35 - 5/31/2010 - Sauk River (Day 3)

Camp on the Lower Sauk

The rain stopped just as I got up in the morning. We dried our gear as much as we could while we had breakfast, and loaded up. The takeout was only 4-5 miles downstream, but there was no way of knowing if we would have to portage.

After the minor logjams of the preceding day, I was surprised that the Lower Sauk was clean all the way to the takeout. Even channels that normally held large piles of wood had easy routes through them. It only took a couple of hours for us to reach the takeout, and we were quickly loaded and ready to go.

We stopped off and had lunch before heading up to the put-in. When Chris and I reached Bedal, the rain was pouring down, and the campground was deserted. I ended up driving home the back way, coating my boat and trailer with mud (it's still on the trailer almost 2 weeks later).

34 - 5/30/2010 - Sauk River (Day 2)

Jaws

We took our time breaking camp and packing. We packed a little more gear on my raft because the rapids below would be a bit more difficult. I was still concerned about logs in the river, which are a typical problem on the Upper Sauk, but the run was cleaner than I had seen it in years.

We made it to the midway point, grabbed the remaining dry firewood, and took advantage of the facilities. We talked to several people we knew who were running the Middle Sauk, and then we took off.

Lee and Chris decided to scout Jaws, which is the big rapid on the run. I waited until they were halfway down and I ran it while they watched. I then waited for them to finish scouting and run the rapid. Lee had a minor swim at the bottom, but got back into his boat easily. He had another flip on the next rapid from running it too far left.

Once we got through all of that, we continued down the river, with a short stop for lunch. We passed the two Middle Sauk takeouts and headed onto the Lower Sauk. Almost immediately we ran into a sketchy rapid with logs in it. This took a little work, but we made it through easily.

A bit later, I came to a place where I had to make a choice, and neither option was particularly appealing. On the left, the water channeled under a low log across most of the river. Taking this channel would mean frantically getting to shore and carrying the boats around. On the right, there was a channel with logs in it, but there seemed to be a way through. I chose this way, and immediately realized I would have to duck under a log. Going under the log, I lifted it up, and a moment later it came down onto my head - not hard, but I was glad to have my helmet on.

The campsite I had hoped to get to was now upstream, so we continued on. The water moved fast, and many possible options came and went before I could get to shore. Finally, we rounded a corner and came to a big beach next to a rapid. We had a view of mountains, plenty of space to spread out, and a big log next to the camp to dry gear on.

We settled into camp just before a light rain started. We set up a tarp as a wall on the canopy to keep the wind and rain out, and had dinner. Just before bedtime, the rain came up a bit, but we were prepared for it.

33 - 5/29/2010 - Sauk River (Day 1)

Lee and Chris on the Upper Sauk

Back in January, I reserved a campsite at Bedal Campground on the North Fork Sauk for Memorial Day weekend. My plan was to camp at the put-in one night and then do 2 nights on the river, and offer the campsite to friends who didn't want to boat or just wanted to do day trips. Several people were interested, but in the end only 2 people showed up.

The week before, we were looking at the flow dropping and considering plans for a low water run. Then a couple of days before the trip, the rain started and the flows came up quickly. I switched to my cataraft so that we could carry more rainy weather gear, like a popup canopy, extra tarps, and dry firewood. It also meant that I could help carry gear for the other people.

On Saturday morning, we ran our shuttle. We decided to leave one vehicle at the takeout and one at the mid-way point. The mid-way vehicle had more firewood in it, but more importantly it gave us an option to change our plans if the weather got worse.

We got on the river just after lunch. We ran into a log near the beginning, but the run was clean after that. We made it to where I had planned to camp very quickly, and decided to continue downstream and take our chances with a later campsite. As we passed through this area, we saw a helicopter doing some questionable logging operations. After more paddling, we found a nice spot. I had seen this spot before, but never considered it as a potential campsite.

The site had a nice beach for the kitchen with plenty of driftwood for firewood and several flat sandy areas for tents. It was situated between rapids, though apparently these would not be loud enough to drown out my snoring...

We set up camp and built a fire for dinner. We enjoyed a nice evening, with just a little sprinkle of rain.

