Sun 6/12 - Dragonfly at last

Today is Brad's flight back to Austin, but he wanted to get Breakfast before he left.  It turns out that Dave was the only true enough friend to volunteer to get up early enough to accompany him, whereas Eric and I were still in need of more beauty rest.  They had planned Breakfast at the Moab Diner, but it is apparently closed on Sundays so they wound up having breakfast at the Jailhouse Cafe instead.  While the food was fine, the consensus was that it was quite overpriced since everything was Ala Carte.  Eric and I were up when they returned, so we were able to say our goodbyes to Brad.

In a ironic twist, on Brads previous visit to Moab he missed out on visiting Dragonfly Canyon, and now that he was leaving we finally had time to do this trip.  It seems fate has decided that Brad is not to be allowed in this canyon for some reason.  Since our last attempt to visit Dragonfly Canyon was aborted after an excessively long hike through arches beforehand, we planned to make this canyon the centerpiece of the day.   In lieu of a "real breakfast" that would require an early awaking, Eric and I decided to grab some McDonald's on the way out and eat on the way.

Standing under Wall Arch in 2007

Since we had plenty of time and were in no rush today, we were able to stop and check out the visitors center when we arrived at Arches National Park.  It was a good chance to read through some of the information on the geology of the park, and to watch their introduction video.  One of the most memorable scenes in this video that I remembered from last time was some video short by a tourist the day that a chunk of landscape arch collapsed.  I was very surprised (and a bit disappointed)  to see that this video clip was no longer in the video.  They did update it with photos of Wall Arch which collapsed in 2008, which was interesting to me personally as I had been to that arch previously and have photos of me standing under it.

After finishing up in the visitors center, it was time for our first canyoneering adventure of the trip.  One thing I did learn from last time was to park closer to the bottom of the canyon rather than the top.  The necessary cross desert hike is much easier both before the day gets too hot, and while we are not yet exhausted.  It did make for a longer initial hike, but was well worth it at the end.  After the usual frustrating exercise of trying to make it to a particular spot while avoiding stepping in cryptobiotic soil, we eventually arrived at the top of the canyon.



After a short and easy down climb into the upper section of the canyon, it was only a very short distance to the first pothole obstacle.  (Dave managed to make it a bit harder by finding the most challenging possible route avoiding the easy smooth areas that me and Eric stuck to.)  Last time I visited Dragonfly the water was very stagnant and silty, roughly the color of a chocolate milkshake.  Given that it had not rained in about a month, I had assumed it would be just a dirty if not even worse and had already warned both Eric and Dave what to expect.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the water was more of a turquoise color, and we could actually see through it for a couple of feet or so.  It was also quite a bit lower than last time, so the potholes were not as deep

After Eric and I had carefully made our way through the first pothole Dave unexpectedly took a flying leap in rather dramatic fashion, much to my concern since the water really was not all that deep.  Thankfully it was deep enough, though and we continued onward to the second pothole located just a couple minutes hike down canyon.




 The second pothole is immediately before the first 65 foot rappel of the canyon.  After I had gone across and anchored myself, Eric descended into the pothole and treaded water while Dave slid the drybag down to him to ferry across.  He apparently forgot to secure everything in his pack prior to entering the water, however.  While he was ferrying the drybag across the pothole we began to see all of his granola bars start to float and spread out across the surface of the water.  I'd like to say that Dave and I didn't laugh, but that would be a lie....  Once Eric (and all his snacks) had exited the water, Dave make his now customary flying leap to claim the title of best dramatic entrance of the day.  Actually, in order to try to get a good mid air photo he climbed back up and jumped several times, but it turned out the best image was from his very first jump.


 Since we have all rappelled plenty before, the short rappel was uneventful, although we did wish that we had brought along some rappelling gloves so that we would have been able to descend more quickly.  Once we reached the bottom we were done with the wet section of the canyon, so we all traded in our water shoes for our hiking books which had been kept dry in the drybag.  We also took advantage of stopping to have some snacks and rest up a bit before hiking down to the narrow section of the canyon and the 115 foot final rappel.

At this point, the canyon gets narrow and is best traversed by hanging ones backpack from the front of a climbing harness, and then placing your back against one wall and feet against another and shuffling sideways to get through.  After utilizing this technique to make my way to the anchor bolts and setting up the rappel, I was amused to find that Eric did not share my opinion of the usefulness of this technique, and instead insisted on attempting to walk on the bottom of the extremely narrow section.  It was quite a role reversal for Dave to be the one taking the easy road, and Eric going the hard way.  (Although to be fair the easy way actually looks much cooler in photos, so perhaps it did make sense....)  As I was hooking into the rope to begin my descent Eric though to ask my how long my rope was.  I told him it was 60 meters, and which point we realized that a 60 meter rope was not actually long enough for a 115 foot rappel.  I was pretty sure that I had used a 60 meter rope when I came down this canyon in 2011, but could not remember for sure.  For safety, I tied knots in the end of the rope so that it would be impossible to slide off the end.  I decided to go down a little ways and see if I could see the bottom, since I could always ascend back up the rope if it was too short.  I had to go down a
fair ways before I could see the bottom, and it looked like the rope was about 10 feet too short.  I
considered climbing back up at this point and using my webbing to extend the anchor points, but

The rope left at the bottom

decided to continue down instead since it was difficult to judge distances from so high up.    When I reached the bottom, it turned out that the dynamic stretch of the rope had actually given me the extra length that I needed, and my feet touched the ground just as the safety knots reached my rappel device.  While I had to fumble a bit to get the knots undone so I could detach from the rope, it turned out to be the perfect length after all.  I suspect that the 115 foot length listed in the guide data is not 100% accurate.  Nonetheless, I would definitely make sure to take a 70 meter rope if I were to return again.

