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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment