Re-earthing

 What happens when a space that has been submerged under up to 50 feet of water for the better part of the last century re-emerges? With a rapidly declining water level lake powell, I decided it was time to make the best of this "mega-draught" and see if the river had returned.

It has.

The quick overnight wasnt necessarily the most scenic but it was cetainly unique, floating through rapids created by the degrading silt of the former lake. With a few months having gone by, i would bet this stretch of river has already changed significantly since we saw it. I look forward to making more lemonade out of the lemons that are this mega-drought and exploring further downstream as the lake level continues to drop.

We put in at the North Wash take-out- what once was a lake with floating bathrooms has now had a boat ramp rebuilt a few times as the water level recedes, it was mid febuary and the place was a ghost town. 

From here, 9 miles of new river would take us to the confluence with Trachyte creek, where we would take out and walk back to the road. The river portion was interesting, springs abound everywhere, the rock having had 50 years to absorb water that was now pouring out of every hole and crevice. Several rapids were present, forming as the river cut through lake-silt, something that was a bit new for me to see bt led to fun water. At our take out, we found thick layers of silt, in some places at least 15+ feet deep with 5 foot deep contraction cracks creating strange clay columns. We even found an old boat anchor! Unfortunately Cattle have definitely found the area as well for grazing, we had a bit of a debacle trying to get around a small herd of them in the narrow confines of the canyon, luckily before it got really narrow i was able to run around ahead of them and herd them back behind the rest of the group. 

Cracked clay where Trachyte meets the newly flowing Colorado River, these cracks are 2-5 feet deep and are actually clay columns rather than the usual flakes expected. 

This Anchor is a long way from the lake these days.

Cut banks way overhead and trachyte is still working its way down to where it used to be. 

The walk up Trachyte to Swett creek was scenic till the end, great and varied rock formations, for a short overnight, packraft loop this was one of the better we have done in the area!

Fun Rock formations in Swett Creek.

Winter water

 With the pandemic continuing into its third year, i have found myself in airports less waiting for late airplanes, and thus haven't had as much time to designate for writing. This winter has been less than stelar when it comes to actual winter activities, that is until last week's storms. We have had a thin and dangerous snowpack with historic numbers of accidents, and for me personally a new low in terms of number of days skied. Instead of skiing, we have been trying to think outside of the box. Winter river permits are extremely easy to get so why not pull the trigger on one of those? 

Virgin- May '20

A river that rarely flows, with Covid still fresh and scary, we took a weekend to get away and float a river in southwest Utah in to Arizona. Andrew, of course, was invited and came even though it felt like we were cheating on the rules a bit. Separate tent sites, masks and open windows while together, and not sharing anything were our strategies to try and stay safe. In this case, we floated the Bloomington gorge as a day trip, starting in Bloomington and running across the state line into Arizona. 

Its a fun class 2 run, mostly swift and flat with some sand induced waves. In town, the river goes over a natural river wide pourover termed "the waterfall" by some lady walking a baby in a carriage, the river eventually leaves town and enters the gorge, a pretty but muted and smaller version of the grand canyon. Towards the end of the trip there is a river wide fish weir, a 6 foot low head dam. There was a giant cottonwood that had seemingly been circulating in the hole downstream forever. We portaged but did witness one group manage to run the dam in a ducky, impressive! All to soon, the river passes under an I-15 bridge where we had a car stashed, our take out. I look forward to going back at some point to float the remainder of the canyon, the Virgin River Gorge. 

San Juan- a lonely river this time of year in a lonely corner of the state. Feb '21

Usually a busy river, especially "when it is flowing", users need a lottery permit and have to reserve camp sites. With temps below freezing every night we snagged a permit without issue and didnt see another person on the river, exactly how i prefer it. 

Andrew was coming up from California and with the prospect of mediocre snow, we went for the San Juan instead, targeting a 3 day trip from Sand Island to Mexican Hat. Sarah was a last minute addition as well, we all planned on meeting in the afternoon in Bluff, Utah, the nearest town. Bluff, and a few other towns in the area, eptiomize the modern american rural southwest: mostly a sleeping and dying town except for the few tourist "eco" hotels of the like that an insta-influencer would rave about in super artificial videos on their channels; a few old gas stations, and, interestingly, a tesla charging station.

