Colorado river trip

[Mutinousdoug]

Well,
Since no one has posted a trip report for awhile, I’ll tell you folks about my little Colorado river trip this last weekend.
Started in Fruita, Colorado, about 250 miles from the headwaters of the river up in Rocky Mtn National Park. Fruita is just west of Grand Junction a few miles. This trip was liveried by Centennial Canoe so we were able to put-in on private property about 5 miles above the public put-in at Loma.

.

This trip had a wine tasting theme so Plum Creek Winery brought along 36 bottles of their wines for the 18 of us for Friday and Saturday night.
Loma is where the river turns away from I-70, goes into the redrock canyon and gets pleasant. Its also where you have to register to be on the river.

From that point to the take-out at Westwater, Utah, the only civilization is the Union Pacific RR tracks along the river right with the California Zephyr going by once a day and a few freights.
The river was high and fast; just within its channel. No beaches to speak of like there will be later in the season. The water dropped about 6 vertical inches in the 3 days we were on it. We stopped every hour or so to jump in the water to cool off (it was in the mid 90’s) or look at petroglyphs

and tied the boats to the Tamarisk (Salt Cedar) that lined the banks everywhere. That stuff is a real pest that the forest service is just now trying to figure out how to control. When we set up camp I had to chop my way into a thicket of it to clear out a place for my hammock. The Cottonwoods were either too small (4â€Â

 

[bearridge]

Friend Doug,

Thanks. Ya dont see that many pichurs of canoes on the western rivers. Yer pichurs made me feel good. How long a run? How many miles a day? What time did ya put on 'n take off the water?

A wine tastin' expedishun? What a swell idea....hey oldyaker.....whaddya think? We kin join up fer one like that! :wink:

What did ya'll eat....besides grits? :mrgreen:

regards
bearridge

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. P. J. O'Rourke

 

[Kayak Jack]

Good to see the Southwest again, even a taste of the Painted Desert. The Anasazi were interesting groups of people. The Navajo have a lot of whites believing they invented the pueblos. Actually, pueblos had been vacant several hundred years before any Navajos stumbled onto them.

I see you guys were trucking water. Couldn't you filter the local river water?

 

[oldsparkey]

Those are some really nice shots (pictures) from your trip but on my pore old computer they sure came out oversized.

Guess I better spring for a larger monitor. :lol:

Chuck

 

[Red Stick Jim]

Nice and Green

Growing up in Arizona it made my day to see some of those pictures, everything looks so green (I'm not kidding, that's pretty green for this time of the year up there). Everyone has been complaining about the drought here in Louisiana, 10 out of the past 12 months we've been under our monthly average, the two months over were Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when it rains it pours. Keep posting this pictures

 

[skiabq]

Those are indeed some great pics! It looks very similiar to New Mexico. We have the same problem with the Salt Cedar sucking up all the ground water around the river. The city went crazy and cut every Salt Cedar they could along the Rio Grande here in Albuquerque. It looks a little bare right now, but with the little rain that we have gotten and a couple fires in the bosque (the tree'd area along the river), I am thankful they cut them down. There are still a lot of Cottonwood along the Rio Grande. I have been thinking that I need to have the wife drop me off at the Rio Grande on the north end of the city and paddle the length of the city and have her pick me up on the south end of town. Now I am thinking I should do it and take the camera. It would be kind of an urban paddle, but it might be a fun early morning paddle before it gets too hot.

 

[bearridge]

Friend Corey,

I like that plan. I'd like ta see the pichurs. Lookin' frum a bridge jest dont do a river justice. Most of the time lookin' at it frum the river ya see stuff ya never figgered ya would see.

Everbody caint take pichurs like Brad 'n the High Sheriff, but no need ta let that stop us. :wink:

regards
bearridge
sideways bound

Woodrow Call: Gus.
Gus McCrae: What?
Woodrow Call: Why not go up to Montana? It's a cattleman's paradise to hear Jake tell it.
Gus McCrae: Sounds like a damn wilderness if you ask me. And we're a shade old to start fightin' Indians all over again, don't you think?
Woodrow Call: I mean it, Gus. Why not, go north with a herd?
Gus McCrae: I'll tell you what. You ride on up there, clear out the Indians, build a little cabin, get a nice fire goin' in the fireplace and me and Jake will gather a herd and then we'll come on up.
Woodrow Call: I'd like to see the herd that you and Jake could gather. Herd a whores, maybe.
Gus McCrae: Well you ain't no more a cattleman than I am, Call, and ya know it, too.
Woodrow Call: I wanna do it, Gus. I wanna see that country, before the bankers and lawyers all git it.