One of this hidden hazards of Dragonfly Canyon is poison ivy, and I remembered that a good sized patch of it existed at the base of this rappel.  Since my last visit, this patch has grown quite a bit and if now very large.  It would be easy to run through it it we were not looking out for it, but we easily avoided all of it.  Once we all descended (again cursing the lack of rappelling gloves) we stopped to take off and stow all of our climbing gear since there were no more technical sections in this canyon.  This particular spot in the canyon is a very scenic grotto, so we stopped here for awhile to rest and admire the scenery before beginning the hike to the exit.

From the bottom of the final rappel to the junction with Courthouse Wash, the floor of the canyon becomes deep beach-like sand.  This is not a section of the canyon that I am very fond of since hiking through sand gets tiring very quickly.  We had planned on exploring Courthouse Wash a bit to extend our adventure, but had decided that if the ground remained so sandy we would just head straight for the exit.

When we arrived at the junction with Courthouse wash, the ground immediately changed to a much harder packed dirt, so we did decided to go down canyon a bit to explore rather than up canyon to return directly to the car.  Since we would be coming back the same way and hadn't seen anybody in this canyon the entire day, we left of packs and most of our gear at the junction only taking along our valuables.  It is amazing just how much easier hiking is once a heavy pack is removed.....

Pretty shortly into the hike, I ran across the OTHER hidden hazard of this canyon - quicksand.  The first time I visited Courthouse Wash I also ran into this but was much less prepared.  On that occasion, I had to cross the small creek bed and jumped across to an apparently solid bank immediately sinking one of my legs up to the knee, and leaving my boot wet and uncomfortable for the rest of the hike.  This time I was more prepared, although still almost caught off guard.  I was not actually near the creek when I felt the ground wobble and my boot start to break through the surface, but I reacted quickly enough to jump to solid ground.  We were all a bit surprised, and watched in fascination as the water that had risen around my boot print quickly seeped back into the ground and it immediately took on the appearance of solid ground again.  We played around a bit stepping on the ground to see how it wobbled and water seeped up from underneath before continuing on with a more careful eye on where we stepped.


After just a few more minutes of hiking we came to a spot where crossing the creek would be necessary to continue, but thought it likely that the bank on either side of the creek was likely to be more quicksand and that jumping across was not a good idea, so we decided to use this as our turn around point.  Before we did, however, I wanted to check out the fascinatingly weird behavior of the quicksand.  Since I did not want a repeat of the wet boots and socks, I took them off to experiment a bit.  After a few tentative steps the ground began to wobble, but mostly seemed to hold my weight.  As soon as I shifted my weight a bit, however, it immediately gave way and turned out to be (much to Eric's amusement) deeper than I had expected.  I was easily able to climb out and clean up in the creek.  Getting back out was a bit tricky as the water was surrounded by more quicksand, but by balancing carefully I was able to get out of the water without breaking through the crust.

It was time to head out, we we returned to the junction and picked up our packs.  Unlike last time where it was very difficult to find the trail up the canyon, this time it seemed well traveled and easy to spot.  It also did not require us to continually cross-cross the creek, which made for much easier going than I remembered from last time.  As we approached the vicinity of the takeout, we came across one last large pool of water.  Since the final part of our hike would be across open desert, Dave decided to soak his cotton shirt in the water to keep him cool for the hike out.  The sandy bank to the water was very steep, so I became convinced that it would probably give way and Dave would wind up swimming.  Since that would have been a hilarious video I got the camcorder ready for his attempt and foolishly narrated my belief to the camera, which has the unintended result of making him rethink his strategy.  His engineering mind took over before he made the attempt and he found a long stick he was able to tie his shirt to in order to soak it, much to my disappointment.

Finished the right spot on the trail to cross the creek in order to exit the canyon proved to be a bit challenging, but we located after a few minutes of searching.  Well, Eric and I did.  Dave reverted to his usual technique of selecting the hardest route and climbed out of the canyon in a different and more difficult location.  One we all met back up at the canyon rim it was time for the final (but thankfully relatively short) hike across open desert back to the car.  

Since it was not too late yet, we wanted to drive to Double Arch since it it one of the more spectacular formations in the park and is basically right next to the road.  It turned out Eric had run of of water, however, we we had to head back to the visitors center instead to replenish.  We did wind up driving back into the park to visit the arch afterwards however.  We were all glad we did since it turned out that Dave had never been to this section of the park despite visiting Arches on several occasions.  It was somewhat surreal to be back in such a crowded section of the park surrounded by tourists after spending an entire day in the canyons without ever seeing another single person.

By now we were all hungry and tired so it was time for dinner.  We decided to check out Milts Stop & Eat, which turned out to be more crowded than expected and had no room to eat inside and a 20 minute wait for takeout.  Since we were already there and had no other plans, we decided to wait.  The plan was to take the food to go, but since our orders all came up at different times we wound up eating on their outside patio. The food was good as were the shakes, although they were very overpriced.

By the time we returned to the house we were tired so decided to take a nap with a possibility of returning to Wall St. for climbing this evening.  We never did work up the energy to go back out of the house again, so wound up spending the night napping, reading some of the books in the house, and relaxing in general.

