Packing for the Green River

This year we're going to spend twelve days on the Green River, traveling 97 miles from Ruby Ranch to Spanish Bottom, 4 miles below the confluence of the Green & Colorado rivers.

BJ started a couple weeks early, brainstorming a list of meals.

Suppers were packaged into daily Ziplocs and then packed into a dry bag labeled as such.

Meanwhile, I made a visit to our local Winco for supplies to make up my own special canoe fuel. Spicy mixed nuts are essential for multi-day river trips! These go into an unmarked dry bag to limit pilferage by other trip members.

As I was digging through our stash of maps I ran across some custom maps made by one of our river friends several years ago. She's gone commercial now, overlaying satellite imagery on 7.5 minute topo maps. These letter sized sections work well in the boat when they're laminated for waterproofing.

While the highly detailed maps are my favorite tool, a copy of Belknap's Canyonlands River Guide and National Geographic's Canyonlands Map go along as well for the bigger picture.

BJ made sure her camp shoes were properly decorated. She doesn't wear the Crocks in the boat since the river mud is known to be hungry and eats footwear or other gear that isn't well attached.

We eventually ended up with a pile of packed dry bags in the garage. Time to make sure it all fits.

That's why I like the canoe. All loaded while BJ is just started to load her forward hatch. She has most of the food while I have the kitchen and other shared gear.

Even with six gallons of fresh water on board, she has still has room left over.

I have 7.5 gallons of fresh water on board and I've reserved space for the "groover" (aka toilet box) and fire pan that we'll rent from our favorite shuttle company. We'll top off our fresh water when our second half team meets us at Mineral Bottom.

If all goes as planned, we should be somewhere around Anderson Bottom at river mile 31.5 when this post publishes.