32 - 5/22/2010 - Middle Middle

Me at the end of Second Island Drop

(courtesy Bill Yager)

We had originally planned to run the Green, but the flow came down too low for rafts, and people started to back out. So, we switched over to the Middle Middle. We had half IKs and half rafts, and it was informally named a "flip practice" run. I just had fun with it.

31 - 5/16/2010 - White River

Joe entering one of the bigger rapids on the White

When we planned this run, we thought we would have 4-5 people, but in the end it was just Joe and me. We didn't like the look of the usual takeout, and we found a much nicer one upstream. This would make a big difference later in the day.

We started out easily enough. The White has a lot of wood in it, but most of it is along the sides and is easily avoidable. The rapids are easy, but fairly continuous, so the run is pretty fun... except when disaster strikes.

OK, so maybe "disaster" is a little strong, but I did get myself into trouble. There was a place where we had 3 choices, 2 of which had obvious logs. As we started down the remaining channel, we saw a channel-wide logjam. Joe made the eddy, and I didn't. I went downstream and stopped next to the shore. I handed Joe my paddle and went to get out by holding onto a branch and standing on a rock. I slipped, the branch broke, and I went downstream. I grabbed for the shore, but had no success there. I saw the logjam coming up, and I remembered my training. I got into the aggressive swimming position (head downstream, on my stomach) and pulled myself up onto the first log. A few moments later, my boat was next to me, wrapped on the log. My foam footbrace came out, and I ended up having to send it downstream.

After a few minutes, Joe showed up with my paddle. I was fine, but I needed to get to shore and that wasn't going to be easy. Joe went back up and got his boat and a rope. While I waited for him, I shifted position and ended up losing a shoe. This made things a little tougher, especially for climbing out. First, we got my boat tied off to shore. Next, Joe tried to help me climb up the rootball, but it was steep, high, and crumbly. Everywhere I tried to stand fell apart. We finally decided that the best way for me to get out would be to get onto my boat and then climb onto shore. It was shakey going, but I made it.

Finally off the logjam, we still had to portage, and the shore was steep. We dragged the boats up the hill about 40 feet, walked downstream 100 feet, and then slid back down to the river. Back in the river, I waited for Joe. As we headed downstream, we found my footbrace stuck on a log, and Joe was able to rescue it.

Short one shoe but otherwise unharmed, I continued downstream. The takeout we chose was easy and I was able to drive the car right down to the river.

30 - 5/15/2010 - Green River Gorge

Lyles goes big at Paradise Ledge

The Army Corps did an experiment where they allowed the level of the reservoir above the Green River Gorge to go up to a higher level than normal to test the integrity of recent repairs. The plan had been to start releasing this extra water on Friday and continue through the weekend, with levels dropping in steps. They started a day early, which meant that we only got 1300 cfs on Saturday. Still, 1300 cfs is a great IK level, and it was a sunny day, so a group of us took advantage.

The trip was fun as it always is. There were long surfing sessions at Ledge Drop 1 and at Paradise. The one incident involved me at Secret Class IV. I was being silly above the rapid, and I predicted that I would flip. I did. At the bottom of the right side of the rapid, there was a tree branch in the water. I got too close to another boater, and I ended up having to hit the tree branch. I flipped on it, went under it, and came up under my boat. I recovered quickly, but it was a harbinger of things to come...

29 - 5/14/2010 - SF Snoqualmie

Yana dealing with the tree

A few weeks earlier, a woman named Yana contacted WRRR about boating. I offered to take her on an IK trip, but she had to agree to a class III run at a later date (in a previous posting, I noted that I think IKers need to start out on class III in order to really get moving).

We had planned this Friday trip, and the weather and flow cooperated nicely. We only had one minor hazard to deal with: the tree across the river in the picture above. This tree is a lot worse than the photo indicates. Swimming under this tree would be very dangerous, and there's not much room to get around it. It's not clear from the photo, but Yana is actually stuck on a rock just above the tree.

28 - 5/13/2010 - Middle Middle

I've been so busy boating and I didn't take pictures from this run, so I can't remember who was even there. From my emails, there were several people planning to show up, but I don't think they did. I suspect that it was just me, Lyles, and Homer.

