Editor’s Note [navajo]: Please welcome jotter, who graciously agreed to sub one day for foresterbob. Thanks, jotter! I hope you post more photos in the comments!
The Green River,
from the Canyon of Lodore to Split Mountain
I’ve been running rivers annually with a small crew of friends for about 7 years. No one makes it every year, but most make it most years. We’ve floated the San Juan in southern Utah, the Yampa in Colorado and Utah, the middle fork of the Salmon in Idaho, Hell’s Canyon on the Snake in Idaho, the Rogue in Oregon, and, of course, The Colorado in the Grand Canyon.
What’s the attraction? I have to admit to enjoying the class III+ rapids: nothing like a swirling wall of water coming straight at you to set you straight and wake you up. Laughing madly after being inundated by a giant wave and finding yourself still on board is a huge release. I choose a paddle boat when I can. Digging deeply into the river is much more satisfying than hanging on for dear life. And staying in the boat that much more a victory.
Another benefit of these trips is the opportunity to share a bonding social experience as strangers become trusted and respected companions. I’ve found most who choose these floats trips are well worth meeting.
Most important to me, the deep cuts carved into the earth bring to view a compelling display of the history of the earth and of life on earth. There is no better way to grasp deep time than to confront in person cliffs hundreds of feet high and showing clear and consistent layers of different appearance and conformation. Indeed "the mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time." [Playfair, John (1805). "Hutton's Unconformity". Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. V (III) ]
I usually stay near to this state of elation for the entire trip as a kind of baseline mood.
This year, we floated the Green River from the Gates of Lodore through Echo Park and Split Mountain. The first glimpse of the walls of the canyon of Lodore was heart stopping. Pictures simply can’t convey the effect these steep canyon walls have on the observer. The Uinta formation that forms these cliffs is over a billion years old and is more than 20,000 feet thick. As I floated into the stream between these cliffs, It seemed I could see and feel the earth in a new and different way.
We were 25 “guests” and five guides together for five days on the river (without access to electronics) moving from ancient layers to more modern, and back again. I was struck again and again by the thought that even away from the river a record of the past always lies beneath my feet, I just can’t see it. Comprehending deep time is a struggle. The age of our species is, to the age of the earth, as the width of a fingernail clipping to the distance between outstretched hands.
The founder of the United States Geological Survey, John Wesley Powell, floated rivers of this region and was intrigued by the question of how a river had managed to cut through a mountain rather than flow around it. The need for geologists to “talk story”, that is, through examination of the visible evidence and application of an educated imagination, to envision a series of past events, then present a coherent account of their occurrence, is evident in the fantastic landscapes on this section of the Green River.
Another view into the beauty and history of this area comes from a new film about three French adventurers who kayaked the same region in 1938, Voyagers, Without a Trace.
In the summer of 1938, newlyweds Genevieve and Bernard de Colmont and their friend, Antoine de Seynes, set off from France on the biggest adventure of their lives. They had a bold, perhaps even foolhardy plan: be the first to take kayaks down the mighty Green and Colorado rivers. They launched from Green River, Wyoming, and emerged 900 miles and two months later in Lee’s Ferry, Arizona, with their travels vividly documented on 16 millimeter color film—a year before Hollywood’s first color movie.
And Genevieve, just age 21, would become the first woman to paddle her own boat on these rivers. A vanguard of recreational adventurers, the French Trio’s journey offers a unique and previously unseen window into a transitional moment in America: the last chapter of the Wild West, and the first chapter of the Modern era.
Finally, for a geologists view, see this excellent photo pictorial.
Anyone else a river rat?
VIRGINIA KOSSACKS!
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