View topic - Green River UT help

It is currently March 28th, 2024, 1:30 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours





Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 33 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
Author Message
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: February 24th, 2015, 9:13 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: August 11th, 2002, 7:00 pm
Posts: 6132
Location: Sunny Wasaga Beach
Kanoe wrote:
l. Wind caused us the most paddling difficulty, waves can get whipped up to CI+ and paddling some of the corners are a battle.!



I have never been on the Green, but on the San Juan we got blown off one aft. Impossible to paddle against. As soon as we tried shoving off from the bank the wind blew up back before we could get the paddles in the water. We had to hunker down at a makeshift campsite for the aft and nite. Pitching the tent was an interesting exercise as we had to carefully put weight on it or in it for every step.

_________________

Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.



Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: February 26th, 2015, 11:03 am 
Offline

Joined: June 28th, 2001, 7:00 pm
Posts: 2909
Location: Freeland, Maryland USA
wotrock wrote:
Kanoe wrote:
l. Wind caused us the most paddling difficulty, waves can get whipped up to CI+ and paddling some of the corners are a battle.!


I have never been on the Green, but on the San Juan we got blown off one aft. Impossible to paddle against. As soon as we tried shoving off from the bank the wind blew up back before we could get the paddles in the water. We had to hunker down at a makeshift campsite for the aft and nite. Pitching the tent was an interesting exercise as we had to carefully put weight on it or in it for every step.


I am sure there is some explanation as to why the wind on desert canyon rivers is always oppositional, even when going around a near 360 on multi-mile oxbows.

Last spring on the Green at high water levels I stopped at a fast water section beside an island to wait while my companion adjusted his foot brace and the wind blew me back upriver against a significant current. It actually blew me backwards up a small wave train.

Paddling the swifter current on the outside of turns, staying on the bubble line, is usually best, but sometimes the towering cliffs on that outside edge only serve to funnel the worst of the wind.

The one place I would exercise some special caution is at the confluence with the Colorado and downstream. If the rivers are high and the wind howling the confluence can be pretty chaotic. Some of the campsite landings, especially at ledge sites, make tying in gear problematic if not impossible, but despite that I have tied everything in on the last morning before arriving at the confluence.

One more note of caution. When selecting a camp or tent site be aware of possible flash flood areas. Not just if camped on a sandy bench up a side canyon; some of the ledge sites have obvious pour overs and you don’t want to have tent or gear in the path of that.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: February 26th, 2015, 4:04 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: August 11th, 2002, 7:00 pm
Posts: 6132
Location: Sunny Wasaga Beach
At 1 site we pitched our tent a 'mere; 10-12 ft above the water level. It looked likw a storm was brewing upstream so it was suggested we move to higher ground, which we did.

We went with an outfitter and it was well worth the cost.

_________________

Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.



Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: February 26th, 2015, 4:20 pm 
Offline

Joined: June 28th, 2001, 7:00 pm
Posts: 2909
Location: Freeland, Maryland USA
Kanoe wrote:
camping can be a little tricky to find ... your best bet is to look for campsites anywhere that creeks or slot canyons confluence with the Green and be prepared for lots of MUD!


Another good campsite sign is any accessible stand of cottonwood trees. Kind of like looking for a stand of pine on southern swamp rivers.

Kelsey’s book does a fair job of describing where the sites are located, and some of the site landings are right at a canyon mouth or even a bit upstream.

At lower water levels there are a lot more camping opportunities and some of the landings become much easier.

In May 2013 the Green River gage was at 3000 cfs/6.4 feet on May 3rd 2013 when we launched and rose slowly. Flow average for that date is 9,000 cfs.

At that level there were abundant campsites and easy landings but still enough current to paddle lazy 20 mile days (it helped that the winds were mild).

In late April 2014 the gauge was at 5000 cfs/7.25 feet when we launched and shot up to 11,000 cfs and 9 feet in 48 hours. Nineteen days later it peaked at 12,000 cfs.

At those higher levels some of the landings became quite challenging, both in terms of hauling the gear up some embankment and in securing the canoe. And more people were funneled onto fewer spots.

One oddity I noticed on the Green. I have never before seen as many people leave their canoes in the water tied off to shore. And not just rental Grummans and impossible catamaran rigs, but some nice private canoes.

And to confess, I had never done it before camping on some ledge sites on the Green. But there are some sites where the canoe is floating sheltered and serene deep in canyon backwater and the entrance to camp is some near vertical 20 foot bank.

In that situation we still manhauled the canoes up the embankment at times when things promised to become less serene. Paying attention to where a flash flood zone might impact the canoe is good hazard avoidance as well.

Even on the no-portage Green a lightweight canoe is advantageous. Part of that difficulty is simply that some sites with room for a half dozen tents don’t have much nearby room for canoes, especially if you are last to a group site in a fleet of rental Grummans.

A couple of gear pieces that absolutely helped at the more awkward landings: Extra line to attach if your painters are short; having 30 feet of available line at each end isn’t overkill.