Sat 6/11 - Our final day on the river

As we needed to get an early start today, breakfast was served continental style.  We knew that we were in for some big waves this morning and the day starts off a bit chilly, so we dressed accordingly.  We put on our wetsuits again, with our shirts over the wetsuit and those of us with rain jackets over that.  It was pretty warm while while we waited to depart, but felt great once the first waves washed over the boat.

The big rapid today was "Water Hole".  While it has large waves, it is just a fun rapid and did not pose any of the technical challenges that we faced yesterday.  After "Water Hole" and a few smaller rapids we reached the slower waters where Lake Powell has risen into the canyon.  We lashed both of the S-rigs and our smaller boat together to motor down river.  The current slowed significantly and we had several hours of motorized travel remaining to reach the takeout ramp.  It was enjoyable to simply lie on the raft and enjoy the scenery floating by, which seemed if anything even more spectacular that what we had seen over the last 4 days.  I suspect that this long float without a stop was not quite as much fun for Eric, however.  He was apparently unable or unwilling to use the time tested method of peeing off the back of the raft, and wound up holding it an impressively long time since we were motoring and he could not jump in the water.

It was fascinating to see the effect that Lake Powell has had on the canyon.  The water level is much lower than it used to be, and has deposited so much silt when the level was higher that the entire bottom of the canyon had been covered.  As the water level dropped, the swifter waters began to carve a new channel through the silt covering the canyon floor.  As a result, the river banks as we saw them were cliffs of loose crumbly sand.  We could actually watch showers of sand eroding away from the river bank due to the winds, and at one point even saw a large section of the bank give way and crumble into the river.  Slowly but surely, the canyon is cleaning itself back out.

As we approached the takeout we slowed down to have a quick lunch of Chicken Caesar Wraps served on the boat as we floated.  (My emergency backup protein bars came in handy for the 2nd time!)  This also gave us an opportunity to swim once the motors were turned off, a fact for which Eric seemed immensely grateful.  He seemed in a much better mood after his swim.

Once we pulled over to the boat ramp and unloaded we transferred our personal belongings into trash bags provided to take with us on the return flight.  (The dry bags we had used all week had to go back with the rafts.)  A van made 2 quick trips between the boat ramp and the tiny airstrip where 3 planes were awaiting us while the pilots played frisbee on the runway.  There were two Cessna Stationair 207s, and a Quest Kodiac.  We wound up getting split up with 3 of us on the Kodiac, and Eric by himself on one of the 207s.


The flight back took us over many of the landmarks that we had seen from the river or hiked to over the last 5 days.  It was fun to see these landmarks from a different perspective.  The flight lasted about 40 minutes, so we soon found ourselves as Canyonlands field where we rejoined Eric.  He later expressed that of all the extreme activities we have done so far on this trip, the flight was by far the most terrifying for him so far.

A bus returned us to the river outfitters shop where I found that the crack in my windshield had NOT been repaired.  Apparently the glass company brought the wrong glass and were not able to get the correct one in time.  This means we will need to drive all the way back to Austin with the crack and get it repaired there.

We all wanted to get cleaned up so returned to the rental house and checked back in.  After 5 days in the wilderness, it took 3 attempts to shampoo my hair before I was even able to get the shampoo to make any suds.  As much as I loved spending time exploring the wilderness, a return to civilization does have it's upside as well.  

Since today was Brad's last night in Moab we gave him the choice of dinner and he elected to return to the Moab Brewery.  Afterwards, we walked around downtown a bit and headed back to the house.  We finally managed to get in touch with Zac (the river guide who took the video of us on the Big Drops) and went back to the outfitters both to get a copy of his video, as well as provide him a copy of my GoPro footage of the same rapid.

Fri 6/10 - The day we've all been waiting for

Videos will be added to this post as soon as I am able.  Internet access is slow at the moment.

Today is the day we've all been waiting for.  Today we will be tackling the biggest rapids on the most extreme whitewater river in all of North America.  And best of all, our boat held it's air all night and the decision was made to press onward with our paddle boat, so we get to run the rapids in our little boat instead of the much larger (and less exciting) S-Rig!

The Dollhouse Hikers

By the time that the lazy smart group of rafters who elected to save our energy by not hiking to the dollhouse woke up, the others were already well on their way to the top.  We had a nice slow start to our day, enjoying a breakfast of "McRiver" biscuits.  (Basically like a sausage egg McMuffin)  I went double meat, double cheese, hold the egg and enjoyed it immensely.  Afterwards we broke down all of the camp so that we could depart immediately upon the return of the Doll House hikers.  We wound up hearing a lot about the dollhouse from Dave, who proudly extolled it's virtues as the single greatest part of the entire trip on account of us not having gone along.  (This would be a recurring theme for quite some time....)

Now it was time for some rapids!  The biggest drops (appropriately named Big Drop 1, Big Drop 2, and Big Drop 3) would be after lunch, but there were still some pretty massive rapids before lunch.  Unlike the passengers on the S-Rig who only needed to hold on, those of us on the small row boat had to actively participate to keep our boat upright.  The two important jobs are "high siding" and "punching the waves".  High siding simply means immediately moving left or right to the high side of the raft whenever we are tilted.  By placing all of the weight on the high side, we counter the rotation of the raft and prevent it from tipping over.  "Punching the Waves" is probably even more important.  At the crest of each wave, whoever is on the downriver side of the boat needs to throw their body weight against the tip of the raft.  This helps the boat to break through the crest and reduces the maximum angle that the raft winds up tilting toward.  On a small wave this has the effect of keeping forward momentum intact, but on the really large waves can make the difference between flipping over backwards or successfully cresting the wave.

