Sunday, September 30, 2012

Green River Friends

A memorable trip with a wonderful group of friends!

Before (Clean)
.
After (River Clean)

And some of our other animate and inanimate "friends"


Studious photographer and the custom flag.  The flag has significance to Edward Abbey fans.
 Had quite a few toads on this trip.
 What can we say?
The lizard showed up in various places, always with the beads.
 Might be cold, but it was comforting.
Devon, one of the owners of Tex's Riverways, giving his preflight safety speech - complete with a seatbelt.







Float Pictures


 Kelli at Mineral Bottom
 Kathy & Willy at Mineral Bottom
 Willy was the leading expert for relaxed "paddling"
 Candice
 Ian
 John
 BJ
 Shari
 Kathy & BJ

Camp Pictures


 Cooking in the rain
 Blowtorch lady!
 Beats working
 Somebody has to do it
 Mother & Daughter
 Just exploring
Dinner time








Shuttle Pictures


  


  




Green River - Day 6

Friday, September 28 - The sunrise is reflected on the western wall of the Colorado River at the confluence on jetboat day.


This year the whole crew got shirts.

We got everything organized and folks had just settled in to wait when the jetboat arrived and started loading.

Boats load first, then the freight.

The 46 mile trip up the Colorado River to Potash now takes a bit over 2 hours depending on how long  the optional stop at Lathrop Canyon takes.  The Colorado side of Canyonlands National Park is just as beautiful as the Green River side.

At Potash, the jetboat blows up onto the trailer for the trip to town.

All the passengers get the yellow limousine for their trip from Potash back to the office in Moab.

The boats are unloaded from the jetboat when we all get back to the office.  It's a very efficient shuttle system owned and operated by great people.  The jetboat is a great summary to a wonderful week.

Green River - Day 5


Thursday, September 27 -- We woke to a beautiful day and no rain last night.  After breakfast the boats were packed and we headed downstream, knowing that it would be our last paddling day.

We waved at the structure in the mouth of Jasper Canyon as we went by.

Folks started realizing that we were running out of river, and paddling was replaced with lots of drifting.

With no wind, the reflections were wonderful!

About mile 4, Kelli & Kathy switched places for the last few miles.

All too soon, we were spotting the turtle at the top of the rim on the east side of the Colorado river, signifying the confluence was only about 10 minutes away.

We picked a spot on the sandbar just below the confluence where it would be easy for the jetboat to land the next morning, and proceeded to set up camp and then cleaned and stacked the boats on a tarp to avoid getting sand in the shuttle boat.

  This year, the glow sticks were joined by soft rubber balls with strobe lights - really tough to catch a ball in the dark when it's lit by a strobe!

Last night on the river -- at least the last night on this river for this year.