Yampa River Roundup

Joan in Warm Springs

I thought about showing the picture of Joan after she flipped, but it's much more impressive that she ran Warm Springs in the first place, so she gets extra credit.

Since the trip, we've all had time to reflect. Some people didn't like the fact that the trip was so cold. I didn't really have a problem with that. I carried plenty of warm clothing and my tent and sleeping bag were quite warm. It might have been nice to have warmer weather, but that could have meant significantly higher flows and lots of insects, so I was happy with the tradeoff.

The food was great, and everyone worked well together. As I mentioned previously, I did forget the hand soap, and that won't happen again. Other than that, I can't think of anything I needed that I didn't bring. I did bring oar extenders and counter-weights, and I could have done without the extra weight. I would like to get some sort of medium-sized drybox that I can strap to the table I carry in the front of the boat. This would allow me to carry more up there.

Some new things I tried worked very well for me. Rather than an ammo can, I brought a small drybag for groover supplies. This was easier to attach to my boat, easier to carry, and made for a convenient "bathroom key". Another thing I did was to rig the groover so I could put it on my boat without having to put other gear on top of it. That allowed me to have the boat almost completely rigged beforehand.

The best new thing I did was to change how I packed my personal gear (tent, sleeping gear, clothing, etc.). I used to separate my gear into 3 drybags - one for tent and sleeping gear, one for clothing, and one for miscellaneous items (iPod, batteries, medicines, etc.) - but I realized that I was carrying a lot of stuff to and from camp that I didn't need. So, I switched to putting 2 days worth of clothing and the items I needed in the tent into a small bag, and the rest of the clothing and miscellaneous items that I didn't need every day into another bag, which stays on the boat. When I need new clothes or other items, I can swap them without having to carry them. This makes a big difference when my campsite is a long way from the boat - it almost always saved me a whole trip.

The Yampa trip does involve a lot of traveling. It would have been easier if everyone had been able to take one more day off at the end, but it really isn't practical.

I would love to run the Yampa again, and there's a possibility of running the Gates of Lodore section of the Green, which includes the section we ran below the Yampa. Here's hoping!

27 - 5/8/2010 - Yampa River (Day 6)

Entering Split Mountain Canyon

In the morning, I learned that Paula had fallen and broken her finger the night before, not long after I had fallen asleep. She seemed in good spirits, and would be able to row her raft, but we would still need to take her to have it looked at. We got on the river early so we could get to the takeout as quickly as possible. This was the second time that my tent had frost on it, and I had to roll up the rainfly while it was still wet.

Below the Cove Camp there is 7 miles of relatively calm water. We still made 3mph without rowing, but it felt like we weren't moving. Part of the reason for that was that we could see the mouth of the canyon where we had camped the whole time. We were just meandering.

We stopped for a minute at a boat launch area and talked to the ranger about Paula's finger. The ranger took off with us and ran down into Split Mountain Canyon, which is where the other side of the mountain that was split can be found. It is almost the mirror image of where we camped the night before.

Split Mountain Canyon has more plentiful and exciting rapids than the rest of the trip. The scenery is also a bit different, with lots of light colored crumbly sandstone. It was a lot of fun, and was a great end to the trip.

We landed at the takeout a little before noon and started unloading boats and putting the gear into the trailer. We had a quick lunch, and then a couple of us had to deal with the groover. This took a little while, but at least there was running water.

Packed and ready to go, we headed into Vernal, Utah to have Paula's finger looked at. This took a couple of hours, which put us a bit behind schedule. We grabbed dinner to go and hit the road. We reserved hotel rooms in Ogden, Utah (good thing we had internet devices with us) and made it there around 10PM. We set up a plan to get up and leave at 5AM and get breakfast on the road.

The rest of the trip was all truck stops and non-stop travel (I was glad I didn't have to drive). We made it to the Seattle area at 6PM and I was home by 7. I was glad that I was taking another vacation day the next day to recover.