And one of those spiral screw-in dog run stakes.

http://www.harborfreight.com/18-inch-pe ... 95489.html

I’d rather not trust tying my boat off to a (now dead) Tammie, even while I’m just unloading. And those spiral stakes are handy for securing other gear in high winds. Enough so that Texs rents them. We have one per boat, with a piece of tubing tied on to cover the sharp tip.

While I am blathering I have another gear confession to make. In 2013 I used a mostly mesh Hubba Hubba tent and we had light to moderate winds. I had little problem keeping the Green’s fine-as-flour canyon sand and dust out.

I believe Kim used much the same tent that same year a couple weeks later and came back swearing that she would never again take a mesh tent on the Green. Pish Posh, I thought. I had a mesh tent; I just did a superior job of battening down the hatches.

In 2014 I used that same tent. It blew like stink, almost every day. Dust storms, sand storms, hard to paddle downriver against it stink. If I didn’t start off sleeping in filth I usually woke up that way.

I will never take another mesh tent down the Green


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: February 26th, 2015, 6:43 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: December 19th, 2006, 8:47 pm
Posts: 9295
Mike please read the date on my report of the ill advisedness of the mesh tent. We were sandbar camping in October

A Totally different environment.

We used a Trango 3.1 for our spring trip. With temps cold sometimes it was the right tent for us and withstood 60 mph winds. The tent bowed but did not collapse

I'm doing the Forrest Gump thing. That's all I got to say. But I will not have my remarks put in an inappropriate context


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: February 27th, 2015, 7:49 am 
Offline

Joined: June 28th, 2001, 7:00 pm
Posts: 2909
Location: Freeland, Maryland USA
littleredcanoe wrote:
Mike please read the date on my report of the ill advisedness of the mesh tent. We were sandbar camping in October

A Totally different environment.

We used a Trango 3.1 for our spring trip. With temps cold sometimes it was the right tent for us and withstood 60 mph winds. The tent bowed but did not collapse


Apologies for misstating the facts.

What I was trying to say is that I ignored advice about bringing a mesh tent because it worked the first time. The second trip not so much.

It will be a tent with panels I can zip fully closed next time.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: May 2nd, 2015, 5:16 pm 
Offline

Joined: December 26th, 2004, 3:51 pm
Posts: 48
You Canadians are more hardy than I. We did the Green a couple of weeks ago planning to go from Green River State Park to the confluence. The river was running just over 4,000 and the current was two mph or less in most places. I had my 16' Souris River which I had put a rowing frame on for potential wind. Two guys were paddling my 18 1/2' Mad River Voyager and a fourth guy was rowing a 14' skiff. We found we had to row and paddle steadily to average 17 miles a day.

It was cold, ( a couple of snowflakes the morning of the second day), and rained on and off for four days. I am getting too old for five or six hours of steady rowing and then hauling gear and setting up camp. We weren't enjoying sight seeing or hiking or anything but steady paddling and rowing.

One of the guys and I decided to take out at Mineral Bottom on the fourth day. The other two, who are in much better shape, could have gone on but decided it would just be three more days of the same thing. Rain and constant rowing so, they decided to take out as well.

We had to hitch a ride with a shuttle that had come in for another group to get our drivers into Moab to pick up our trucks. Driving from the canyon rim down to Mineral Bottom can be quite exciting when it gets a bit muddy.


I've done the 68 miles we did from the state park to Mineral Bottom a number of times and was looking forward to seeing the lower 52 miles. I just couldn't convince myself that three more days of rain and rowing were going to be that much fun. Maybe next time?

It is my understanding that the wind blows upstream in the canyons due to temperature differential. On hot days, in the morning, there isn't that much difference between the temperature of the water and the ground. As the day heats up, the water temperature stays about the same but the ground heats up considerably. The hot ground heats the air above it causing it to rise. As it rises, it pulls the cold air over the water up stream and over the land to replace the rapidly rising warm air.

I think that's why it goes upstream even when the river goes around corners. It is a specific phenomena of the canyons. If you got up out of the canyon, the wind would be quite different. The strong, upstream winds occur on warm days. This trip, it was cold enough that we didn't get the strong winds.

I've done the trip in September when the weather was cooler and there were no strong afternoon winds. On a hot day, the wind can blow 30-40 mph and kick up waves a couple of feet high. It can be difficult to keep the bow into the wind which, because of the waves, is critical.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: May 3rd, 2015, 8:20 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: December 19th, 2006, 8:47 pm
Posts: 9295
Never done the Green at 4000. It must have been very slow! Done it at 9000-14000. I think the dam had not released for you.