After a series of intense rapids, we caught up to the boats from Sheri Griffith River Expeditions on a sandbar where we stopped for lunch.  They had planned to wait for us so that we could all support each other through the Big Drops, but got impatient and decided to continue on without us.  This did not turn out to be a good decision for them, but we would learn more about that later.  Lunch today was "Mexicones", which was the first time that I did not find an option to my liking.  Thankfully I still had a full complement of protein bars that I had brought along for just such a contingency.

After lunch Dave, Eric, and I took advantage of the availability of wetsuits that the guide had brought along for us.  While it was probably a hundred degrees out, the probability of falling out and swimming through the rapids for an extended period of time was high, and the water very cold.  Brad was the only member of our group who skipped this option, which had me convinced he would be the only one of us swimming.  Murphy's law is a powerful force indeed......  We also all donned helmets for the excitement ahead.  It was obvious that things were about to get serious.

The three big drops were all stacked one after another just downstream of the lunch beach.  Dave was obviously excited to check out the rapid named "Satan's Gut", as he had been talking about it for the last few days.  Truthfully, I think he just liked to say the name.  Either way, his fascination with that particular rapid was about the prove quote prophetic.

Our boat approaching vertical.

Big Drop 1 more than lived up to it's name with immense waves that towered above us as we passed the troughs and deep valleys before us that we slid into as we crested each wave.  It was awesome to ride through it, and we made it through without incident but Big Drop 2 loomed straight ahead, and inside of it's "Satan's Gut".  Within moments we encountered the biggest wave we had seen yet and the boat began to rear up.  We rose to a nearly vertical position and were on the verge of tipping over backwards, but just as we thought we were going over we finally tipped forward again and rode down the back of the wave as I exclaimed "That was a close one!".  We
punched through the next wave as I heard a cry of "Get me back in the boat!".  I turned around to find Dana (our guide and oarsman) clutching the side of the boat and nobody manning the oars.  As I

Pulling the guide back into the boat

grabbed him and began to pull the next head wave slammed into him, but Brad had come forward from the rear of the boat and we both hauled him into the boat.  In the blink of an eye he had jumped back into the oarsman position and with a couple of quick strokes directed as away from the much discussed "Satan's Gut" formation which even the biggest boats avoid.



After clearing Big Drop 3 we met back up with the other boats, where the guides were all extremely excited about the run we had just had down the rapids.  We later found out that both of the Sheri Griffith row boats that had left without us from the lunch had wiped out in Satan's Gut, with one completely flipped and the other folded in half with all passengers thrown overboard.  Another outfitter running wooden dories had also had an encounter in "The Gut" as it was called, and has smashed in the front of their hull.  Nobody was hurt, but a lot of people wound up swimming through part of Big Drop 2 and all of Big Drop 3.

The campsite further down the river had already been claimed when we got to the sign in sheet, so we stopped early at a camp further upriver.  That meant that instead of running all of the rapids today, we would have some left for tomorrow morning.  It also meant that we would need to get an early start and not have time for any side hikes tomorrow since we had to get to the takeout in time to catch our return flights.

As seems to be tradition on multi-day river trips, the best dinner was saved for the last night.  The guides prepared a steak dinner with Dutch Oven potatoes, corn, rolls and cobbler for desert.  Our final campsite was the least buggy one yet, possibly due to the much more swiftly moving water at this point in the canyon.  We knew we would be getting and early start in the morning, so called it an early night as the sun set.

Thu 6/9 - The Calm Before The Storm.

     The plan for today was to float through the remainder of calm waters of the Colorado all the way to the confluence with the Green River where the river doubles in size and begins to narrow.  We would then camp right before the rapids begin and tackle them all tomorrow.  Dave and Brad decided to add an early morning hike back up to the camp overlook ledge to watch the sunrise, and in what I consider an even better decision Eric and I decided to continue sleeping.

     Once the sun actually did rise us sleepy heads woke up in time for breakfast, which was French Toast with Bacon and various fruits.  After the usual routine of breaking down camp and loading up the boats we pushed off and motored a ways to our first hike of the day.  "The Loop" is an area where the Colorado river doubles back on itself twice.  We pulled over at the beginning of the first loop and were given the option to hike a trail that went up and over the ridge separating the river from itself and the boat would meet us at the other side.  Almost everybody went along on the hike, but a few people elected to stay with the boat.  Once again on this trip, I was reminded that my cardiovascular fitness it not really where I would like it to be, but I eventually managed to huff and puff my way to the top where yet another spectacular view awaited.  After a short time at the top enjoying the view, we headed down the other side to rejoin the boat, finding some Anasazi pictographs along the way.

After the hike everybody was hot and sweaty, so nearly everybody spent some time floating in the river alongside the boats as the floated away from the Loop Hike.  Eventually we all climbed back in and continued motoring downstream to the confluence with the Green River.  This area was known as the "Center of the World" by the John Powell expedition which originally surveyed this canyon.  From this point on we were officially in Cataract Canyon and were required to wear life jackets at all times while on the boat.  We attempted to pull over here for lunch, but it was decided that the riverbank was too steep to haul the lunch equipment up so instead we would continue down to the check in station for Cataract Canyon where the guides had to fill out a trip plan and reserve our campsite for the night.