26 - 5/7/2010 - Yampa River (Day 5)

Ready to go

This would be our last day on the Yampa. A couple of miles below camp, we floated onto the Green River, which was running pretty low. It added a little water to the flow. Not far below this, we stopped to look at some petroglyphs.

The rocks on the Green were quite a bit different from the walls on the Yampa. The Green has more dark sedimentary layers of rock, which can be seen below:

Joan on the Green

We stopped for lunch, which was crackers and seafood dip (and candy), and worked our way through the end of the canyon. The canyon ends at one end of Split Mountain, where one mountain was split by another upthrusting mountain. The camp here is called Cove Camp, though we would probably call it Dead Sheep, because there was a dead sheep just upstream. Just past the camp the land opened up into a broad, flat valley.

I set up camp on the beach, next to my boat. Dinner was huge steaks, and just about everyone finished their entire steak, which was unexpected, but probably necessary. I went to bed early, and I apparently fell asleep quickly.

25 - 5/6/2010 - Yampa River (Day 4)

Randy runs Warm Springs

None of us knew what to expect this day. We knew we needed to kiss the Tiger Wall to make sure we would have a good run at Warm Springs, but we had no idea what this all meant. We got to Tiger Wall within an hour. Because of my helmet, I didn't make my first attempt, so I had to hurry and kiss the wall while it was flying by - I made it, but I came very close to losing an eyebrow...

We also ran into the research team who were finishing up their trench filling and sediment studies.

At Warm Springs, we all took a look and discussed the line. Joan, who was in an IK, was nervous, but we were all proud of her for going for it. I went down by the river to take pictures. The rapid was straightforward and runnable, but it would take some pushing. Joan followed another boat and was too far left. A wave stopped her and the next wave flipped her. She swam the big hole, and it spat her out. She took a swim, but still did a great job. I took the easy run - rather than starting center and working right, I ran the big waves on the right and stayed right until I passed the big hole.

Not long after regrouping, we came to our camp area - Box Elder. A couple of the guys walked down to make sure that the camp we wanted was available. In the meantime, a pair of bighorn sheep walked right by us and crossed the river. Box Elder 3 was available to us, so we landed at the big beach. We had a great lunch and set up camp in the trees. A few of us explored the shallow caves at the other camps and saw a small group of deer.

Before dinner, the ranger came by and looked at our permit and gear and gave us some information. He showed us a photo of the camp from a week before, when there was 6 inches of snow on the ground. A bit later, the research team and another group passed by and said hello.

The evening was cold, and it was really nice that a couple of people had brought heaters.

24 - 5/5/2010 - Yampa River (Day 3)

The Fords run the gnar at Big Joe

We got a later start this day, but it would turn out to be a very long day. Before I left, I took pictures of everyone running the big rapid next to camp. After a couple of hours, we came to Signature Cave and climbed up to it. As we were crossing the field, a trio of bighorn sheep got a little annoyed at us for disturbing their lunch. Here is a picture of me in the cave with the river in the distance:

The climb back down was a little scary at one point. There is a small ledge that had a mud puddle, and I was a little scare of slipping and falling, but I made it. I ran out of space and battery power as I was going back down to the boats, so I took advantage of being first down to change them.

As we continued down the river, it got twistier and the walls got steeper. We stopped for lunch near a rock formation called Cleopatra's Couch. Lunch was tabouli salad wraps, which was a little strange, but filling, which was important that day. This giant wall greeted us in the mid-afternoon:

The wind came up after a while, and it was slow going for a while. I took advantage of the situation to hone my oar-feathering techniques. Late in the day, we stopped and hiked up to Mantle Cave (named for some people named Mantle, not for a mantle-like formation). It was a hard hike in our drysuits, but it was an interesting place (other than the parts that had been vandalized - jerks).

Just downstream of Mantle Cave, we found our camp at Laddie Park. This camp also had a lot of willows on the bank, and wasn't easy to deal with, but the main camp section was a large grassy field, which made for nice camping.

Dinner was meatballs and rice, and because it was Paula's birthday, we had cake and ice cream! It rained a little bit, but it stopped after a while and the desert dried out the gear by morning.

