By Chris Hinrichs and Marti Norris
It all started on an early morning of April 12th at about 6:00 a.m. as we packed up the van and headed for Utah. The first two days were driving through Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado. The first night on the road we stayed in a town called Ogallala, Nebraska. We stayed in a church school type setting. The next morning we headed back on the road. It was a very scenic day in the van. We were often awakened by J.J. when a dual wheel pick up truck would pass by. He would say “There’s a dueler”! Pretty much all eyes were out the window as we drove through the mountains of Colorado. Then after a few hours we approached the state of Utah. We were all relieved that pretty much of the driving was done. All that was left was going to Moab, Utah where our first stable campsite was going to be located. We arrived at a beautiful campsite called Hittle Bottom located right off the Colorado River, over looking Fisher Towers.
The next day was Wednesday the 14th of April. It was our first real day out with nature. We all ate a good breakfast then decided we were going to go on a hike up and around a place called Fisher Towers. It was a wonderful way to start the trip. There were many different rock formations in every direction, and also the La Sal mountains in the background. We ended up walking to a type of bluff and overlooked our new surroundings that we were going to be looking at every day. Then we headed back to the camp ground after a few hours to go eat lunch and hang out for the rest of the day, while Doug and Drew went to Moab to buy groceries and check in with Tex’s Riverways, the outfitter we would work with on the canoe trip.
On the 15th of April we were joined by a graduate of Mini-School from 20+ years ago, Melissa Quigley. Melissa lives in Salt Lake City where she works as a massage therapist. Melissa was accompanied by her German Shepherd named Barney, who loved to play stick with everyone until they could not throw a stick any more.
Today we were going to visit Arches National Park. Melissa was our guide. We saw many arches on our way up a narrow road which curved and narrowed through canyons and rock cliffs up a great incline to the magnificent rock formations. We all enjoyed looking at these amazingly tall and very awkwardly shaped arches, which have taken years for nature to form, built mostly by sandstone. The beauty of this land far exceeded our expectations. As much fun as we had it was also a very exhausting day. We did a lot of hiking.
The next morning, Friday the 16th of April, was a beautiful morning with a warming sunrise just coming over the plateau. Today Melissa was leading us on a journey to find many places to hike and admire our surroundings. We drove through winding canyons while trying to keep our food boxes in the back of the van from falling on the dog. Barney liked to eat the food as well.
After driving along a dirt road for a while we stopped in the middle of nowhere and looked up as we squinted to try and see what we were hiking to but most of us had no luck seeing it. So we all started climbing up the side of the huge bluff. As we got closer we saw an incredibly well preserved ancient Anasazi ruins, and petroglyph. We explored the ruins for a while and found pottery and many other ancient Anasazi artifacts. Then sometime after being up there we got back to the van and headed down the road to a 4×4 road. We pulled over and walked down to some free flowing streams which carved many intricate designs in the rock which flowed down to a spectacular mini-waterfall.
After a while of walking around the desert, Doug received a delightful Back country massage from Melissa, which was a pretty nice thing to do. After a while of whining, J.J. also received a short back rub. We headed back to Melissa’s truck because it was her time to depart from our group. We headed back to Hittle Bottom. Most of the group was either hungry or tired. It was a very good day.
We arose the next day later than usual because we got to rest until about 8 or so. But there was no food when we arose from bed. So we all started contemplating what it was we were going to do. Doug left early this morning to go pick up our new river companion Lola, up in the town of Green River, Utah. He drove off with the food. Soon enough Doug came flying in with our food to save our hungry bellies. Then he left right away to get to the train station to pick up Lola. We had the mid-morning and some of the afternoon to hike, do journals, and explore our surroundings. Then Doug and Lola came back and we all got to meet her. We thought she was going to be a wonderful addition to our already great group. Then we broke camp and headed to a campground right on the edge of the town of Moab.
On the morning of Sunday the 18th of April, we awoke early with everything we needed for the river. We loaded our stuff into the van and went down the road a couple of blocks to Tex’s Riverways. They were the outfitters who were going to drop us in the river. We loaded up the trailer and headed to our drop in point called Ruby Ranch. We got there after driving for miles down this no service road and finally reached a dude’s land which was the place. Before Darren the outfitter departed from us he gave us a lecture on how to use the “Growler” and to make sure the seal was tight. Once everything was completed we loaded up our canoes and got our partners and headed down our water highway, the mighty Green River.
