On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
The first picture below is like a work of art! If I had been on that trip, I’m not sure I would have ever left that spot. ~WaterGirl
lashonharangue
One of our favorite wilderness adventures is to canoe down the Green River in Utah. It is a flat water river that flows through Canyonlands National Park down to its confluence with the Colorado River. In many places you can get out of the canoe, sit or lie down in the river, and soak yourself to cool off. By late summer most of the river is less than 4 feet deep and the drop off from the banks is very gradual. There are outfitters in Moab that will rent you the gear, haul you to the put in, and then meet you with a jet boat to take you upstream on the Colorado back to Moab. We have done it several times, sometimes with a group of folks and sometimes just by ourselves. We had to cancel the trip we had planned for this summer. Note – you cannot continue downstream on the Colorado as that’s where the rapids start. These are pictures from three different trips.
There are no established camping spots on the river. While guidebooks have suggested places to stop, access to them depends on water level which varies a lot over the year. The water is very silty so it must be pre-filtered before filtering or boiling. Alternatively, you can take along water in big containers (white object next to the canoe). It is first come first served but you are supposed to locate out of sight and sound of other campsites.
There are numerous places to pull over and take hikes up canyons that connect to the river. It is desert and the temperature in summer climbs very quickly once you leave the river. Start your hike wearing layers of soaking wet clothes – it really helps.
When the river is low you spend part of your time steering the canoe to avoid running aground on submerged sandbars. When that happens you get out and pull to get back to a deeper channel. The upside is there are numerous sandy spots along the edge of the river to set up camp. Camping on the higher sandbars, like this one, is great too.
Fort Bottom is a place where the river makes a big bend around a low narrow plateau. There is a trail up to the top where you can look both upstream and downstream (to the right).
There is a mysterious stone structure at the top. Who built it and why is not known. The canyon wall in the background is on the upstream side across the river from the plateau. So this point commands quite the vista.
Many of the locations along the river were named by the expeditions of John Wesley Powell. This formation was named because of its supposed resemblance to a Turkish turban. You can camp downstream and then hike along the top of the cliff to some ruins and rock drawings. Take along a life vest and float back down to cool off.
As you travel further downstream toward the confluence with the Colorado the canyon walls get higher.
Early evening and morning light on the rock formations can create views that take your breath away. Maybe next year.
WaterGirl
Lovely photos, lashonharangue!
It looks like there’s interest in Paris Week, so get those photos in! We’ll do it next week. Most likely After Dark. Unless you guys chime in to say you’d rather have
Paris in the SpringtimeParis in the Morning.?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Most of my pics from Paris are from Disneyland.
Currants
So. Gorgeous.
My gotta do list just got longer. I lived in NE AZ for a bit (on the Navajo reservation), and loved it. I missed the ocean, though the high altitude expanses of sagebrush had a similar feel. But there were no rivers there—excepting one seasonal small river in the Canyon de Chelly—mostly some small streams at certain times of the year (or during flash floods), but nothing like THIS. THIS is spectacular, and it is tops on my next camping trip. Thank you.
JPL
The pictures are incredible.
raven
Cool! Turks Head was a headshop in Champaign in the late 60’s and early 70’s!
gkoutnik
Four Corners and southern Utah are the places I most want to return to. That last picture is magical.
Colin Fletcher wrote of a trip down the Green River (which he feels is the source of the Colorado) in “River: One Man’s Journey Down the Colorado, Source to Sea.” More wonderful vicarious travel.
Eunicecycle
Wow! The pictures are gorgeous! For all of our problems in this country, we do have natural beauty of so many different kinds.
debbie
To “amend” WG’s comment: Each of these shots is a work of art! Absolutely beautiful!