 

[Mutinousdoug]

Bear,
The trip was just 3 days: Fri, Sat, Sunday. We paddled 18 miles day one, layed over and hiked day 2 and paddled out about 12-13 miles day 3. Got on the river about 9:00 and off by 2:00 or 3:00. The river was flowing about 4-5 mph on the flats and we probably spent 2 hours a day eating lunch and stopping to swim.
Jack,
I brought a filter along but the Floristas (forest service) and the guides encouraged everyone to pee in the river to keep from polluting the camping spots. They also filtered the wash water through a screen and poured that into the river too. The water was pretty turbid that far down (and even up in the mtns it was kind of murky from runoff). I suppose the canoe livery didn't want to send anyone home with Girardia so they went with water cans. I hope Coor's doesn't consider this stuff to be: "Rocky mountian spring water" 'cause it ain't.
Chuck,
Sorry about the picture size, I'm kind of an amature at this and couldn't figure out how to size them. I had cropped the petroglyph picture but it was still too big.
Corey,
I rode my bike around in the Albuquerque bosque years ago and saw turkey and deer. Looked like a neet place to float.

 

[adminold]

Doug

Posting pictures on the forum is just like making a boat ... it is a learning experience and trust me when I say that 95% of us have done the same thing in the past.

The main reason for smaller pictures is so a person can scroll up and down looking at them and not up & down and from the left to the right, Gezzzeeeee you have to remember most of us on here are lazy, anyway I am.

As far as the size, a couple of months ago I up graded the web service and server so it will hold over 10,000 of pictures that size, we have plenty of room for pictures on here since they are something all of us like to see, even if Bear, Swampy, Oldyaker, Joe, Al, Red Stick Jim or Jack is in them. :lol:

I noticed you were one step ahead of us on that and did not have any of those guys with you on the river run. That led me to believe that you really wanted some good pictures to show us, along with your friends , and your family.

Chuck
PS. I think I might have 7 guys gunning for me right now , if they have read this post. :roll:

 

[Mutinousdoug]

Chuck,
So, if I size my pics to 5" wide will they fit on the page without having to scroll back and forth?

Doug

 

[swamprat]

Hi Doug,
Great report and incredible pictures!

I "Think" that you need to resize the pictures to a smaller pixel count rather than a specific size as eveybody's screen is a different size but the pixels remain the same. Now I could be full of it but thats the way I understand it.
640 X 480 is about right I think....

 

[Mutinousdoug]

Colo river picture size

Thanks Swamprat,
let me try that:

and

Hey!
That's better.
Hope I can remember this until the next time i feel compelled to post pictures

 

[oldsparkey]

See ..... Like I told you about posting pictures ... it is just like making a boat, a learning experience.
The pictures you 1st posted will determine the width of this post so it will stay wide but the next time you post pictures in a new thread or on the 2nd page (when it goes over to page #2) of this post the size of the ones you just entered , everything will be in side the normal frame.

By the way in the one above picture I really like your dinning room tables, The red one is nice but there is something about a green table in the woods, it just fits in with the surroundings. Then when they need to be cleaned just invert them and float down stream. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Chuck.

 

[Mutinousdoug]

Pretty amazing what these girls can do with a couple of 2x4's, some conduit, duct tape and a canoe.
Just like home...but different.

 

[Kayak Jack]

Pretty amazing what these girls can do with a couple of 2x4's, some conduit, duct tape and a canoe...

I'm going to bite my tongue and not post the reply that popped into my head. But - OOOHHHH it is a good one!

 

[oldyaker]

A wine tastin' expedishun? What a swell idea....hey oldyaker.....whaddya think? We kin join up fer one like that! :wink:

I like how you think Bear! Maybe we can get all the Gang into a Gondola for this one? Than we only need one desgnated helmsman! (Swampy)
The rest of the Gang can be DD's.......


Beautiful trip Doug! I waz look'n for the 'Hole in the Wall Gang' riding one of those ridges in those pix!

 

[bearridge]

I waz look'n for the 'Hole in the Wall Gang' riding one of those ridges in those pix!

Friend oldyaker

Funny ya brung up Butch. The pichurs made me think of the Upper Missouri River. When we paddle that stretch, we kin add wine tastin'.....wait, what am I sayin'! Ever expedishun I been on so far we had wine tastin'. :mrgreen:

When did we say we were paddlin' it? I plum fergot. Wuz it next year? :roll:

regards
bearridge
paddlin' geezer canoe clud
western trip planner

ps We kin git Swampy ta go if we tell him that whole river iz eat up with bears! :wink:

You know there is a problem with the education system when you realize that out of the 3 R's only one begins with an R. Dennis Miller

 

[Mutinousdoug]

[/quote]
Beautiful trip Doug! I waz look'n for the 'Hole in the Wall Gang' riding one of those ridges in those pix![/quote]

Didn't see no banditos on the rimrock. Did see a couple of bikers up there on the 1st day out. You could tell they weren't bank robbers by all the spandex and lycra they wore. No bank robber is going to try to hide his pistol in his bike shorts. Church lady or the police would catch him for sure.