 There were already several other boats at the sign in box so the beach was a little bit crowded.  The guides decided that the best way to get the boats tied up was the ram the beach at high speed to attempt to slightly beach the boat, which is not an uncommon tactic for the extremely durable S-Rigs, although not really something that the smaller paddle boat that we are in usually does as we would learn in fairly short order.  After a few minutes on the beach where our guides reserved out campsite and chatted with the guides from the other boats about the plan for the rapids we headed downstream once more.

It was about now that we found out why the oar boats were not meant to be rammed into the shore, as we noticed that our front tube was getting soft.  Dana immediately busted out an air pump to get it reinflated, but it was leaking out nearly as quickly as it could be pumped in.  Fortunately our next stop was just few more minutes down the river so we were able to keep our boat afloat by taking turns manning the pump.


We soon arrived at our stop for lunch, which it turned out was also going to be our campsite for the evening so we had a long time to spend at this camp.  While the guides got started on lunch we setup camp.  Fortunately, this turned out to be the best camp so far.  Partially because it had the fewest bugs to date, but mostly because at such high water levels a good chunk of the beach was submerged.  This made for a nice shallow area with a soft silty bottom and no current where we could swim and wade freely to keep cool.  There was also a nice breeze blowing almost all day that made it feel much cooler.  We setup the umbrellas from the S-Rigs and the camp chairs and most of us wound up staying cool in the water for most of the day.

After lunch the guides got work on repairing our boat, which had gone completely flat by now.  It turned out that the gash was pretty large, and most likely could not be repaired.  They used the satellite phone to coordinate how to extract the raft back to Moab, while we would have to ride the S-Rigs through the rapids.  I was pretty disappointed since we had booked the oar trip specifically because it would be more fun in the rapids, but understood that sometimes these things happen.





As it began to cool off, we decided to take a hike down river a bit.  We could hear the roar of the 1st rapids and just barely see them from our camp and wanted to go take a look.  We lucked out that just as we arrived an S-rig from another company was coming through.  While the 1st rapid had looked pretty small from our viewpoint, our perception was immediately corrected as the S-rig entered it and immediately disappeared behind the waves.  Our excitement for tomorrow had just gone up a notch.

By the time we returned to camp, the guides had succeeded in attempting a patch on our boat.  They were not confident that it would hold, so held off on making a decision as to whether to attempt to run the rapids in it tomorrow, or to have the boat extracted upriver and just use the J-Rigs.  We would find out how well it held air in the morning.

About this time the final S-Rig arrived carrying the final 7 passengers.  They wound up setting up their kitchen area and chairs directly behind mine and Eric's tent which we had setup on the outskirts of camp to be in a nice quiet area.  We wound up having to move our site across the camp to avoid the newly established high traffic zone.

Dinner tonight was chicken or beef fajitas.  Normally this would not be an ideal dinner for me, but everything was laid out for us to assemble ourselves so I was able to make a vegetable free fajita with chicken, rice, and cheese which was quite tasty.  The guides outdid themselves on dessert tonight with freshly made donuts that they fried in the dutch oven.  As has become the standard on this trip, we headed to bed shortly thereafter as the sun set.  Tomorrow morning at 6:30am a hiking group will be setting out for "The Dolls House".  This 3 hour hike climbs over 1200 feet above the river, roughly four times the height of the Loop hike that we did the other day.  Both because I prefer to pretend that 6:30am isn't a real time and because the Loop hike was already strenuous enough, I elected to skip this option, as did Eric and Brad.  Only Dave was crazy stupid  motivated enough to get up at 6:30am for an unncessary death march up the side of a mountain.  I was actually surprised that Brad did not go.  I knew that Eric and I were too lazy, but I thought Brad was made of sterner stuff than either of us.

Wed 6/8 - A new group arrives

     Today started off with a hot breakfast of pancakes and sausage.  Once we broke down camp and Dana worked on loading the boat we had some time which we filled attempting to build a small rock dam in the river and by skipping stones.  Turns out I am not very good at skipping stones, so Dave took the prize for most skips by a wide margin.

Once we launched we headed directly across to the opposite river bank and pulled into a small opening in the Tamarisk.   We docked here and headed through the very overgrown (and very Mosquito choked) trail until it emerged in the desert.  A short scramble up the rocks brought us to some very impressive petrified wood that were entire tree trunks rather than the small pieces we had seen in camp.  We hiked around a little bit before we headed back to the boat to continue downstream.  Right around the time we got back to the boat the S-Rig carrying the 4 day tour showed up.  We wound up lashing our boat to theirs so that we could move more quickly down the river to our next destination.  The passengers on the boat were a group of 5, a father daughter, and a couple of cousins.  We tried to mingle a bit, but everybody pretty stayed in the groups that they came with.  The guide on the new S-Rig was Andrew who had been our shuttle driver yesterday, and he proved to be a very fun and personable person who made it a point to get to know everybody in camp.

    After motoring a bit down river, we pulled off for lunch.  It was pretty much identical to yesterday's lunch of cold cut sandwiches and snacks.  There were no side hikes from this spot, so we got back on the boats immediately after lunch.  Around this time Eric decided to do a bit of rearranging to create a couple of extra comfy spots on the boat.  These were in high demand for the rest of the day, and seemed to amuse the guides.

    Our next stop was a hike up to the ruins of some Anasazi dwellings and Petroglyphs.  The guides explained a bit about Anasazi life and how they survived in this area.  After the hike we were all pretty hot, but we stopped just across the river for a hike to a cliff diving area.  The cliff rose up gently the further we walked upriver, so we were each able to decide how high we wanted to go, with a maximum height of about 20 feet or so.  Most of us jumped from the top, although Eric started a bit lower at about 4 feet.  After testing that out he got braver and tried from the staggering height of about 6 feet..... 