On this day, I noticed that I was really getting dehydrated and it was making me uncomfortable. I had to really step up my water intake on this day. Another problem I was seeing was that my hands were getting really dry.

23 - 5/4/2010 - Yampa River (Day 2)

Rafts on the Yampa

Knowing that we had a long day ahead of us, we all got up and got going. The river moved quickly, so we didn't have to work too hard, but there was some wind to slow us down. We stopped for another great lunch, and then made it to Big Joe camp in the late afternoon.

Big Joe was our most difficult camp. The beach was small and covered with willows, and the upper bench had a lot of cactus. The river bed had really silty mud that would suck the shoes off of your feet if you didn't keep moving. I had to unload the entire boat from the front, which meant pulling a lot of my gear over the cooler.

It turns out that we were smart to have gotten going early. Not long after we got to camp, a commercial training group landed above our camp and began discussing what their next choice would be. Apparently, we had grabbed their preferred camp.

My umbrella tent made setting up camp easy, and soon I was relaxing and having a delicious dinner.

22 - 5/3/2010 - Yampa River (Day 1)

Boats in the upper Yampa canyon

The night was cold, and there was frost on the tents in the morning. After a slow start to the day, we were packed and ready to go at around 1PM. One of the great things about the Yampa is that within the first 15 minutes, you're in the canyon, and it lasts for days.

Just before the canyon, we ran into sandbars. One moment I was rowing through water, and the next my oar blades were down in the sand. A couple of people in our party got stuck for a few minutes, but once in the canyon, this was no longer a problem.

We soon stopped for lunch. Our excellent lunch chefs prepared a great meal for us to enjoy. During lunch, I put a small hole in my drysuit, which I patched at dinner and it never gave me any trouble.

After only 4 miles, we pulled over to camp at Anderson Hole. This was a long beach camp. I set up the groover and my tent, and I was done for the day. After dinner, a couple of us explored the area around an abandoned miner's cabin.

My one mistake on the trip was that I forgot to bring the hand soap. Luckily, I had a half bottle of soap for the groover and someone else had a full bottle for the kitchen.

Yampa River Trip

 Randy at the put-in

Over the past few years, a group of us have done a spring rafting trip together. We've run the John Day twice, the Owyhee, and now the Yampa. The Yampa River flows through Dinosaur National Monument in NW Colorado, not far from Utah. The river flows into the Green River, and is the only undammed major tributary of the Colorado River.

We were able to get a "low use" permit for a May 3 put-in. This permit meant that we were the only group of people allowed to launch that day, so we didn't need to have assigned campsites. We still had to follow some rules - no layovers, no lunch stops at campsites, and we could only stay in posted campsites - but we could go at our own pace.

As is customary, I took "groover duty" for the trip. This has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, I don't have to help out in the kitchen. On the minus side, I have to set up first when we get to camp and I am the last packed when we leave. I've learned to pack so that it's easy to put the groover in at the last minute so I can pack everything else while I'm waiting. There is one more plus - since I'm going to be waiting for people anyway, I can sleep late and still get on the river with everyone else.

The drive to the Yampa took 2 days. The first day, we drove from the Seattle area to Twin Falls, Idaho, with a brief stop in Boise to buy spare lifejackets (we hadn't realized we needed a spare for each raft, and we had only brought 2 spares in total). On the second day, we stopped in Heber, Utah for lunch at an interesting restaurant run by a man who was born in Korea, adopted by a Dutch family, and then grew up in England. He was an investment banker in New York before moving to Utah to start a restaurant. After an excellent lunch, we headed to the put-in for the Yampa.

When we arrived at the put-in, we found another group preparing their boats. They told us that they were a research trip going down to a specific spot to gather results and clean up from an experiment started the year before. They were not allowed to camp where anyone else wanted, and most likely we would only see them for a few minutes.

We unloaded our gear, put our equipment together, set up camp, and had a nice dinner (burgers and hot dogs) before retiring for the night.

The flow was around 4000 cfs and slowly dropping, which turned out to be perfect for a first trip. People who started a week later would see increasing flows and flows since mid-May have been above 10,000 cfs. This can be great for people who know what to expect, but it could have been too high for us.