(I keep using up my daily quota of exclamation points in these threads. ??♀️)
There go two miscreants
Very nice pictures! Haven’t made it to that area yet — closest was Zion.
thrasius
Great post, you just gave me an idea for a trip. Flat water to the Colorado, change boats, and whitewater down the Colorado! Haven’t whitewatered out west much, the rivers are very different from here in the east.
lashonharangue
@WaterGirl: I sent my Paris photos yesterday. Looking forward to seeing what others have submitted.
ljt
Spectacular!
lashonharangue
@thrasius:
I have never whitewatered. Check out the regs. You may be required to go with an approved outfitter in a big raft as I think there is no exit until you are through the Grand Canyon.
BruceFromOhio
Wow, just … wow. The first and last pictures are wonderful.
This sounds like a splendid way to spend a day.
Wag
@lashonharangue:
not quite. There a hundred miles of Lake Powell first.
Great photos!
susanna
Being older, desired destinations will have to be carefully chosen while also limited by number of years.
The Green River have been on my list for a long, long time. And now they’re nearer the top. Thanks for these dynamic, gorgeous vistas you’ve posted.
arrieve
Really spectacular pictures. I’ve never been much of a camper, but have been thinking about it in this Brave New World of ours as one way to go when it becomes possible to travel again.
Kattails
Beautiful photos. I’ve only been out west once, years ago, on a geology field trip. Colorado Front Range area and a bit of Montana, it was great fun and gave a taste of the region, although we didn’t get to any of these formations. I wish I’d gone back. Such an utterly different ecosystem than anywhere in the east. We live on such a beautiful planet.
frosty
@WaterGirl: Posted my Paris pics from 2014 last night. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone else’s.
I was there briefly in 1969 on a travel-study trip to Spain. I took slides and haven’t looked at them in decades. I wonder if there’s any good ones – I’ll have to check. Converting to digital would take awhile.
StringOnAStick
I did this trip with friends a few years ago; anyone who is on the fence about doing jt, don’t be, it’s great!
Denali
Been there, done that. It is just magnificant country as the photos show. We did it in early June when the water level was high. The night skies were incredible. Rock art is mystifying. I miss the west so much, even as I love the green of the East. We live in a stunningly beautiful country.
way2blue
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. I did a float trip along this stretch of the river with my family years ago, for my July birthday. We were in an inflatable rafts with a guide. And remember whenever it was too hot you could simply jump into the water to cool off. We didn’t camp though (returning from a ranch vacation in Colorado), just a day trip with a visit to the dinosaur museum. Fascinating corner of our country.
TheOtherHank
@thrasius: Former whitewater guide here. Rafting the canyon is a very big deal. You can do it on a private trip by getting your name on the waiting list the Forest Service maintains, and then wait for a few years to get to the top. You can sometimes get one by being in the right place at the right time and snagging one from someone who got to the top of the list but doesn’t want to do the trip anymore. Or you can pay an outfitter and go on a commercial trip (there are both motorized rafts and oared rafts that do the canyon). Oh, and if you do score a private permit you have to pass the inspection that a Ranger does at put-in at Lee’s Ferry. Don’t pass, don’t go. And there’s no where to go get the important thing(s) you’re missing.
But it is the most awesome whitewater trip in the US.
Now that I’m old, I pay to go on trips with the company I used to work for. A few years ago we did a trip on the Green through Dinosaur National Monument outside Vernal in North Eastern Utah. Now I’m inspired to submit some pictures from that trip.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@TheOtherHank: Back in the 70s when the Boy Scouts weren’t paying much attention, I belonged to a coed Explorer post that did whitewater rafting. We had our own rafts and our post leaders were pretty experienced guides. We did a multi-day rafting trip down the Green River that remains one of the highlights of my life. If the names Wire Fence and Rattlesnake mean anything to you – that’s the stretch we did. Several class 3s and I recall that one of the rapids was a class 4 or damn close. Lots of shooting stars, too. Awe-inspiring and fun as hell.
TheOtherHank
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: That’s south of where we went. Most of the trip we did was actually in Colorado, but all of it except the last couple miles is in DInosaur National Monument.
But all of that country is amazing. Just being out where it gets really dark so anyone can see the Milky Way, and shooting stars, and satellite sailing across the sky is worthwhile.