San Juan River Trip – Day 1

After spending many years hiking above and around the San Juan River in Southern Utah, Joel and I decided it would be fun to experience it from water level. We were treated to a lot of amazing sights and sounds that are lost if you travel by roads and trails.

We signed up for the last available trip for the season that Holiday River Expeditions ran on the San Juan (June 16 – 20.) We soon found out that there are a lot of moving parts when you plan a trip down a river – namely the discharge rates at the dam upstream of our trip. The snowfall at the origin (in Colorado) was average but there had not been a lot of rain this spring. The average flow on the San Juan River is around 5,000 cubic feet/second (cfs.) We were warned that we may have to cancel our trip if the water levels were too low. When we popped in on June 16th, it had dropped to 1,700 cfs and by the end of the trip we were rafting in barely 1,000 cfs – in some places there was only 3″ – 4″ to the river bottom! Most river travel is stopped around 750 cfs. Note to self … go earlier in the season!

The crew getting the boats prepped – we stayed out of their way!
Eagerly anticipating 5 days on the river. Contemplating how he was going to leave no trace.

We launched the rafts at the Sand Island put-in , just a few miles past Bluff, UT. Once we were on our way, we stopped at several historic sites.

Yes, the river is brown … very brown. Mostly from the silt that is washing down. One fellow participant noted that the nickname was the “Fecal River” which really didn’t get me too enthused about getting in and swimming/floating. I did research this when we got home and there was some truth to it …. EWWWW!
Butler Wash Petroglyphs – just above Patty’s head in the dark section.
More detail of the petroglyphs.

The next stop was at the River House Ruins which were about a 1/2 mile hike from the rafts, which we returned to for lunch.

Most of the entire trip was calm and there was ample opportunity to paddle board or use the infatable canoe.
My gifted sarong got a lot of use!
We saw several Desert Bighorn ewes and lambs along the river.
A few minor rapids on the way to our first campsite.
Sun protection at its finest, for those that don’t want to glop on the sunscreen. A sun hat from Mom – does it make my face look fat?
That’s about as far as I got in the river!
Packed up and ready to go for day 2.

All total we traveled 19 miles today. A bit of wind in the evening after we were in our tents resulted in a fine covering of sand/dust over everything! Temperatures were 102 degrees today and predicted to be 108 tomorrow as we passed through Mexican Hat. But, thankfully there is a breeze on the river so it was “tolerable.”

A couple of our campsite buddies! Pretty quiet – watched them eat a few ants here and there.

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