     Once we were back on the boats we motored a bit further downstream and stopped for to make camp.  After last night we did not hesitate to setup tents immediately as we had no intention of attempting to sleep outside.  It turned out that there were slightly fewer bugs here than the first campsite, but still way too many.  At one point I fashioned a mosquito net out of a small piece of our tent which looked a bit silly but was actually very effective.  We had a bit of time before dinner so Dave and Brad decided to explore a bit and wound up hiking (well, mostly climbing) to a cliff overlooking our campsite. 

     Dinner was Poppy Seed chicken in a creamy sauce with Rice Pilaf and cheese cake for dessert.  After dinner one of the guides offered to lead a hike up to the same viewpoint that Dave and Brad had clambered up to earlier to watch the sunset.  Eric and I went along this time, as did Dave and Brad again.  It turned out that the guide knew a much easier route up than they had taken earlier, so it was not a bad hike.  The view from the top was spectacular and we all hung out awhile to watch the sunset before hiking back to camp and calling it a night.

Tue 6/7 - An (in)Auspicious Beginning

     Today was the first day of our 5-day whitewater rafting trip down Cataract Canyon with Worldwide River expeditions.  Brad had done a bit of research on Cataract Canyon yesterday, and found the following tidbit on what to expect based on the water level.

• 25K CFS and lower - Class III rock dodgy I can tell my Mom I did 'Cat' and survived.  
• 25K to 35K CFS - Class III to IV things are serious now and I hope my gear stays in my boat when I flip.
• 35K to 40K CFS - Class III to IV cat is running in the dirty 30's and chances of getting worked are realistic.
• 40K to 100K CFS - Class IV+ I hope my life insurance is paid up and bring a change of pants for when you scout the big drops.  

     Our forecast was about 50K CFS, so we knew we were in for a good time.   Since we didn't have to be at the outfitters until 10:00am we headed over to the Moab Diner for breakfast.  After a good meal, we drove over to the outfitters headquarters and loaded up our gear onto the van for the ride to the Potash boat ramp where we would begin our journey.  Since the Prius will be at the outfitters shop for the next five days, I scheduled a glass repair company to replace the cracked windshield while we are away.  It will be nice to have it taken care of by the time we return.

     We were the only guests on the 5-day trip, so it was just us and our guide Dana on the small rubber raft for today.  The 4 day trip departing tomorrow was using a motorized S-Rig and will catch up to us tomorrow, and the 3-day trip will catch up to us the day after that so that we can all tackle the rapids together.  The Colorado river is placid and slow moving for the first half of the trip, so today is just a relaxing float through the amazing landscape that erosion has carved out of the surrounding rock.



      In what was hopefully not an omen of days to come, the trip started out with Andrew (our shuttle driver and guide traveling with the 4 day trip) nearly falling off the trailer into the river at the boat ramp.  In an impressive feat of balance he barely managed to jump across the water onto the raft and stick the landing.  Once all of our equipment was loaded onto the boat Andrew departed with the shuttle vehicle and we began floating downriver.  One of the first orders of business for Dana was to setup a large umbrella to shield us from the desert sun.  Our (in)auspicious beginning was complete when he accidentally dropped the umbrella pole into the river, where is floated just long enough for Dana to reach towards it before it sunk out of sight.  Fortunately, we all had good hats and plenty of sunblock as well as the option to swim whenever it got too hot, so no harm done.

     Along the way we saw a large pack of goats along one of the cliffs alongside the river.  Dana seemed surprised to see so many, and told us that it was pretty rare to see any at all much less such a large number.   Along the way Dana pointed out the various sites of interest along the riverbank and canyon rim, such as Dead Horse Point and the spot where the end of Thelma & Louis was filmed.

     Eventually we pulled over to the left side of the river for lunch where Dana setup a table of cold cuts, cheese, bread and snacks for lunch.  It was a satisfying lunch, after which we continued on down river.  As the day started to get hotter, we finally decided to "Join the swim team" as Dana would say jumped into the river.  Since the Colorado is fed by snow melt from the LaSalle mountains, it was COLD!





     Eventually it was time to stop for the night so we pulled over into our camp site for tonight.  It was the first time that Dana has stopped at this particular spot and he knew that there was supposed to be fossils so we headed down an obvious trail to go looking for them.  We spotted a few pieces of petrified wood, but nothing significant until we came upon a flat rock where previous rafters had collected many interesting pieces of fossilized wood.  There were also rocks with fossil imprints, and other miscellaneous types of rocks on display.  One even had a Geode forming inside.  Since the trail died out after this spot, we headed back and began to setup camp while Dana setup the kitchen and cooked dinner.  Much like Wall St. the other day, the flies and mosquitoes were everywhere.  We had brought insect repellent around, but it did not seem to have a huge effect.  We quickly abandoned our hope of sleeping under the stars and pitched the tents.  Dinner was an excellent meal of cheese tortellini in our choice of Marinara or Alfredo sauces with a side of Garlic Bread and strawberry shortcake for dessert.  After dinner, we wound up retreating into our tents and spending a few minutes killing all of the little flies that had followed us in.

     Since numerous flies would sneak into the tent every time we opened the flap, we decided to call it a night and go to sleep.  The heat from the day stuck around much longer than expected so it was very warm and difficult to fall asleep.  The temperature did finally fall to comfortable level by the middle of the night, but I hope that it is cooler tomorrow night.

