My San Juan River Trip, May 2003

In 2003, I was lucky enough to be invited on a guided river trip down the San Juan river in southern Utah.  The trip was put on by the Glen Canyon Institute, of which I’m a member.  We took 7 days to travel from Bluff, Utah to Clay Hills Crossing, upstream of where the river meets Lake Powell.  Here are my notes from the trip.

Getting There

The trip started with me leaving work a little early on Friday. I made good time getting out of town and had dinner at Gypsum. I stayed Friday night in Grand Junction with my parents. They were there doing some shopping and errands and attending my cousin’s graduation party. They let me have the second bed in their hotel room.

Saturday morning, my brother Kent joined us for breakfast at Goodpasture’s. I got out of town shortly after 9 AM, from what I remember, and drove west on I-70. I took the scenic route to Moab, by way of the Cisco cutoff. My plan was to stop at the bookstore, then get some lunch, then stop in at Restoration Creamery. Unfortunately, the ice cream store was closed (even though it was Saturday on Memorial Day Weekend, and should have been one of the busiest days of the year for them) and I didn’t see anything I wanted at the bookstore. So I drove on south and stopped for lunch in Monticello.

After lunch, I continued south to Blanding. I didn’t need to be in Bluff until 6:00 PM and it was only mid-afternoon. So I stopped at the Edge of the Cedars museum. I checked out their collection of artifacts and walked around the Puebloan ruins in the back yard. Bluff isn’t that much farther, and I arrived around 5:00 PM. I took my things into our suite at the Pioneer House B&B, where I was staying. They’d reserved their suite for our trip leader, Jeri. And she offered me one of the beds, so I got to stay there for free!

Saturday night, we all met for dinner and a pre-trip orientation. Then a few of us went to the Cottonwood Steakhouse for what passes for beer in Bluff.

Day 1 - Sunday, May 25, 2003

Sunday morning, we packed our gear into trucks to take us to the Sand Island boat launch. One of the guests drove her car up behind the truck we were loading onto, left her engine running, and the locked her keys in the car. Doh! So we had a bit of a delay while a guy came with special tools to open the locked door.

Once we eventually got on the river, our flotilla consisted of 3 rafts for passengers (captained by Jess, Jay, and Nate), 1 raft for gear and beer (captained by Margie), 1 dory for passengers (captained by Jeri), and 2 inflatable kayaks called duckies. I’d always wanted to try a ducky, though I’ve never done any kayaking or anything even close. So of course I volunteered to take one of the duckies from the very beginning. It was good fun, and I figured out the basics of how to paddle and steer without any problem.

We boated downstream a ways and stopped to see some rock art on a mini-hike. Then we boated a ways more, before the first accident happened. Given that the water was pretty smooth, I decided to take some photos of the other boaters. So I had my digital camera inside its case, in my pocket. Well, getting out of the ducky at the second stop, I stepped out into water that was about a foot deep. Unfortunately, my feet sank into the silt another two feet. I was up to my knees in sand and the water was up to my waist. This wouldn’t have been a big deal, except it got my camera wet, and it didn’t ever work afterwards.

I later joked that if there was a prize on the trip for the person who destroyed or lost the most stuff to the river, I should get it. My $400 camera was the first casualty.

All told, we stopped 3 or 4 times on Sunday to view rock art, including the Butler Wash site. It was mainly Basketmaker era Puebloan rock art. At one place, there were potsherds all over the ground, something I’d never seen. All the other places I’ve seen rock art have been so heavily traveled that they’ve never had any artifacts nearby. So it was strange to see so many pieces of several hundred year old pottery on the ground.

Also, one place we stopped - on the side of the river which is Navajo Reservation - had a rock art panel people sometimes call “Desecration Panel”. At some point, someone desecrated much of a rock art panel. Jay, who is an archaeology expert, said the original rock art was several hundred years old, but was ritually defaced sometime in the 20th century, presumably by a Navajo with an axe.

Day 2 - Monday

Monday morning, I woke up early and decided to go for a walk before breakfast. I walked up to the “River House” ruin, not far from the river. It was awesome - a Pueblo III ruin with a fairly intact kiva, some potsherds, some corn cobs, and rock art. I also walked over to the remains of a Mormon trading post from the 1800’s. Then I went back to camp. The group was going to hike up to River House and then on a long hike up to Comb Ridge. Given my knee injury, I didn’t want to go on the long hike. And since I had already visited River House, I declined the hike and stayed down by the river and read my book of of science fiction short stories.

