The timing was perfect, too. We're at that seasonal sweet spot between summer and fall -- temperatures are hovering in the high-70s during the day and dropping to a cozy 50 at night. The timing was also right for our 17-week old puppy, Frankie. She's still small enough to fit in the middle of a canoe amid all our overnight gear, which probably won't be the case much longer! She's also too small to go on big hiking trips, so this was a great way to take her a big multi-night adventure.
The flatwater trip through Labyrinth Canyon starts in Green River, UT and winds 68-miles to Mineral Bottom. It's a seriously gorgeous trip. The river snakes through soaring red cliffs, passes bizarre rock art, and scoots around precipitous bowknot bends. We only had 3 days to do the trip, but it would have been nice to take 4. Half the fun of river trips is getting out of the boat to hike around, but we had to plow to cover the miles.
Our first day didn't start off too promising. We started at Green River State Park during a heavy-duty storm -- thunder was crashing and rain was pouring. But we pushed on and hid out under willow thickets when lightening got to close. Honestly, the scenery isn't all that impressive on the first day, so it wasn't a big deal to cinch up our raincoats and plow. We paddled about 20 miles before calling it a day and setting up camp on a sand bar near Ruby Ranch.
We had bluebird skies for the next two days, which was good luck because we had to cover some miles. We paddled about 30 miles on Day 2. It's been a really low water year and the current was noticeably slow. But as long as we steadily paddled we could cover around 4.5 miles/hour. We stopped at the River Register around mile XX to check out the creepy ghost-face inscription. Frankie was a good sport, too. She squirmed around a little bit, but eventually found her spot in the middle of the boat. As long as we let her out every once and a while to swim and catch sticks she did just fine.
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| River Register |
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| Frankenstein the River Monster |
Camping on the second night was a little rough. First of all, we had a tough time finding a campsite as we approached the Bowknot. The banks were choked with tamarisks and willows, so there weren't many sandy beaches conducive to camping. The same thing actually happened when I did this trip in 2010, but I assumed that was because it was such a high water year. Nope -- it was tricky both times. We ended up finding a mosquito-infested patch of dry dirt, but it was pretty miserable. My advise -- if you're approaching the Bowknot, stop early and grab whatever patch of real-estate you can find!
On the last day, we took our time to paddle the final 18 miles. The weather was great, and we stopped to see the Denis Julien inscription in Hell Roaring Canyon. Hell Roaring Canyon is near river mile XX, and the inscription is about 200 yards up the canyon on the right side. Denis Julien was a French-Canadian fur trapper in the 19th century who was the first documented white guy to navigate Cataract Canyon and the lower reached of the Green. Neat. Late that afternoon, we met up with our shuttle guy, Bob, who loaded up the canoe and drove us back to civilization. Great trip.
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| D. Julien inscription |
If you want to paddle through Labyrnith Canyon, there's some logistical BS to work through (but that's normal for a river trip, eh?) The permit process is actually easier than most overnight river trips in the area, so it's totally worth it. You'll need to fill out a permit ahead of time, but it's free and easy to get. Print off the form on the BLM's website, take both copies to the put-in, leave one copy at the put-in, and take the other copy down the river with you. After that, you'll have to figure out the shuttle. We put in at Green River State Park and took out at Mineral Bottom. We rented a canoe and arranged a shuttle through Moki Mac River Expeditions. They were a little pricey, but Bob was great to work with. If you have time, it's definitely cheaper to do your own shuttle (check out the map below,) and it takes about 3 hours to get from Green River to Mineral Bottom and back. Mineral Bottom is a decent dirt road, but it's steeeeep and can be impassable if wet. It's also a great idea to bring Belknap's Canyonlands River Guide along -- the waterproof pages are filled with maps containing notations and topographic contour lines. It also shows the locations of the major features of the river, rapids, archaeological sites, etc. It's easy to get disoriented when the river keeps taking hairpin turns -- the river guide keeps you situated!
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| map credit: blm.gov |
