Canoeing
in Utah, 2006
Charles and Nancy Bagley
Seattle
Springtime, and Utah hiking season again. But again this year we wanted to canoe as well, so we drove down with our 16 foot Dagger Dimension.
May 1 --- Zion NP. After a delightful AM hike to the Emerald Pools, we tried the N. Fork of the Virgin River, which flows down the center of the main Zion valley. Due to a flow of 600 cfs, the famous Zion Narrows hike, upstream of the road end was closed.
We put in at the parking lot at road end and took out at “Court of the Patriarchs,” where a small side-road is handy. This is a class 1-2 stretch, but below the Court, there is lots of class 3 to 4, narrow river, not our stuff. You need a permit to do the run, which also allows you to leave your vehicle at the road-end lot, otherwise closed to all private vehicles. Shuttle is easy, as a free bus runs the length of the canyon every 10 minutes or so, with stops at all the major sites.
Such a marvel to be floating a river while gazing at 400+ foot high, red and white, vertical rock walls, grass and cottonwoods on the banks, and bus-loads of gaping tourists going by on the road!! Sadly, we were at the take-out in an hour and a half. Beavers have been industriously chewing and dropping large cottonwoods into the river. We had to line and portage several times. Not too many play spots, just a beautiful run.
May 9 --- Chute of Muddy Creek, San Rafael Swell. We had been wanting to hike the Chute for years, but were held up for lack of a shuttle, or by too much flow. 2006 saw near record snow on the headwaters plateau of the Muddy, so we planned to run it.
The Muddy runs SE for about 150 miles through the Swell ( a huge uplift in the earth’s surface), and then through near-desert to meet the Fremont River in Hanksville. Thereafter, it is called to Dirty Devil River, and flows about 60 miles farther to the Colorado. We put in at Tomsich Butte and took out at Hidden Splendor Mine, a run of 15 miles, of which about 8 miles are in the narrow, high walls of the Chute.
The first 3 miles are in open river bottom, the rock walls set back by 100 to 500 yards, and short, class 1+ rapids. We made camp early in the shade of a cottonwood, birds singing, and the Utah flowers in bloom. On May 10, time to do the Chute, narrow, dark, cold water...but where were our helmets and wetsuits?? Forgotten in a pack in our truck at the takeout!! No choice but to proceed. But the river was not really too cold, and was only about 18 inches deep almost everywhere. Into the Chute, sandstone walls closed in and rose to 200 feet. Some tougher rapids at the entry, especially one class 3 with only 25 feet in which to change from river R to L to dodge the second set rocks, whose vee required the same river-right angle as the first set, and no eddy available. We could not do it, and hung up on the second rocks, then slid off without a dump!
We were busy most of the run dodging rocks and walls, and especially being sure to not jam the bow against the far wall of turns, and thus get stuck, wall-to-wall, as the canyon narrowed. We had read that in the deepest part of the Chute you could not see the sky, and the walls were only 8 feet apart! But, we found that the narrowest was about 12 feet, and the sky was always in view. Happily, in the tightest narrows the river ran pretty much straight, there were no rapids, and we could relax and float, admiring the view of logs, jammed by summer flash floods, that were 40 feet overhead. And great canyon wren songs!
At our start, the river was 20 ft wide, 1½ ft deep, and a stick thrown in traveled a paced out 45-ft distance in 7 seconds. The upstream river gauge at Emery for May 9 read 250 cfs. But the gauge is far upstream of the Chute, and there are often large irrigation water diversions below it, so the gauge may not reflect Chute flows. Gauge web site is http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ut/nwis/uv?site_no=09330500 (note: there is a _ in the gap.)
The site for snowpack is the NRCS SNOTELL , Utah, and look for “Dill’s Camp.” Peak flows are usually about June 1, but in high snowpack years, it gets adequate runoff much earlier. See the BLM website for the Price, Utah, office for good advice on the Muddy. They suggest stopping on the I-70 bridge over the Muddy and use about 24 inches as the threshold for a run. We would have liked about 2 inches more water.
Rapids were frequent but short throughout the 15 mile run, and ranged mostly from riffles to 2-. There were no real sweepers. The one, class 3 rapid was just above the Chute, where the river turns abruptly from NE to SE: GPS seems to be 501,700 E, 4,278,200N. A cumbersome portage is possible. This rapid is easy to scout, but from the river it cannot be seen until you turn the corner and are in it. This is also about the last place to camp until the end of the Chute. After the Chute, the walls pull away, and there are many campsites. It’s about 5 miles to the takeout. Here are longer, shallower rapids, and we had to walk the canoe several times. Study the terrain at Hidden Splendor Mine closely as you do the shuttle, because the take-out site is not obvious from the river, and you are in real trouble if you miss it. To reach your vehicle while not breaking any laws, you must carry everything about ¼ mile by road, and up about 100 feet.
It is possible to continue on down the Muddy and take out at a 4-wheel-drive track shortly after the river leaves the Swell, or go all the way to Hanksville on very high flows. BUT, in this section on the edge of the Swell there is a dangerous, undercut rock ledge, river L, where the river makes a very sharp right turn. We hiked this route May 12, at which time all the current disappeared under the ledge, which had only about a 1 foot gap above the water surface! At higher flows the ledge’s gap may be covered, and it might look like a headwall, but with suspiciously little upstream turbulence. A craft could be pulled completely out of sight and jammed in its depths. Just 20 feet downstream are 2 huge boulders in the main current, which create their own jamming risks. This area can be easily portaged on a large sandbar, river R. Upstream, there are 2 smaller, less risky river L ledges low above the water, both on right turns, that warn of the killer ahead.
To arrange a shuttle we called several river companies in Green River, but none would help us. We were referred to Phil Nelson (435-564-3595), who turned out to be a veteran river runner of the area, former Grand Canyon and Green guide, and a man full of stories about weird and wonderful experiences on the water. We enjoyed talking to him before, during and after the shuttle. His Toyota Tercel with an extra heavy rack got us into the put-in with no trouble. He also makes high quality, custom frames to fit a variety of small inflatables. He is a “must see” for anyone who wants to paddle this region.
May 14 --- Colorado River. We happened to drive to Moab via route 128 from Cisco, and the river looked great, with a lot of commercial raft parties starting out. Flow 9100 cfs. So, Sunday late AM we put in at Hittle Bottom, mile post about 23.5, temperature 80 and rising, but the water...very cold. We wore our wetsuits. A delay to get to the water with all the rafts in the way. Mostly placid flow with some class 1 rapids, but on the Colorado, even class 1 can be interesting. Wave trains were up to 3 ft. high, and we had to do a bit of work to avoid swamping. The only class 2 was “Rocky Rapid,” a long rapid with a large wave train down the center, then an abrupt left turn with a moderate headwall. Rafters advised that the “line” was to start R, to avoid a boulder field on the L, then move to river L through the wave train, which, of course, their clients loved. We scouted the rapid, and we didn’t like the look of the wave train, so we took it far L, and dodged the boulders with one scrape. Take-out was at “Take-out Beach”, mile post 10.5, temperature about 90, and wet suits intolerable. River time, 2 ½ hours. I hitched back to the put-in.
This was a gorgeous stretch, high walls, flowers, light winds, and it was the real Colorado, after all!