Instead of putting directly in, we went to check out some petroglyphs at the putin area, a worthwhile diversion as we got to see a kokopelli with quite the package.

After some frantic gear shuffling, trying to decide on layers because i couldnt decide if it was cold or hot out, and some discussion about how to inflate a packraft (this would be sarah's first packrafting trip) we finally got going. Not another soul around on the river, and with no other cars in the lot, we had our pick of the campsites. Because it was late we only did a few miles that evening, deciding to camp at the river house ruin campsite which we would check out in the morning. We put up the beloved circus tent that we would all share, got a fire going and shared stories, played games, and passed the whiskey around.

The next morning we got up at the crack of 8, which was around sunrise in this canyon, and went off to check out the river house. It is a really interesting ruin, i can see how it would have been a desirable site for a winter home (it is sheltered and recieves the first warming light in the morning). Before long we were off again, our destination: down into the Raplee anticline, past a few rapids, to a camp on the other side. 

There were more unmarked riffles than expected, but none that posed any sort of difficulty, we quickly passed through the rocky cliff gates into the deep anticline canyon and found a beautiful perch up in the sun for lunch. 

With the prospect of weather and increasing clouds, we called lunch short and got started again, with a goal of getting out of the deepest part of the canyon to catch early morning sun the following morning.

This stretch of the canyon was fast but mellow and absoutly beautiful in a deep canyon, with more beautful views around every bend. As the sun was getting low, and with the prospect of a camp a bit more than a mile away, just ouside of the canyon, i sent Andrew and Sarah ahead to get camp started while lindsay took a moment to relieve herself. Unfortuately, something was lost in translation, and as lindsay and i emerged from the canyon expecting to find  a roaring fire, we found nothing. Shit. We kept going another half mile past the defined stop site, still nothing. I got out of my boat and ran up one of the banks to get a higher view point, still nothing. We kept on a bit farther. At this point the sun had set and twilight was running out. I ran back up a bank again, blowing my whistle trying to find some sign that someone was around. Nothing. Lindsay and i started making backup plans. We would bivy next to the river, we had enough gear to stay warm. There is a road that parallels the river for this strech, once we get set up i will jog up and down the road to see if i can find anyone. Hopefully worst case they will notice the take out in the morning if we still havent made contact.

Then, lindsay notices some strange shapes off in the distance in the fading light. Is it a... dog? sheep? Turns out, it was a dry bag that was moving about on the shore, lets go check it out! lo and behold, our missing paddlers had overshot the last .5 miles to our desired campsite by 2 extra miles and had finally pulled off on the side to start to camp. When we pull up, andrew is working on getting soem firewood but i notice that sarah is cold, borderline hypothermic at this point, and i know that lindsay isnt far behind. We focus on getting both of them dry and warm, warm drinks and a nice fire. Eventually, the dust starts to settle and we debrief a bit over the fire. I should not have suggested they go ahead, i was hoping they would have a fire ready for lindsay when we got to camp, who was cold before the whole episode, only to elongate the risk by having all of us split up and out in the cold on the river until after sunset. Sarah was the percieved "leader" among andrew and sarah, but she was very cold to hypothermic and was not thinking straight. Definitely good learning but a very avoidable situation that could definitely have been worse.

In the morning, i wake up to roam around, i had noticed the night before we were at "sulfur springs". I wanted to find the spring! Navigating around the beach i eventually found the outlet for the spring, quite sulfurous indeed. Following it up, the spring emerged from an unexpected crack high up and a fair amount of plant growth seems to be thriving despite the sulfur. We dust off the night before with pancakes and a warming sun. A few more miles floating by mexican hat rock delivers us to our take out in Mexican Hat. After a quick gear sort, with a few more hours in the day, we decided to go explore a bit more of Cedar Mesa before heading back to SLC. We will be back!

Other Notables: Gren river through Grey canyon- A nice and easy float that we did a few times, among them while filming for Adventure Scientists as we collect water quality data for land managers, and rivers up in washington of course! And a very miserable failed atttempt on a very dirty jordan river near home, we hardly made it a half mile before bailing on this sad strech of water. Too bad because we were hoping for a bike to and from the house river trip but it didnt work out.