Saturday - July 21st: We broke camp and began what was to be a 23-mile day of solid paddling. Floating twenty miles down a river in a canoe can usually be done in just a few hours with a moderate amount of paddling, but we really had very little current so it took us all day. We just settled into a steady groove of paddling and inched our way down river. Whenever we got too hot we would just jump in the river. The water was just cool enough to provide relief, but not really chill us. The cliffs just kept getting taller.
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Dave. |
Jackie & Dave. |
Jackie goes for a climb. He is in the middle of this photo. |
Jackie climbs back down. |
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Joe & Preston take a break... |
Preston. |
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Near the end of our day we reached the beginning of Bowknot Bend. This part of the river forms a 7-mile meander or oxbow before nearly touching itself again, if it weren't for a ridge rising several hundred feet between the river. Jackie, Preston and I decided to climb it and were amazed by the great views of the river coming and going.
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Jackie atop Bowknot Ridge. The right side is where we came from. |
Dave paddles away from our boats on the river. |
The view heading around Bowknot Bend. |
The view of Oak Bottom leaving Bowknot Bend. |
Preston & Jackie raise fists on Bowknot Ridge. |
We struggled to find a good spot for Camp 2, but finally settled on a sandy island in the middle of the river halfway around Bowknot Bend. It was a good spot except for the windblown sand getting everywhere.
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Camp 2 on the beach. |
Enjoying dinner after a long day. |
Jackie is exhausted. |
Dave--loving life! |
Sunday - July 22nd: It was now our third day on the river and we were all tired of drinking warm water, even with flavor packets mixed in. In hindsight we all agreed that it would have been worth the effort to bring some coolers just to have some cold drinks. It may have meant towing an inflatable dingy behind us, but we should have done it anyway. We had fifteen miles left to reach our take-out point at Mineral Bottom. We all anticipated making it into Moab for dinner and cold beers at the Moab Brewery.
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Jackie didn't move from the evening before, just a bit sandy. |
Camp 2 in the morning. |
Looking up at Bowknot Ridge from the down river side. |
Joe & Preston. |
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Preston. |
Dave, Preston & Jackie take a cigar break. |
Boats and the boys. |
Jackie. |
We reached the Mineral Bottom take-out point around 3:00 and got busy with getting all three boats strapped onto Jackie's truck and all gear stowed. Cold beers awaited us in Moab, but we had to get up the canyon wall first. The three photos below show the treacherous road that was our exit.
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Pick out the road slanting up the canyon from the right. |
Looking back down on the road. |
Twists in the road with the Green River below. |
After dinner in Moab we reversed our inital effort by returning to Ruby Ranch to get my truck. We spent another night in Green River, Utah before returning to our respective homes on Monday. This was an outstanding water trip. We would have enjoyed a lot more river flow and cooler temperatures by doing this float in April, but then the water would have been too cold to play in. The bugs weren't too annoying so the main change would have been to go through the effort to bring cold beverages. I would recommend this adventure for anyone.