Day 1: Loma Boat Launch –> Beaver Tail 1 (3.5mi)

Tina was kind enough to invite us on her permit for the Ruby Horsethief! This was a very casual float - max class 2 (not even in this low water year) - and we spent much of our time leisurely floating and chatting. The biggest thing I learned from my first multi-day river trip was how much time is spent rigging and then unloading gear from rafts. Getting cars shuttled and the boats in the water and rigged on the first day took about 3 hours. Then every day, unloading and setting up camp/ breaking down camp and reloading took about 1.5 hours each.

Super fun trip. This is what life is about! Being dirty-clean, baking in the sun, laughing and dancing with friends, playing outside.

 

   

To break up the float we stopped at rattlesnake camp and went for a walk. We ended in a small slot canyon where Kelsey spotted hundreds of little eggs of some sort in a puddle. Maybe tadpoles?

   

 

Each day had a theme for the evening. The first, was “alter ego”.

 

Day 2: Beaver Tail 1 –> Mee 2 (9.8mi)

Day two was creature-filled! Daily, we saw so many great blue herons that they got the nickname “GBH” that we would shout whenever we saw one. The best part about a river is that all creatures have to come down to it. We saw two eagles in a tree next to another tree with a large nest. The nest had two baby eagles in it that were stretching and testing their wings for a first flight. The best photo of the day (if you had a good camera) was when we saw a Desert Bighorn Sheep standing tall on a boulder next to a perched GBH.

   

There were many trails right from our Mee 2 campsite. We took a stroll up to a small shelf before we prepped dinner. Dinner set up was fancy. We had three kitchen tables and a griddle. Each night, a group would cook for the 18 people on the trip.

   

 

   

The theme for night two was “enchanted desert”. It was Justin and Tina’s birthday and Lauren was kind enough to bring them both giant cupcakes.

 

Day 3: Mee 2 –> Black Rocks 8 (3.6mi)

On day 3, we went through the small “rapid” section. It was chaotic purely because of the number of people flowing through but otherwise very mellow.

We found a spot to go for a walk where a subset of the group played “TROUT” and a subset went to look for bouldering and others just for a walk. The bouldering group found a collard lizard and the hiking group hustled over for a chance to see!

   

Back on the boards, we found a place to do some cliff jumping. The water is super silty so I was staked out at the bottom assessing whether jumping is safe. 😅

 

The final theme was “disco mermaid”. This was a big party evening. We had slip-n-slides, fire dancing, and limbo.

 

Day 3: Black Rocks 8 –> Westwater take out (8.5mi)

By day 3 we had our packing out system dialed and got out of their quickly. We paddled from Colorado into Utah and stopped for some bushwacking to find petroglyphs.

   

We found two figure petroglyphs.

 

   

We saw a group of birds soaring high in the sky and had a long debate where I convinced the group that they were storks… only to be disproven. They were pelicans!

And more eagles to send us home.

   

Bonus - creepy crawlies

On night two and three, a group went looking for scorpions. Regretably I was too sleepy, which is perhaps for the best. What a cool experience but I don’t need to be more afraid of the desert!

The morning of our last day, some people found this crazy looking creature on their tarp and then paddle board. We learned that this is a dobson fly. They spend 3 years in this aquatic for before molting into their fly form, which they remain in for only a week.