The Mineral Bottom road is not something I would tackle in mud. It was exciting enough in our trailerless truck.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: May 3rd, 2015, 10:01 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: June 22nd, 2004, 4:45 pm
Posts: 1224
Location: Canmore AB
quick trip report from our trip: On river Ruby Ranch April 5 Pickup Spanish Bottom April 15. River flow 5,000 and less.
Route selection down the river was important as there are sandbars where there shouldn't be.
Wind yes! Usually came up 1:00- 2:00 PM. You could paddle in it but what a PITA. For 2 days it was impossible to paddle but we were forwarned once by an outfitter and once by our InReach with message from friends warning us of BIG winds the next day. It was glass calm on our last day as we floated past the confluence of the Green and Colorado. We got to Spanish Bottom around 10:00 AM at 10:30 huge winds came up and stayed with us for the next 24h.
Campsites: as stated sometimes hard to find. Kelsey's book once you get through the verbage can help but it's not the bible for campsites. Nor is the list at the Mineral Bottom kiosk. BLM and Parks service are doing some strategic Tammy removal to create/enhance camping areas.
"Embrace the mud" we were told by our shuttle driver from Tex's. So right :rofl: Slip sliding away comes to mind trying to get in, get out, get unstuck.
Great hiking, Anasazi ruins, and scenery.
Hugh

_________________
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
M.T.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: May 3rd, 2015, 6:02 pm 
Offline

Joined: December 26th, 2004, 3:51 pm
Posts: 48
Kim,
It had sprinkled a bit while we were going into town to get our trucks. The road down from the rim was just a bit muddy. Still, very nerve wracking going down. I believe there is a sign at the top that cautions not to go down if it's raining.

Going down muddy switchbacks is far more frightening than going up. We, literally, threw our gear into the trucks and lashed the boats on and got out of there as it was beginning to sprinkle again and getting dark. By the time we got over the rim and to the pavement, it was raining hard.

Had it been raining like that before we started up, four wheel drive or not, we would have spent the night at the bottom. That is not a road you can afford a slip on.

When we arrived at Mineral, we met a group of ski instructors from Crested Butte, (four women and a man). They had canoed down and arrived the day before. Their shuttle didn't come in as scheduled. One of them walked to the rim and far enough that they got a cell signal, (quite a few miles). They called the shuttle service and were told that the road was too muddy to come down that day but they would be there, "first thing in the morning".

Although other vehicles had come in the day we arrived,their shuttle didn't show up until about 5:00 and we paid the guy to take us out with them.

You are right, that is an, "exciting", road. Some years ago, that road was washed out by unusually heavy spring rains. Most of it just wiped off the face of the cliff. I didn't think they would be able to rebuild it but, with a lot of blasting, they did. Believe it or not, it is better now than it used to be.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: May 4th, 2015, 1:16 pm 
Offline

Joined: December 26th, 2004, 3:51 pm
Posts: 48
Hugh, you took out the day we launched. We camped the first night on an island and, it was windy enough we had to put rocks on the tent stakes but then, they were in sand. You had much better weather than we but, as a result, though we had cold and rain, we didn't have the big afternoon winds. The Green is always interesting.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: May 4th, 2015, 1:37 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: June 22nd, 2004, 4:45 pm
Posts: 1224
Location: Canmore AB
Jim;
We froze on the shuttle back up on the 15th. Next night it snowed around Moab. Brrr.
We headed south and fianlly ended up in Page AZ looking for heat.
Hugh

_________________
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
M.T.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: May 4th, 2015, 8:30 pm 
Offline

Joined: December 26th, 2004, 3:51 pm
Posts: 48
Hugh,
The 16th was cold on the river and rainy. I finally had to wrap my dog in my down jacket to keep him warm.
AZ is good. We spent February in Tucson and March in San Diego to get away from the Denver winter.
The forecast for Moab for the week we were on the river was 50's with a chance of rain on the 15th warming to mid 70's through the week. They really missed that one.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: January 10th, 2019, 4:16 pm 
Offline

Joined: March 24th, 2014, 11:48 am
Posts: 7
Thanks for all of the great information on the Green River in this thread, and a couple of other ones!

I have a couple of additional questions:
Who: 9 people- 4 adults, 5 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old
When: Planned for the last week of March.
Canoes: 3

1. Does anyone have a recommendation for food storage? I have a collection of bear canisters that I use backpacking, but was curious if we could get away with dry bags along the Green. A blue barrel is a possibility, but I would probably need to ship it ahead since it might not fit in the car. I don't have a good sense for how active the critters are.

2. Also, several folks mention the lovely mud. Are rubber boots the way to go, or should we just enjoy the way the mud squishes into our sneakers :)

Thanks!
-Peter


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Green River UT help
PostPosted: January 10th, 2019, 5:30 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: December 19th, 2006, 8:47 pm
Posts: 9295
Be very ready for snow. The river is in high desert. The average high is below 60 and the average low below freezing.

Warm boots are best. The river is snowmelt and at that time of year particulary not warm.. Wear wetsuits.

Flow is dependent on snowpack and corresponding dam releases.

Food storage can be whatever you want but hard sided containers best.. You really don't want raccoons nor ravens..

There may be mud or river levels high enough to not have mud but steep banks to the upper level campsites which is all there is left if there are no sandbars. They are glorious however. Fight through the tamarisks!

I suggest you contact your shuttle operator.. They may be able to help with containers and advice for the early season especially important as the date nears.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 33 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group