San Juan River,June 06

Mexican Hat.

Comb Ridge Anticline

Grand Gulch camp

Looking up the river towards Slickhorn Canyon

Oasis in Slickhorn canyon


Government Rapid-Class III+ at this low level

Inside the world famous Goosenecks

First off,sorry about the formatting. I'm a blog newby. I dont blog well. The pictures at the top are towards the end of the trip and work backwards.

In late june of 06 Tom Schachet.,Kent,Beth and i took our first(of many)multiday raft trips. It took 5nights,6days. We scored a permit for the San Juan river, from Sand Island to Clay Hills Crossing--83miles. It was an awesome river. We were expecting a coffee brown colored river but were surprised to find out that it was a very cool green. The water was relatively warm. At night theres no better place in the USandA to see the stars. Its some of the cleanest air in N. America and makes for ridiculously clear skies. The days were insanely hot. 100+ everyday. It didn't matter though,we were all enjoying the scenery and float too much to care. Theres nothing like being removed from the world for 6days,down in a giant ditch on your own with nothin to entertain you but each other and boxes of Keystone and wine. By the end of the trip your whole body is covered in layers of sand and sunscreen. You get so used to it though,and you dont really notice(care) until your back in the car.This was the maiden voyage for my new raft also. Well,maiden voyage for oaring it,i guess. Kent and i paddled it on the Colorado and Poudre once. This was our first time using it since we had the custom frame built for it. We were pretty pleased with the cargo capacity of our lil 14footer. The grey one is ours,the blue one(blue-au)is Toms.

Notice Kent, the greenhorn, gettin my raft hung up on the one rapid this entire trip. Luckily,it came off with a little coaxing. He's a kayaker,he dont know nothin about oar'n. Then your man,greasin the wheels, in Toms boat. He was a little too nervous to oar it himself so he asked for my expert assistance. I obliged. It was very low water and made for a technical class III+ rapid. Not too bad but kinda nerve-racking at the top. The low water made it almost impossible not to hit a rock. Anyways,all of our camps were exceptional. Some more than others. On our final night,after a short 4mile day on the river,we stayed at Grand Gulch. I've read that its world famous for its Basketmaker archaeological sites and artifacts. But they are extremely difficult to access from the river,which we found out personally. This is also the place where an early explorer from the 30's,named Everett Ruess,is thought to have vanished. He was likened to the protagonist from the famous book"Into the Wild." And that swimming hole was definitely an oasis. It was soo cool to find this little pool in Slickhorn Canyon. It was so dry and not really the wet season there so we were surprised to find one. I've seen pictures of this canyon in wet season,there are so many cool pools that form. The picture of the long fin,about halfway up the pictures,the one obviously out of the canyon,is the Comb Ridge. A 90mile fin that i have read about in Outside magazine. It stretches from Utah to Arizona. Some guys had traversed the whole route. Pretty fun. The scenic shots are prolly from the world famous "Goosenecks."