|
|
|
| In June of
1999, we did our second trip on the Green River in Utah, running through
Desolation and Gray Canyons. This was the second trip of the year
when it wasn't just one raft. We had Don Gass with his cataraft
and Cheryl Dandle and Alex Birchfield who used their Tahiti inflatable
kayaks made by Seyvelor. On the raft, we had Angie and Thomas
Brooks (a friend of Angie's she had met on her first Grand Canyon trip).
Angie had done some research and found out that there was an airplane shuttle that would help reduce the amount of driving. We all drove up to the put in and unloaded gear and rigged the boats. Then Angie drove my truck, Cheryl Dandle drove their little station wagon and Don drove his Suburban back down to Green River, Utah. Alex, Thomas and I would sleep that night at the put in while the others would stay in a hotel and the next morning would ride in a small plane back up to a landing strip on a mesa overlooking the put in.
We tried to put in as many miles as possible the first day, trying to get past the mosquito menace. We stopped briefly to look at the remains of an iron-prowed boat. It wasn't really worth exposing ourselves to the mosquito plague. We also stopped at Duches Hole where I ran the gauntlet of mosquitoes again to look for my brother Tom's glasses. No luck. Don was a novice rafter. He had taken some preliminary training but the first day seemed pretty rough on him. He kept getting swept into eddies and falling behind through he seemed to be rowing quite a bit of the time. We camped somewhere that night about 20 miles down the river from the put in. The Green was running high as it was in our first trip, 22,000 CFS and more. All that water helped carry us down quickly.
|
||
