Big Trip - 2001 - Page 6
Dinosaur National Monument

Lodore!!! Lodore!!!  It's a wonderful 42 miles.  To be accurate there are really three canyons - Lodore, Whirlpool and Split Mountain that make up the run through Dinosaur National Monunment. First comes Lodore which includes Winnie's Rapid, Disaster Falls, Hell's Half Mile, Triplet Falls, and Harp Falls.  Lodore is a beautiful canyon as you can see in the picture to the left.  This is from just above the campsite known as Kolb.  There are assigned campsites in Dinosaur and Kolb was one that we were assigned to.  We were very happy to be in Lodore.

To me the hardest, most frightening, heart pumping rapid in Dinosaur is Hell's Half Mile.  You have to swing just behind a rock moving to river right in order to line up on the tongue that pours between two holes one on either side.  It was the first major rapid of the trip and I have to say I was nervous.  We watched another group go through including one guy on a boogie board.  That was very cool to say the least.  I thought you don't get much closer to the water unless you are swimming it.  Maybe I'll get one someday.  The picture to the right is just after sliding to the right and we are about to head down the tongue.  One thing about Hell's that you shouldn't forget but I always do is that getting onto the tongue is only half of the rapid.  To be truly successful you have to wend your way through a boulder field which follows directly.  I got the boat caught up on a rock a few feet down from the picture below.  But I was so happy  to have successfully negotiated Hell's Half Mile, as you can see, that it didn't much matter.

This was a big thrilling day.  We landed at Limestone Campground.  The mosquitoes came to greet us but not in the ferocious numbers we'd see later.  Limestone is a bit gloomy which lends itself well to telling stories of La Urena.  (I'm not sure if the spelling is right there).  La Urena was a native american woman who was married to Cortez though he already had a wife at home.  They had two children, a boy and a girl.  It came time for Cortez to go home and he did without his second wife and two children.  La Urena was beside herself with grief and went to the river and drowned her two children.  When she died she began haunting the river corridors of the west looking for her two dead children.  Oh... there are more creepy stories to go along with it - extra people around campfires on rain nights, dreams of being called down to the river's edge, etc.  Limestone is the perfect place to tell that story.  And I took advantage of it quite to Angie's dismay!!  How accurate the story is I'm not sure - but that's more or less how I heard it.