That afternoon, we hiked up Chinle Wash. We saw some more rock art, including something Jess called “baseball man”. It was an old humanoid figure (what they call anthropomorphs, since they’re not sure if they are really supposed to be people or spirits) which later had a shield drawn over it. We then hiked up to the base of some alcoves where there are more Pueblo ruins. It was a hot hike, and I got sore knees from walking on the sand and rocks. More than a week later, as I’m writing this, my knees still hurt. I guess I re-injured myself that day.

That night, we camped in an area with big old trees. And since it had been windy the previous night, I predicted we might see bats. Sure enough, about 5 minutes after I said that, we did! The bats came out a little before dark; I think I counted 6 of them, total. Also, some coyotes across the river howled at us a while.

I set up my tent right next to the water that night, under the bats. I wanted to hear the gurgling of the river, plus I found that it’s breezier and cooler by the river. And given how far from the camp kitchen I set up my tent the night before, I decided my knee would be happiest if I didn’t drag all my gear a long ways away just to set up my tent.

I checked on my camera throughout the day. It was still dead. I found that if I looked through the viewfinder, I could see water with little sand particles floating around in it. You know those snow globes you shake up and it looks like it’s snowing? That’s what my viewfinder looked like.

Day 3 - Tuesday

This day, we spent lots of time on the river. I saw 3 ewe desert bighorn sheep high up. Then we got to Mexican Hat and resupplied, getting more ice, water, and food, and dropping off trash and our magic groover (the poo can). One of the guests (the same one who locked her keys in her car with the engine on the morning of the first day) had a migraine headache that day, and was feeling terrible. They set up an umbrella to keep her out of the sun, and although she got a bit better by afternoon, she decided to leave the trip at this midway point.

It was definitely a hot day, and many people got overheated that day, from a combination of too much exposed skin, not drinking enough water, and not jumping in the river enough. One of the guests was particularly sick - my guess is she probably had true heat exhaustion - and ended up puking about 5 times that night. Thankfully, it cooled down by around 10 PM that night at our camp in the lower San Juan canyon. Many of us were pretty concerned about the person with heat exhaustion, but she got somewhat better the next day and by the end of the trip was right as rain.

My knee was really hurting by this time, and I made a mental note that I really need to wear my knee brace all the time, not just on hikes. I think what re-injured it was all the walking around on sand and rocks. The knee was getting pretty good before I left for the trip, but I’d been walking on firm, even ground. You just don’t get that in the desert.

This third day was when we entered the lower part of the canyon, which I didn’t find nearly as nice as the upper canyon. There were occasional rapids in the river, but no rock art or Indian ruins.

Day 4 - Wednesday

Since most of the guests were still tired from the heat the day before, nobody seemed to want to take the duckies. They wanted to take it easy on the rafts, so I paddled a ducky that day. Given the heat related problems Tuesday, the guides were careful to keep the guests cooler on Wednesday. By mid-morning, we stopped and took a long break in the shade for drinks and cookies. That eventually turned into lunch.

We went through the Goosenecks this day. I’d seen them from above at the Goosenecks Overlook, but this was the first time from the river.

That afternoon we took another break and many of us went across the river to play in an awesome section of mud. We all rolled around in it like pigs and went topless (yes, even the women, though apparently there are no photos to prove that). We took a ducky across the river with us, because I didn’t want to swim it. Three of us got into the ducky to come back across after our hour long mud bath. And that’s when the second problem happened.

I had taken off my sunglasses, shoes, watch, shirt, and knee brace to play in the mud. Well, when we came back across the river, we were covered in mud, so I just threw all that stuff in the ducky. Unfortunately, we capsized the boat for reasons I’ll probably never understand (having 3 people in a 2 person boat may have been part of it). So all three of us went into the river. Nate swam back to shore, I flipped the boat right side up and floated alongside it, and John grabbed one of my shoes and hopped in the boat. I eventually got back in the boat and we paddled to shore, but I ended up losing 1 shoe, my sunglasses, and my watch into the river. I’ll keep the 1 remaining shoe as a souvenir. Years from now, when we drain Lake Powell, I’m sure the other shoe will show up.

Luckily, I thought to pack a spare pair of sunglasses and I had my hiking shoes. So I wore the hiking shoes the rest of the trip, and borrowed Croakies for my spare sunglasses.

Lesson 1: Don’t expect everything to stay dry. My camera incident on Day 1 taught me this lesson.

