Last week (June 10, 2021), we drove to Utah to float the Green River that runs through Canyonlands National Park, and eventually meets up with the Colorado River. We met up with some old friends from San Francisco – Scott and Kristen – who we haven’t seen in ten years. Since then, we’ve all had boys who are close in age, and it was great to get together for some desert adventures. Four adults, and five boys under the age of 10.
I (Matt) had floated the Green River about 20 years ago, and Karen and I (and Scott and Kristen) had floated part of the Colorado a couple of years after that. I have been looking forward to doing a float trip with the kids for a long time and with the kids now being 9, 8, and 5, it seemed like they were all finally old enough to do it.
Tex’s will run the rentals and shuttles for the Green (Stillwater) or the Colorado rivers; they meet at the “confluence”. This time I wanted to do the Green again–it’s longer and more remote than the Colorado. The terrain the green passes through is rarely accessed except via the river. One downside of the Green is that you’re on a fixed schedule; you have to make it to the confluence with the Colorado in your allotted time to be picked up by Tex’s (they come down the Colorado via jet boat). If you float the Colorado, you don’t have to make it to the confluence (Tex’s will find you on their way down the Colorado, which means that you can be as lazy as you want).
These days, floating the rivers is a popular activity, so you have to reserve your trip, gear, and pick-up far in advance. Last fall, I reserved two “t-cat” setups from Tex’s Riverways in Moab. Tex’s has designed some wood frames that be used to join together two canoes to form a catamaran setup. You wouldn’t want to do any sort of whitewater with these, but they’re great for hauling tons of gear and children down a flat-water river section. We had done the other float trips with the same setup from Tex’s, so I was hopeful that we could make it all work as a family setup (stuck on a raft for 5 days with 5 children, what could go wrong?).
We further improved the t-cat setups by tying them together (i.e. 4 canoes side-by-side, with 2 platforms), erecting a canopy for shade, and tying on a half-dozen floaties of various sorts. We looked like some floating barge out of Water World, and it paddled poorly (but we weren’t keen on paddling much anyway in 100+ degrees).
The temperatures were not ideal. A heat wave moved through the west, perfectly coincident with our trip. It reached 111˚ in Moab while we were on the river, and we had some nights when it didn’t drop below 90, which made sleeping 5-to-a-tent difficult. If we hadn’t been on the river, the heat could have ruined the trip, but we were able to jump in the water whenever we wanted, so we managed to stay cool enough to have a great time.
We were lucky, timing-wise, in that the river was high enough that we didn’t need to paddle (much) to cover distance. As long as we stayed on the river long enough each day, we made our miles. We did have to paddle when the wind blew us into eddies or the tamarisk-lined bank, but other than that we were free to float.
On the other hand, the river was also high enough to eliminate the sand bars, and so it was a bit challenging to find good campsites (that weren’t already taken). Our first night was pretty brutal. We didn’t find a reasonable camping spot until nearly 8pm and we had to haul our gear a couple hundred yards (and we were NOT travelling light). I spent a fair bit of time bushwhacking through the tamarisk, which was unpleasant, particularly as I managed to get into a patch of poison ivy.
The following day, still traumatized by the previous night, we stopped at the first available camping site we found, only a couple hours downstream. Anderson Bottom was described as “buggy and sheltered” but we found the bugs only present at the tie-up. The camping area was huge and beautiful, shady with massive cottonwood trees, but still too warm to hang out in the afternoon. We spent the day shuttling kids back and forth to a nearby muddy sandbar and then retreated to the campsite for dinner. By far the best site of the trip.
Our 3rd night we struggled, again to find a convenient beach for camping. Out of desperation and a mass of hungry kids, we braved “Nope Creek”—the outlet of a narrow slot canyon hemmed in with overhanging walls. Definitely not a place to be during a flash-flood. If there had been a cloud in the sky, there’s no way we would have stayed there, but there was zero chance of rain with the weather pattern. The spot worked out great for us.
On the 4th day, we reached the Confluence with the Colorado and camped on a huge wide sandy beach right there with a host of other floaters.
Overall, the trip was pretty magical for the kids. They spent all day every day in the water, mostly messing around on the paddle-board that Kristen brought (crucial move). We adults managed to fit in a fair bit of beer-drinking and sitting in the river, despite the parenting demands.
And, as expected, it was stunningly beautiful. I had done this section of the Green many years earlier, and it was just as spectacular as I had remembered. We would see maybe one or two other parties of people canoeing each day, and other than that we had the entire river to ourselves until we reached the confluence.
**** If this sounds like something you want to do with your kids, here is what we recommend: 1) go with a T-cat set-up if you can; 2) bring a small canopy – doing this without shade will make you want to pluck your eyeballs out; 3) try the Colorado first (you can choose a shorter trip, there is no pressure to make any sort of distance, and camping spots tend to be plentiful); 4) wait until the kids are 5+ (5 is the earliest we would ever do this trip. Trying to navigate naps, handling the needs of a baby, keeping kids from getting sunburned/drowning, etc., all would be significantly harder and drastically change the enjoyment-factor). 5) Think water-proofing *everything* including and especially food and toilet-paper; 6) be prepared to “poop in a box.” The river rules require you to carry out your fecal waste so the companies give you metal boxes (“groovers”) to contain everything. It’s gross and stinky, but seals up and transports well, but this was definitely everyone’s least favorite aspect of the trip; 7) to keep beer cold all the way through day 5, use a layer of dry-ice on the bottom, then block ice on top of that, and keep the coolers covered with a damp towel at all times.
After the river, we all headed south towards the Cedar Mesa region for some canyoneering. Along the way we camped high in the Manti La-Sal range, in order to escape the heat. At 10,000 ft, it was cool enough to use our sleeping bags at night, which was a dramatic change from the triple-digits we logged while passing through Moab.
The following day we splashed through the short bit of Fry canyon right next to the highway, and I set up some ropes for the boys to all practice rappelling. It was a good late-afternoon activity, but it also decided us against attempting a full-length canyon in 110-degree heat. So after a sweltering night trying to sleep in the heat above the White Canyon, we drove to the beach at Bullfrog marina on Lake Powell (where we have found ourselves so many times during previous Utah trips) and spent the whole day in and out of the water, under the shade of the canopy, drinking cold beverages and reading our books. I think it was the best possible thing for us to do in the heat.
For the final night we found a reasonable campsite partway up into the Henry mountain range (a secret spot that we’ve used on a previous trip), just barely cool enough to get some sleep.
It ended up being a fantastic trip despite the heat wave.