Mon 6/6 - Exhaustion 1 : Ambition 0

Pictures will be added to this post when I get chance to download them.

     This morning started off with another crepe breakfast courtesy of the leftover batter from the batch Dave made yesterday.  Our primary plan for the day was to tackle Dragonfly canyon, but that only takes about 3 hours.  Since the forecast for the day was 105 degrees (which was indeed an accurate forecast) and since Dragonfly is a wet, shady canyon that involves swimming and wading, we decided to do some hiking in Arches National Park in the morning before it got too hot.  Today is Brads last full day in Moab since he will leave the morning after we get back from rafting, and he missed Arches last time as well.  We spent the morning sorting gear and get everything ready for both the hike and the canyon trip. 
     We were supposed to visit the river outfitters office for an orientation tonight, but were concerned that we might not make it back in time.  We called and found out that we could stop by anytime, so we headed over there and picked up our dry bags and met our guide.  Afterwards we had to run back to the house to drop everything off since our trunk was already full and everybody has to carry the new gear on their laps.  While good to get out of the way, this did get us off to a later start than planned.
     One of the best hikes in Arches is the Devils Garden trail, so we headed there.  Brad has missed Arches on his last visit to Moab, and this will be his last full day in Moab since he will be flying home the day after we return from our Whitewater Trip.  Once we did a couple of laps of the parking lot and finally managed to snag a spot, we headed up the trail.  Devils Garden is an out and back trail over rugged terrain but is pretty well graded until it reaches Landscape Arch, which is one of the most famous in the park.  Beyond that, the trail gets much tougher and the crowd thins out considerably.  Last time I visited Arches we went quite a distance past the trail.  Dave has been here before several times, and also never quote went all the way.  Once we reached that point, we all wanted to keep going to see a section of the park that we had not visited before.  We made it all the way to the "Dark Angel" formation, which is the absolute end of the trail.
     By now, it was starting to get uncomfortably hot.  I also found that my 3-liter Camelbak has run out of water and only had some ice remaining.  The return trip was much less pleasant than the return trip due the the heat and lack of water.  Everybody was out of water by the time we reached the car, and were all extremely exhausted.  It was already past 3:00, so we decided to head back to the house to shower and rest.  Dragonfly canyon will have to wait until a later date, so unfortunately Brad is going to miss it again.
     Once we were all cleaned up and refreshed we considered making another attempt at climbing Wall St. with copious amounts of bug spray applied.  Since we had lots of packing and prep to do for tomorrow we decided to skip it. We were not quite ready for dinner yet, so we managed to finish the remainder of yesterdays game of Terra Mystica.  I'm not sure yet, but I think we might just make a gamer out of Dave yet. 
     Afterwards, we chose to go to the Broken Oar restaurant for dinner.  I had eaten there in 2007 and enjoyed it, so tried to revisit on our trip in 2011 but found it was permanently closed.  I was therefore surprised to drive by it the other day and notice it was reopened.  While a bit expensive, the food was good.  Perhaps the most amazing thing about trip was that we have not actually had a bad meal yet, which is a pretty significant achievement while in Moab.
     The evening was spent packing, which took quite a bit longer than anybody has anticipated.  Cramming everything yesterday into overly small dry bags is a challenge.  We are also checking out of the rental house tomorrow, so everything that is not going on the river also needed to be packed up and loaded into the cars.  Thankfully, we got a call from the River Outfitter who realized that had not told us the check in time.  We thought it was 7:00am since that was on the paperwork, but were happy to hear that it was actually 10:00am. 
     We will be out of touch for the next 5 days until we return.

Sun 6/5 - Extreme Offroading Aventure

     This morning Dave made good on his promise of fresh made crepes.  After an excellent breakfast courtesy of his surprising culinary skills, we heading out to meet us with Dan Mick tours for our full day off road tour.  We were met by none other than Dan Mick himself, who is extremely well known around the Moab area and whose videos I had seen on Youtube while researching this trip. 

     Dan more than lived up to his reputation and a phenomenal driver who tackled the most extreme obstacles with the utmost confidence and ability.  He also proved to have an extremely gregarious personality and a seemingly endless stream of jokes, historical facts, geological knowledge, and anecdotes.  Our tour lasted about eight hours, and he never once seemed at a loss for something interesting to tell us about.





     For the first half of the tour, we visited Hells Revenge trail.  This is one of the most popular trails in the Moab area, and is in fact the same trail that I took a Hummer tour on the very 1st time I visited Moab in 2007.  At the time I marveled at the capability of Hummer which far exceeded what I thought any vehicle could possibly due.  This time, I learned that Jeep drivers are not impressed with the Hummers, and that a well tricked out Jeep is actually an even more capable vehicle.  We tackled a numerous of obstacles that were bypassed in 2007, as well as several that no Hummers even attempt.  Once such obstacle was "The Gates of Hell".  (This video was not of our group as I cannot edit any video until we get home.  Since we were significantly less inclined to scream in terror than the girls in this video, however, it's probably more entertaining anyway.)  Despite being a well traveled trail with a number of other vehicles on it at the same time as us, it is still a very difficult trail.  I lost count of how many places Dan pointed out where he has seen vehicles roll over, and we actually ran across somebody who had done so shortly that morning and was working on their vehicle as we passed.