After some getting acquainted with our paddles and the way in which we were going to maneuver our canoes, we paddled for a while until we reached our first camp on the river. It was called Trin Alcove Canyon. We started with lunch. We busted out the flapjacks, PB and J, and the chocolate bars, also the meat and cheese. We all feasted on lunch. Shortly after we all unloaded and flipped our canoes and scoped out our resting place for the night. It was a beautiful canyon. There were many places to explore and chill if you wanted. A few people from the group, J.J., Charlie, Chris, and Jeff, meandered around exploring our resting place for the night. They walked up upon a cliff were we saw a snake like figure pecked into the rock and another on to the left of it but it was not done by the Anasazi. It was a circle with a P in the middle of it. Maybe we thought it was done by a man named John Wesley Powell who traveled through this area in 1869. He wrote a journal description in which he told much about this canyon, and also named it. Later that evening after dinner and clean up, Mr. Jeff McGinn gave a nice report on John Wesley Powell around the fire. Sometime after that we all got our stuff ready to go into a wonderful sleep under the stars. It was a great first night on the river.
We awoke the day of 4-20-99 with a gleam in our eyes ready for the wonderful day ahead of us. After breaking camp we headed back down the river. We stopped at a place called Bowknot Bend, a place were the river turns and doubles back on itself for 7 miles. We got off the river, climbed to the top of the ridge and looked down at the river on the other side. From there we could see our campsite so we scurried back down to our canoes eager to get there. We paddled hard through the wind, and got to camp in about an hour and a half. Like usual, camp was a bit of a struggle to get into, but we finally got in and set up and set off on our usual outdoor adventures. Later, when dinner, school, and Charlie’s report on the Mormons were through, everyone was pretty pooped out and crashed in their tents by 10:00.
Heading off down the river early in the morning, we paddled to Turk’s Head, which had many old ruins and lots of chert, a flint type rock used by ancient Indians to make arrow and spear heads. We all hiked around there for a bit and explored through a cave we saw just above our canoes. Then we floated a half-mile down the river to our beautiful camp-site and watched the sunset on the cliffs on the other side of the river as we ate our delicious macaroni and cheese.
On the last full day of being on the river we woke up to a not very good looking horizon. It looked like the weather was going to do something nasty to us. About 10 or 15 minutes after we got on the river it started raining on us pretty continuously. The wind was against us pushing waves against our canoes with white caps making it harder to paddle. After some time the rain let up and we pulled over to eat a very anticipated lunch. We chilled by some Indian ruins that were large enough to fit a person. Earlier we hiked up to a cabin where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid used to hide out. And up on the bluff is an Anasazi look-out tower from which you could see for miles.
After some more paddling through the wind we reached our campsite. It was an obstacle around branches and sand bars, but eventually we maneuvered around them. It was a beautiful camp site. There was a cliff you could climb or a little stream you could paddle down. Once you got to the end of that stream you could see an awkwardly shaped rock and some very clean pools of spring water all around a cliff. While we were exploring, we heard rain and thunder off in the distance, so we prepared for it. It came as quick as it went, but it rained very hard and it even hailed on us for a minute or two. Afterwards, there were about six or seven waterfalls coming down from the cliffs, which was beautiful. We had a nice evening together under a natural ledge in the rock so we didn’t get wet. Eventually, we all conked out and went to sleep under a clear sky which we hadn’t seen in a while.
On the last day of the river part of the trip we paddled down to the confluence which was pretty spectacular. The confluence is where ‘the Green’ starts to flow with ‘the Colorado’. We paddled on the Colorado a couple of miles and stopped just short of some class 5 rapids. We got out, cleaned out the canoes, and got everything ready to be loaded onto the jet boat. After a very quick lunch, Dirk, from Tex’s Riverways showed up in a big jet boat and started hauling our stuff onto the boat. When everything was loaded on, we had Dirk take a picture of us with just about every camera that we had, and then we were off. A nice time was had by all as we looked at the scenery going up the river, except some, who fell asleep.
Eventually the boat stopped and we loaded ourselves onto an old school bus and the jet boat on a trailer behind us and headed back to Moab in the rain.
it was an amazing trip that everyone was very happy to be on. We even thought of just continuing on to the Grand Canyon, but figured we’d be missed so we headed back home, and had fun on the way.