A jeep ride and down the river without a paddle

  Moab, Utah, United States
Monday, August 4, 2008

After my rafting trip in Santa Fe, I wanted to go on another one. I finally convinced Deb to do a combination jeep trip and rafting trip down a portion of the Colorado River. The jeep portion was in the morning and went up into Canyonlands National Park, which is adjacent to Arches. We arrived at the outfitter, Navtec, in Moab at 7:45AM and met our morning guide, John. We climbed into a 4-wheel drive Expedition and headed off with a French family as our traveling companions. Deb was able to sit up front with John while I was in the back seat. We started off into the backcountry, going up the Colorado River. As we went along, John pointed out some petroglyphs

Petroglyphs

Slit Arch

and a small arch overhead. He told us that across the river on private land was a petroglyph that seemed to show a group of Indians attacking what appears to be a mastodon.
 
We soon turned off the main road and started up a rough unpaved road that was made for Jeeps. There seemed to be innumerable rocks, bumps, and ruts that required John to downshift to climb the hills. Right at the turnoff was a salt mining operation that injects water into the underground salt deposit and then pumps the water up into huge evaporation ponds. We went up past tier after tier of these huge saline ponds that rely on the desert sun for the production of salt. We slowly wound our way up the road and finally came to a large meadow high above the Colorado River. This was the spot where they filmed the scene in the movie, Thelma and Louise where they drove off the cliff. The scene supposedly took place in the Grand Canyon, but this spot stood in for the Grand Canyon since the canyon is a national park and that sort of scene could not be filmed there. John told us that they had to stage the scene twice since when they catapulted the car over the edge the first time, the head of the mannequin stand-in came off.

Thelma & Louise Point

 After going a little further, we came to the southern edge of the Canyonlands park. We had to turn around then since the road up, Schaefer Pass, was closed for road improvement.
 
While we paused there to allow a "nature break", John told us some about his back country camping experiences. He hikes and camps all over the area and has encountered some of the local fauna, rattlesnakes and scorpions. He has also come upon caves where an Indian mummy will be entombed. His encounter with the rattlesnake was while he was alone, several miles from anywhere. He was packing up to come home when the snake struck. He immediately took Benadryl and then was able to drive a few miles to a rest stop with a telephone. He called 911 and awaited help. By the time the EMTs arrived, he was flat on his back in pain. They called in a life flight helicopter from the hospital in Grand Junction that had the antivenom on board. He said that one good thing was the nighttime flight with a full moon over Arches. After these tales, we were all more careful where we put out feet.
 
After driving back into Moab, we boarded a bus to take us up the Colorado River for the afternoon rafting trip. Our guide, Carmen, had been on rafts since she was two months old since her mom and dad were both river guides. This raft trip was different from the one I took in Santa Fe in that we were on an oar boat instead of a paddle boat. A paddle boat, as the name implies, is one where everyone has a paddle and can help maneuver the boat. An oar boat is one where the guide does all of the paddling and steering. I prefer the paddle boat because you're doing something instead of just being along for the ride. This stretch of the river was mostly just a float with a few mild stretches of rapids. We set out and went a little ways down river to a beach where we setup for lunch. Our group consisted of one American couple, one British couple, and a Dutch family of four. After lunch we continued on down the river, unfortunately mostly just floating along. We got to the take out point and rode the bus back to town. My trip on the Rio Grande near Taos was much more fun.