Rafting Desolation Canyon

The highlight of our trip to Utah was our family rafting trip down Desolation Canyon. Both Isaac's and my family were able to come. For those of you who aren't familiar with rafting, I will provide a brief description of what we do.

The river trips we go on only allow a certain number of people down the canyon each day. So in the spring, everyone in the family submits a form for a river permit. Then there is a drawing to see who will be allowed down the river. If you are picked, a small group (usually about 25 people) are allowed to go with you. When you go on the river, you have to take everything you need in your raft. You need to fit in all your food, water, camping gear (tents, chairs, cooking supplies), clothes, etc. Each day you float down a stretch of the river until you find a spot to camp. Then you pull everything off the boat and set up your tents and camp. Then next morning you take everything down, put it back in the boat and float some more.

This Desolation Canyon trip took 5 days, and covered about 80 miles of river. The mosquitoes in this area are worse than anywhere I have ever been. Although the weather was hot, we would often wear long sleeves and pants for bug protection. We would also wear special mosquito hats to keep them off our face.

This river is incredibly isolated. There are no access roads to reach the river. There is no cell phone reception. There are no bathrooms or showers. It is a completely cut off from the rest of the world, and it feels like the only thing you have to do in the world is just keep on floating until you reach the ocean. The desert scenery on this trip is absolutely beautiful. Below are a few of the scenery pictures we took. One is the beautiful desert landscape, and the other shows one of our rafts gently floating along.


After we land for the day and set up camp, we have time to play in the water, go for hikes/walks, relax, play games, or do whatever else we feel like. Since the bugs were so bad on this trip, we spent most of the time talking in the mosquito tent my dad provided. But one day Isaac spent some time practicing his kayaking tricks. The picture below shows Isaac in Jarem's kayak one day on the river. Most of the time Isaac and I were in the two-man inflatable kayak (IK) together. Since there were so many people who wanted to IK this trip, we also had to spend some time in Kevin's raft.



The biggest rapid in the river is called "Joe Hutch Canyon/Creek". Last year (2008) this was my favorite rapid. But last August there was a flash flood that washed rocks into the river, causing the rapid to change. Now there is a really big hole in the river that was flipping 16 foot rafts. The picture below shows Isaac and I in the IK going through the rapid. We maneuvered the kayak exactly where we wanted to go. But there was a girl in the IK in front of us who flipped. We saw her boat get stuck in an eddy, and we thought the girl was washed further downstream, so we decided to rescue her boat. We paddled back across the waves to get to it, but by the time we got there we could see her head floating by the boat. We yelled out to see if she was alright, but by that time we were about to slam into some rocks. So we ended up flipping after the rapid was over. I guess it wasn't the best rescue attempt, but we tried. If you want to hear more dramatic stories about this rapid (or my other rescue adventures), ask anyone who was on the trip, but I don't want to spend more time writing about everyone's experience. Fortunately we were able to get lots of pictures and video of the experience. It was pretty amazing.


Also, each year the boys have a beard growing contest. The contest photo is shown below. The old men had good beards, but they are so gray that it is difficult to see. Jarem was disqualified from the contest because he cheated by starting his beard a week early. Kevin had a pretty nice neck beard. Isaac had a decent beard by the end of the trip, although it is still patchy in places. Jason (14 years) beat the baby-faced Justin by rubbing sand all over his face.


Even with the heat and swarms of bugs, we had a great trip. Isaac and I are hoping we will be able to go out again next summer after Isaac has completed his board exam. We will start collecting donations for our airfare today. :)