Twig Adventures

Friday, March 8th 2024 220 Mile camp to Diamond Creek mile 2266 miles, elevation 1346′ I woke to the most condensation on my tent the whole trip. But it didn’t matter, since I didn’t plan to be setting up my tent again for awhile. I was packed by 6 am and helping get breakfast done as fast as possible. So was everyone else…we were on the water by 8 am! We were supposed to meet the outfitter by 10 am, and still had 6 miles to go, so we had a fire lit under us. We actually made it to the take out by 9:30 am, thus we were really moving this morning. As soon as we landed on the[…]

Thursday, March 7th 2024 Parashant Camp mile 199 to 220 Mile (middle) camp21 miles, elevation 1390′ I woke up to the smell of rain on the air…it’s very distinguishable in the desert. After many nights in the backcountry, it also acted as a sort of alarm bell for me. I detested packing a wet tent, after all. I sprang out of bed and quickly broke my camp. This proved to be a good call since shortly after 7 am, I felt the first drops. We needed to be quick about getting on the river this day, since we had a lot of miles to cover, so it helped that the rain spurred everyone along. So too did my screaming from[…]

Tuesday, March 5th 2024 Upper 185 Mile camp mile 186 to Parashant Camp mile 19913 miles, elevation 1533′ We set off from camp pretty lazily, anticipating a shorter day. We’d been cautious not to go too far the day before, fearful that we’d creep up on the Americans again. The campsite at Whitmore Wash sounded nice, but we suspected they might be there. We didn’t want a repeat of Day 13 and we had no need to be in a hurry, after all. Same went for this day too. We had 3.25 days to go 40 miles, so we were planning to do another layover. Just a few miles after getting on the river, we stopped just upstream of Whitmore[…]

Monday, March 4th 2024Lower National (Sandblaster Camp) mile 167 to Upper 185 Mile camp mile 186 19 miles, elevation 1628′ I’d never been so happy to get back on the river as this day. The wind abated and the skies were clear, so it seemed like perfect conditions to finally break free of Sandblaster campsite. Also, my shoulder was feeling much better. I could even lift some things. Plus, this was the day we were going to run our final big rapid. There was a sense of looking forward to it and of just wanting to get it over with. We got a decent start and crushed 13 miles by lunch, just in time to pull over for the scout.[…]

Saturday, March 2nd 2024 Ledges Camp mile 152 to Lower National (Sandblaster Camp) mile 167 15 miles, elevation 1768′ Not surprisingly, I didn’t sleep very well, having a hard time getting comfortable. Everything was aching from my fall, not just my shoulder. I took another Vicodin as soon as I woke, waiting for it to kick in before I started moving. A pair of pesky ravens forced me out of my tent, their cries warning that they were awake and raiding our camp again. They’d swooped in as soon as we landed the day before and had already taken off with some various loot, including a whistle. We did a good job protecting our food but they were willing to[…]

Friday, March 1st 2024 Opposite Deer Creek Camp mile 136.8 to Ledges Camp mile 152 15 miles, elevation 1828′ I started the day with a wild hair, deciding to paddle the 2 person ducky for a spell. I paddled an almost identical craft with my dad back in the days. Together we ran rapids on the Arkansas, Colorado, San Juan, Green and Yampa rivers, so I had many fond memories from such a boat. Tina joined me this day and we thought nothing of tackling a class 4 rapid after only 1 mile. We followed Charlie’s raft into Doris rapid, which was a mistake since he headed straight into the action. We didn’t call him Fun-Time Charlie for nothing, as[…]

Tuesday, February 27th 2024 110 Mile Camp to Fossil Camp mile 125.415.4 miles, elevation 2075′ Everyone was feeling well-rested after a day off. I for one was antsy to get back on the river and make some progress, even though we were well along the way. Only 7 miles downriver, we came to Elves Chasm, a popular side hike to an enchanted waterfall. We clambered a short ways up to the desired spot. I wasn’t wearing my drysuit, so wasn’t inclined to do what several did in climbing into the rocks and coming out halfway up the waterfall for a jump into the pool. It looked like a lot of fun. Charlie actually did it without a drysuit. We had[…]