted it, and while others were still picking their lines a few of us ran the rapid. Jake jumped in his kayak and went through first. Lisa, our passenger Matt, and I took our raft with the idea of setting some safety below.
Our run was OK -- I was not pleased with it. Rather than sliding over some rocks, I stayed longer in the main current and didn't quite get my upstream ferry to stay clear of the big center boulder. We hit the boulder with the bow of the raft, turned as to bounce us off. It did, and threw us stern-first onto another boulder on river right. I was able to place an oar in the current, slowly spin us off of it, and get us to shore below the next set of rocks. Not pretty... but it worked.
Matt and I then walked upstream to get closer to the channel, both to take pictures and to run safety.
Ah, did I mention that I saw a cool grasshopper?
OK, back to rafting. Riley was next, and he had a good line. He started moving right sooner than I did, and although he touched the big boulder, he sailed on through easily. It was nice to watch.
Linda and Ashley had a decent run too, but they picked up major speed in the main drop and just went almost to the top of that center boulder. They washed onto it, spun 90 degrees, and washed off to the side. Fortunately there was a big foam pile on the rock, and so they didn't get wrapped or flipped.
The most entertaining run was Roger's. He stayed left above the drop, went sideways over the bony pourover, then dropped into the fast current and got washed sideways onto the boulder. Thankfully his crew highsided quickly, and the raft washed off!
Lynn showed us all how it's done. I wish I had paid more attention to his entrance, but he had just the proper rightward momentum and just floated right on through. Very nice, we hooted and applauded!
As the "old timer" of the trip, Lory entered Powell-style (i.e. stern-first) and set his rightward momentum that way. I write "old timer" because he used to guide this stretch in 27-foot long boats a few decades ago -- it was very interesting to hear what he had to say on those days.
The last raft was guided by Pete, and they did pretty well. He entered too far right, but spun the raft in the fast current and hit the center boulder sideways, spinning around it.
More rapids followed, but nothing as exciting as Triplet and Hell's Half Mile. We passed Echo Park, the confluence with Yampa river. I loved seeing the Steamboat Rock, a huge sharp flat-sided rock, with the Green river doing a 180 degree turn around it.
Jake let me paddle his kayak that day, after lunch. I enjoyed it -- his Jackson All-Star was comfortable, and my feet didn't fall asleep as quickly as they usually do :) Stern squirts, eddy slaloms, lots of front-surfing, I had a great time.
We went 18 miles that day, to Jones Hole 2 camp. Already in Utah, so it wasn't legal for me to fish anymore. Jones Creek is supposed to be excellent for fishing, and we did see someone pull a trout from it. Lisa and I looked and looked, but saw none.
There are a few Anasazi ruins here, some petroglyphs, and a small waterfall, but they were all a few miles away. A part of our group went there, returning in the dark. Lisa and I went for a short walk to enjoy the sunset and scope out the fish, but remained for dinner.
After Jones Hole it was our last day on the river. We floated through Island Park, a slow 8 miles with no current and upstream winds. Lisa rowed the raft, as she wanted some excercise, while I relaxed on the back of the raft reading my book!
After lunch we took a group picture, and headed on towards the takeout, Split Mountain.
Some good holes waited for us, we took a big hit and rode high in Schoolboy rapid, and Riley showed us how to run the "gnar" in Warm Springs rapid.
It was an excellent trip -- we felt lucky to be invited along, and it was a really nice family atmosphere. I hope we'll get a chance to do some more rafting together next year, and perhaps visit some of the trip participants during the winter for skiing near Salt Lake City?
You can also browse contact sheets of all photos I took on this trip.