Paddling Canyonlands - Stillwater Canyon on the Green River

Mike and Tracy

Thursday night Mike came to my house to pick up the canoe, mostly to save time on Friday morning. Friday morning I drove to Mike’s house, and we loaded up gear and headed out. We went on to Boulder, where we picked up Steve. We continued south through Golden and drove west. We had lunch at blue Moon deli in Silverthorne, and bought gas in Grand Junction. We drove on to Moab, where we had to drive around a bit to find our group campsite, Datura C. 

We went down to Mike’s diner in Moab where we met Cathi and Dick from Arkansas. We had seen them on video conferences, but none of us had met them face-to-face. Craig joined us about the time we were finishing dinner. We walked over to get gelato at the food truck park, and drove back to our campsite. Ben and Dottie and Becky showed up about 9:30 pm.

We arrived at Tex’s about 7:15. We learned that one of the group was a no show, so our group will be 11 people. It was a crazy drive down to Mineral Bottom, with huge drop-offs. We saw some base jumpers jumping off cliffs with parachutes.  We got organized, and were on the water about noon. 

We had a muddy stop for lunch, and paddled until 5 o’clock, mostly because we were having trouble finding campsites, due to steep river banks and Tamarasks. Our camp was up a steep bank, but perfectly nice on the upper level.

Sunday was cloudy, but it cleared up.  We passed the Sphinx rock formation.  We traveled about 14 miles, and found a camp with a nice shade tree, where we all gathered.  It was continuing to be very hot.

Monday we got on the river at 9 AM. We paddled past various rock formations. Including two story ruin perched on a cliff; the access looked impossible. We had hoped to camp at a particular camp, but we found that there were people already camped there. We proceeded onto another camp at mile 9, and saw canoes there also. However, we realized that they had not unloaded their canoes; they were just taking a hike to see the ruins. We were glad to be able to stop, after 15 miles. The ruin was a grainary, near to camp.

Tuesday we got on the water around 9, as usual. It was only 9 miles to the confluence, so we were a bit lazy paddling. When we arrived at the Colorado River, we started looking for campsites. We tried one on the right, but there was not deep enough water for the jet boat. Then we checked the campsite on the left, and not only did there seem to be enough water, there was actually a jet boat mark on the riverbank. This became our campsite. We washed our muddy boats, per the request of Tex’s. In the afternoon we had cocktail hour, and people got fairly merry.

Wednesday we prepared to be picked up. The jet boat went by at about 10 AM, and went further down river to pick up some other parties, before returning to pick us up. The Tex's employees later complimented us on how organized we were, and how clean the boats were. The jet boat took us up the Colorado river to Potash, where they loaded the jet boat onto a trailer; we got on a bus to return to Tex’s. At Tex’s the employees handed us gear and boats, to be sorted and put with their respective owners. We had a nice dinner at Tapatio restaurant in Moab. Most of us returned to the same campsite that we had been in the previous week.

Our trip home on Thursday was uneventful, with Egg McMuffins in Moab, and sandwiches at Culver’s in Glenwood Springs. We returned to Boulder to drop off Steve and his gear, and proceeded on to Fort Collins.

All in all, it was a particularly great trip. Everybody was was very easy to get along with, and everybody knew what they needed to do. The weather cooperated by providing us no wind for the entire time, which was outstanding, and perhaps unprecedented. The group was predominantly composed of senior citizens, but that didn’t seem to keep us from enjoying ourselves. ;-)