Lesson 2: Wear or carabiner everything down, even in a ducky. Losing my shoe, watch, and sunglasses taught me this lesson.

That night, I was really tired from paddling the ducky, playing in the mud, and exerting myself during the few moments of panic during the capsized ducky incident. Also, my knee was really hurting and I was limping quite a bit.

I was thinking Beth would probably really like driving a ducky. Maybe we should take lessons or rent one sometime or something.

I was also thinking the lower San Juan Canyon is a bit boring. There’s no rock art or archaeology, just rock and river. But I did see some goslings.

Day 5 - Thursday

Thursday morning, the group activity was a hike up a trail to the rim. Given my knee problems, I skipped it. Actually, I’d planned to skip this hike even before the trip started, because I figured it would aggravate my injury. So I napped and read my book. I also noted that the omnipresent San Juan grit even got into my ball point pen, keeping it from clicking in and out.

Later, we floated down the river some more. We started to see some sandstone once again, high up on the canyon walls. I definitely like the sandstone more than the limestone. I rode in the dory today - my first time ever. We camped that night between two other groups, and I decided to take a bath. There was a great place to bathe in the river, and so I broke out the soap! That night we had a little rain.

Day 6 - Friday

This morning, some of the group climbed up to a pond on the ledge that hung over the pool where I’d bathed the night before. To get to this pond, you have to do a short hike, a 10 foot free climb up, another short hike, and a 20 foot free climb down. I tried to go along, but was unable to get up the 10 foot free climb. I just couldn’t get a grip good enough to pull myself up, so I had to stay down below. I was sad I couldn’t do it. I guess I need to either lose some weight or improve my upper body strength or both. Even if my knee was healthy, I don’t think I could’ve made it up that section.

So I stayed in camp. I was also tired that morning. I just couldn’t seem to get a full night’s sleep, between the heat (which most nights meant I couldn’t fall asleep until around midnight) and the noise from the other campers.

We finally left camp after a lunch of taboulli burritos. We boated to some side camp, where we stopped for a hike. We went up to some clear water pools and jumped in, but then it got windy and looked like it might rain. Not wanting to get stuck in a flash flood, we high tailed it out of there.

After leaving the place where we stopped for the hike, we soon hit the part of the river where silt from Lake Powell has built up. Even though the river is above the level of the lake, the water slows down in this area and the silt settles out. Over the past 40 years, since the Glen Canyon Dam was completed, it’s totally changed the nature of the San Juan River here. The bottom of the river is all silt - no rocks. That makes it glassy smooth, with no rapids or even ripples. Plus, the river is very wide and shallow and slow. It’s very unnatural. On the plus side, the Cedar Mesa sandstone formation starts coming down to the river in this section, which made for a prettier canyon. It also got windy down here. That combined with the slack water really made it tough for the guides to row. I felt a little sorry for them.

I took 2 Aleve painkiller tablets for my knee. I’d never taken Aleve before, but it did wonders! Good stuff.

Friday night, we camped at the mouth of the famed Grand Gulch. I say “famed” because the upper parts of Grand Gulch are home to lots of Puebloan ruins. In fact, it was one of these ruins that gave Wetherill the idea that the Basketmaker and Pueblo were different groups of people, or at least separated in time. When we set up camp, there weren’t many choice tenting spots to choose from. I set up my tent right on the solid rock, without stakes. The bats came out again. I ended up seeing bats most nights on this trip, but Friday night I actually heard ones echolocation. It used a frequency that was at the top end of my hearing, and I even heard its “feeding buzz” as it caught a moth.

I was thinking Friday morning that, for me, the goal of a vacation is to reach a state of boredom. You see, with all the things normally going on in my life, a vacation means getting relaxed and clearing my mind, to the point of boredom. Well, reflecting back Friday evening, I realized that I achieved it. I was actually bored twice on Friday. I tried to read my interesting book and just couldn’t get interested in it, and I even tried to take a nap to no avail (though that could have something to do with the heat, which was the high 90’s).

Day 7 - Saturday

It rained a little in the night, and I had to put the rain fly on my tent. That cut off the ventilation and so it then got too hot, so I took it back off. All this meant I didn’t get much sleep again.

Saturday, we boated a while and then stopped at Oljeto wash. It was a beautiful sandstone canyon. I hiked up a ways and found a place in the shade near where a canyon wren was singing, so I stopped there and rested and read my book and wrote some notes on the trip.

The canyon walls were very high and there are lots of echoes. I could hear very well the other hikers talking, since everyone’s voice was so piercing in the beautiful quiet of this canyon.

Jay found a piece of a cinder block. How a cinder block got here we couldn’t figure out, since nobody lives upstream in this canyon for a long ways. The head of this drainage is in Monument Valley. Also in the bottom of Oljeto Wash I saw tracks of either deer or bighorn sheep. I’m not sure which it was.

Having been on the river a week, I decided the San Juan is the color of coffee. It stains everything it touches, and some of my clothes will always have the San Juan coloration. They warned us of that before the trip - don’t bring any clothes with you that you don’t want to get stained. One of the boatmen, Nate, has made a special adaptation to the staining properties of the river. You see, instead of wearing lightweight clothes with modern fabrics, he buys shirts and slacks and ties from the thrift store. That way, when they get stained, he’s only throwing away a $2 shirt, instead of ruining a $30 one. Yes, Nate rows his boat while wearing slacks, shirt, sport coat, and tie. He’s the best dressed boater on the river, by far. And a bit eccentric.

The last part of the river was all flat - “slack water”. The river is the entire width of the canyon, with no bank on either side. And it’s all only inches deep. Normally, the guides have to literally get out and drag the boats over the sand bars near the end of the trip. It’s very sad - an unexpected consequence of the Glen Canyon Dam. I’m sure they never thought that it would totally change the San Juan for miles upstream of where it enters “Lake” Powell.

Fortunately, when we were there the dam people upstream were letting enough water out of the Navajo Dam that we were able to get down to the take out point (Clay Hills Crossing) without too much of that. I think we only got stuck on the bottom once or twice. One of the guides told me that in another 10 years, this stretch of the river will be totally un-runnable, and everyone will take out at Mexican Hat instead. It’ll just be impossible to raft down the lower canyon due to the silt. It’s sad to think that people won’t be able to do this river trip in just 10 more years.

Once we reached Clay Hills Crossing, it took a while to pack everything up into the vans and trucks, then we had an incredibly long 2.5 hour drive back to Bluff. But once there, we all got our stuff and headed back to the B&B for warm, clean showers. The party all met at the Bluff steakhouse that night and said our last farewells.

Getting Home

I got up early Sunday morning and headed home. I was on the road by 6:15, and made great time. I got breakfast in Moab, and met my father at noon for a long lunch in Glenwood Springs. Leaving Glenwood around 1:30, I felt certain I’d be home in time for supper. Mother Nature had other ideas.

Just as I got to Vail, a pair of cop cars blocked off I-70 eastbound, forcing all the traffic onto the Vail side streets. I took the opportunity to drive to a city park for a nap, since my eyes were tired from all the driving. While I was at the park, I called the Colorado Highway Department hotline, which said that I-70 was closed due to a sinkhole caused by unusual runoff in a nearby creek. I would have to detour by way of Leadville, adding an extra hour or more onto my trip. However, this same runoff was flooding the one road that connects East Vail with Vail. And the local officials closed that road while I was napping at the park. So I ended up being unable to get back to the highway, anyhow!

I was stuck in East Vail for about 6 hours, after which they finally had the frontage road fixed enough that they were letting people out of East Vail (but not back in). So I got back on the highway and headed back west to the turnoff to Leadville, at which point I was stuck in a huge traffic jam all the way to Leadville and back down the mountain to Copper Mountain. I reached Frisco around 9:30 PM, exhausted. If I had a better night’s rest the night before or hadn’t been on the road so long, I probably could have pressed on home. But I was starting to have bad driving judgment, which isn’t very safe. So I drove to a Forest Service campground near Lake Dillon and slept from about 10 PM to 4 AM. Then I got up and drove the rest of the way home. So the trip home that I thought would take about 10 hours ended up taking 24. But I was happy to finally be back in Broomfield.

Afterwards

September 29, 2003: I wrote the above nearly 4 months ago, right after my trip.  I still think of the great time I had on that trip, and I look forward to going back sometime.  I’m doing a little housecleaning today and ran across a couple things in my “outbox” that need to be filed away.  One is a copy of the newspaper article about the trip that Lori Lee-Howell wrote. She was one of my fellow tourists, a writer from Utah. Here is her article [now 404 as of 8/29/2004], from The Herald Journal.  The other thing I found in my outbox was a pile of photos that various people had sent me.  Since destroying my digital camera on the trip, many of the others took pity on me and sent me their photos.  I scanned those and interspersed them above, to the best of my recollection of what picture goes with what day.