Canoeing Utah's Green River - 2008 -- part 1 of 3

Here are highlights from our 9 day, 120 mile paddle down Utah's Green River. We put in at Crystal Geyser, just below the town of Green River. The cliffs are still quite low here as seen below...




... but quickly grow in height as we enter Labyrinth Canyon, named by the intrepid explorer, John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Civil War major who made the first descent of the Green and Colorado (then called the Grand) Rivers. Note the height of the cliff wall in this photo using the canoe and kayak at the base for perspective...



The Green River has a mild current of 2 mph in September and temperatures range in the mid- 80s to mid-90s each day. The area only receives about 6 inches of precipitation annually, but our first night had rain and our 2nd day had strong 30 mph winds and some rain. Of course, the strong winds were upriver against us and created 2 foot waves which were heading into us, making for strenuous and tricky paddling that day, so we only covered 10 miles.

Sand and rock bars are created by the river, and when you run into them, you end up pulling your boat, as seen below, but fortunately this happens rarely after you learn to "read" the river bottom...



We did a number of hikes up the mesas and cliffs and reached some amazing overlooks. Here you see Chuck E., me, our leader Greg, and Lou, and far below is the Green River and our camp.




Another popular stopping point is Registry Rock, where for a hundred years travelers have noted their presence with pictures, initials, or names. We stopped, but didn't sign in. Click the photo and you can see some of the artwork on the rocks...



Ellen and I were often the lead boat which allowed us to see the reflected cliffs in the undisturbed water as seen here...




One of my goals this trip was to scale the saddle (low point) between the high cliffs at Bowknot Bend, as was done by Powell and also Colin Fletcher, another of my heroes. This is the place where the river travels 7 miles around a loop to return to within a few hundred yards of itself. Look carefully below and you'll see the river on both sides of the photo...





Here's an amazing aerial shot of oxbow shown above, The place we climbed is the lowest section where the two river segments are closest...

Part 2 of Green River posts

Part 3 of Green River posts