Thursday, September 2, 2010

Desolation and Grey Canyon

At World Wide, every riverguide gets a free river trip a year for a family member. I decided to take my brother Joseph on a five-day Desolation Canyon river trip. Ivy came too, so the three of us got our own boat. There where two other guides on the trip, Suzy-Q and Morgan. The first day we have to cover 25 out of 86 miles of the Green River, so we took a motor with enough gas for one day.


Rigging our boats at Sand Wash, the put-in, Monday evening.


The next morning while we waited for Suzy and Morgan to get the passengers from the airstrip, I found a snake. When Suzy came back we put the reptile on her back. At first she thought it was her sunglasses and chums.


Unfortunately Jed, our driver and the motorhead, forgot to tell us to open up the gas tank while the motor was running, so it died a lot. It was embarrassing because all our passengers knew we didn't know what we were really doing. Luckily for us, they were very nice and helped out.


It took forever for us to figure it out. Everyone except for Suzy wanted to shoot ourselves. Instead she just swears, right Suzy? ;)


Outlaw hide-out in Firewater Canyon.


One of the nights it stormed the whole time. Cool lightening and thunder but we didn't appreciate the rain very much.


Morgan tried to stay dry by sleeping in her dry-bag under the table. I don't know why she's smiling, it didn't work that great.


Ivy and I at McPhereson Ranch. I'm glad we use groovers on the river now.


We stopped on a small isolated beach after Rattlesnake Rapid and hung out there for about thirty minutes. One of our young passengers pointed downstream and said, "Hey! A bear!" We got off that beach pretty quickly. The black bear looked like an awkward adolescent. I love the wildlife in Desolation and Grey Canyon!


In camp we played the whipped cream game with our passengers. It's my favorite river game.


Ivy and I drew straws for our favorite rapid on Deso, Three Fords, and I got it! I really hope that the year I come back to guide I can be trained for commercial trips like Cataract and Desolation Canyon.


Love ya deso ~ until next time!

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