     After Hells Revenge we stopped by Subway for lunch and wound up heading for the Moab Rim Trail.  I later checked my guidebook and determined that it is the 4th most difficult trail in Moab out of well over a hundred established trails.  This trail rises over 1000 feet in little more than a mile of extremely challenging obstacled.  At the top we were treated to a spectacular view of the Moab valley from which we could see the entire town.  Dan again treated us to his extremely impressive knowledge of the area and was able to point out many interesting facts about the town below.  We then continued on past the lookout and around a loop trail with a number of neat obstacles before descending back down the trail (And I do use the term trail very loosely...) that we had come up.

Dinner tonight was at Pasta Jays, both because Dan recommended it highly and because I have eaten there on both of my previous visits to Moab and enjoyed it both times.  We rounded out the evening with the a half a game of Terra Mystica, and will hopefully have time to finish it tomorrow night.

Sat 6/4 - Another 365 miles done!

     Today, we got the rest of the drive to Moab out of the way.  Every trip is bound to have a few hiccups along the way, so apparently today was also apparently determined to be the day that we got some those out the way.  The first such noteworthy event was a reminder that Murphy's Law is an inviolable force of nature that cannot be denied.  Today's lesson courtesy of Murphy was that brand new cars have big red bulls-eyes on them for stray windshield cracking rocks.  With over 165,000 miles on my old car no such rock would ever find it's way into my path, but not so for a car with less than 1,000.  Replacing it under insurance won't be a big deal when we get home, but now we get to enjoy the large (and quickly propagating) crack directly in front of the drives line of sight for the entire ride home.

     The rest of the journey to Moab passed largely without incident.  I did find out that driving long distances with Eric is not like doing a long trip with kids, but not entirely dissimilar.  While kids require frequent stops for various reasons, much to our amusement we discovered that ANY stop with Eric involves a bit more time than expected.  He apparently feels guilty using a restroom without buying something,  so he feels compelled to purchase something every single time.  I've already lost track of the gas station ice creams, drinks, and snacks he's gone through......

      The scenery on the trip ran the gauntlet from vast stretches of nothingness, so absolutely spectacular.  One of the highlights was going through the enormous fields of electric windmills in North Texas.  It's nice to see just how much development has gone into clean power production. Sadly, this area is immediately followed by the equally enormous stretch of land covered in oil pumps and drill rigs....   Another highlight was seeing the snow capped mountains are we passed through Colorado, and all the way to Moab.  It's hard to imagine how large these are, but being able to see the same mountain on the horizon barely moving over several hours of driving puts it into perspective.  Staring at the snow while noticing the thermometer reads 100 degrees outside has much the same affect.

     After about 1000 miles of driving over two days, we finally arrived a the rental house.  After a couple of flights and a shorter (albeit still ~100 mile drive) Brad pulled into the driveway about 30 seconds after we did.  I'd say we doing pretty well on timing!

     I'm happy to say that the pictures on the website did not lie -- The rental property is very nice.  A far cry from the rental property we stayed in through the Lazy Lizard last time I was in Moab.  After settling in we visited the local supermarket to stock up on stuff, and Dave volunteered to make Crepes in the morning.  (I think he may have been feeling a bit of the guilt we laid on him earlier for immediately claiming the Master Suite upon arriving at the house.)

     After dropping off the groceries, we had some free time to decided to try out climbing at Wall St.  Eric wanted to stay home alone and rest because he was a bit tired from two long days of napping in the back of the car on the way here, but we convinced  him to (OK, goaded him into) come along.  After a quick stop to check out the awesome Gearheads outdoor gear store in Moab,  we headed to the wall and our second hiccup of the day.  I did a lot of research online before the trip to decide what the pack, and left out insect repellent because almost everybody online said it was unnecessary in this area.  Apparently, not everything on the Internet is true.  Who would have thought!  We forged ahead with one quick climb in the School House beginners area of Wall St, while Eric from the mosquitoes in the car.   A fun climb, but we quickly decided to come back another day more prepared with repellent and long sleeve clothes.

     One of the best restaurants I had found my last time in Moab was the Moab Brewery, so we went there for dinner.   The food was good, but not as spectacular as remembered.  Not sure if it was what we ordered, whether the restaurant has changed, or because it was our first meal in Moab and we are comparing it to food back home rather than the other restaurants in Moab which tended to be pretty disappointed my last time here.

     We had planned to round out the night with a game of Terra Mystica, but it was getting late so we settled for setting it up for tomorrow and attempting to teach Dave the rules. 

Fri 6/3. Road Trip Time!

     Nearly 6 years ago I went on a roadtrip to Moab, Utah with some friends.  Eric Johnstone was one of the people that was supposed to be on the trip, but due to some last minute back problems had to cancel shortly before we left on the trip.  For the last six years, he has steadfastly refused to read the blog entries from that trip because he didn't want to feel worse about everything that he missed out on.  Today, that is no longer an issue as the next road trip has begun!  Eric, David Pierce, and myself just arrived in Albuquerque after a full day of driving, and are continuing on to Moab tomorrow.  Brad Erickson, who was on the last trip will be flying out tomorrow and joining us there.  While we will certainly revisit some of our favorites places and activities from last time, the highlight of the trip is likely to be our five day whitewater rafting trip down Cataract Canyon on the Colorado river that starts on Tuesday.
     Today was a long day of driving (which was not shortened any by Dave's insistance on sharing his attempt at a Tuvan Throat Singing rendition of "Come Together" by the Beatles.  Keep you're day job, Dave......)  Tomorrow we should arrive in Moab by around 4:00pm and meetup with Brad, so it will be a much easier day.