Photos: http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=174594450/a=38054161/t_=38054161
Every year, a hockey buddy, Rob, organizes a canoe trip down the Ruby Horsethief Canyons. It's a class one paddle with one or two class two sections. Not very difficult; in fact, most of the time you can lazily float down the river. Jen and I wanted to join them last year, but that is when Mike (Jen's son) was sick; so we bailed. We were able to join them this year. Mike (Jen's son) and Stephanie (Mike's girlfriend) came on the ride out with us, and they would take my Commander and head over to Dinosaur National Monument when we were on the river. I gave Mike some info from a canyoneering friend, Scott, on some canyons around Dinosaur. As well as, I re-sent him our trip report from the previous year's trip where we explored several canyons there and found the world's ninth largest arch. But I digress...
Friday 7/13:
Jen, Mike and Steph showed up at my house after Jen finished with work, around 6pm. We packed up the Commander and headed out. We got to the Grand Junction area, and headed up a side mountain road, and was going to just make a quick camp. It was really windy out, so we decided we were going to set up the tents. I went to get my tent, and when I pulled it out, I accidentally had brought my bivvy sack instead of the tent. Crap. (I have two Black Diamond tents that look VERY similar; and I knew Ben was borrowing one of them. I thought I was safe just grabbing the other. Unfortunately, I forgot that the Black Diamond bivvy looks a LOT like those tents too. Whoops. Lesson learned.) We just decided to sleep under the stars and grin and bear it. Didn't sleep too well though.
Saturday 7/14:
We woke up around 7am, packed up our stuff, and headed over to Rim Rock adventures; where we would start our paddle. We got there pretty early, before 8am; so we just unloaded the cooler and chairs, and sat around to visit and eat breakfast. We were supposed to meet the group at 9am, but the first of them didn't even show up until after 9:30am. Rob didn't get there until just before 10am. It didn't take long to load up the canoes, and launch into the river though. Launched around 10am. There was a group of around 15 people on the trip, most of which Jen and I hadn't met before.
Everyone was very friendly, and the river was great. I had decided to bring my kayak paddle, and that worked out great. Wasn't much paddling though, we grabbed each others canoes and floated several sections of the river all as one big group while chatting. The paddling sections were pretty easy. The biggest issue was that it was too shallow in some spots. No worries though, just had to get out and walk the canoe a couple of times. The canyon was beautiful, with wonderfully colored sandstone walls. We stopped for lunch around 1pm at the Rattlesnake canyon area.
After lunch, the rest of the group started heading downriver, but Jen and I decided to hike a bit of the way up Rattlesnake canyon. We made the breakoff upcanyon on the left, and Jen decided to hang out there. I would try to get to the arches at the top of Rattlesnake. I didn't exactly know where they were, but I knew there were some. I headed up a fairly prominent trail, and then seeing that it continued upcanyon; I took a shortcut and climbed a steep slickrock bowl. Regained the trail at the top of the bowl, and then lost it again after climbing the ridge. Figured it must be around another cliffline, so continued to the right; and found the trail again. This took me to the arches. Some good ones. Found out after the trip that this is the highest concentration of arches outside of Arches National Monument.
Arches in Rattlesnake Canyon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattlesnake_Canyon_(Colorado)
I left all our water (which was only one liter between the two of us - since we were originally just planning on looking around in the lower canyon) with Jen. It was probably in the upper 90's, was around a 4 mile hike to the arches (mostly uphill), and thus, I was getting pretty thirsty. I headed back down, and hoped that there was a little water left. Got back to Jen, and she had saved me a little. Very nice of her. We headed back down the canyon, and got back to the canoe around 5pm.
The next section of river was still very nice, and as an added bonus, we saw a bald eagle with a nest; as well as another tree that had three bald eagles. One was a mature eagle with a white head, and two were fledglings. Very cool. We got to where everyone was camping around 7:30pm. Still had some light left, so we went and set up the tent. (Mike and Steph let us use their tent for the trip, as they would likely sleep outside if the weather was good; or could sleep inside the Commander if the weather was bad. Thanks Mike and Steph!) We then went down, and visited with the group. Awesome group; very friendly people. We made quite the dinner with Fajitas and other Mexican side dishes including chips and salsa. Great stuff. Visited and had a few drinks into the night.
Sunday 7/15:
I woke up early and saw the sunrise over the cliffs; very beautiful. We had breakfast burritos, cleaned up and packed up camp. We started launching the canoes around 9am. Still had some lazy river floating for a bit of the day. There was a couple of class two spots that we decided to hit for fun. One splashed Jen pretty good over the bow of the boat and gave us a good amount of water to bail out. Then more floating afterwards. It was really hot, so people would hop out of the canoe on many occasions and just float along with the canoe. The water temperature was great; nice and cool.
We stopped at an area where you could jump off some rocks around 11am. Made many loops around to jump off the fun rocks. Got Jen to jump once too. Had to go back and get the camera to get at least one shot of the jump. We then proceeded downriver to our lunch spot. We stopped for lunch around 1pm. It was at a section that had a small beach and then a large area with small trees and bushes. You could literally hear the bugs buzzing in the brush; it was a pretty loud constant buzz; wild! The flies were a little bad here, so people hung out in the water a bunch. The bugs weren't as bad over the water, but were pretty annoying on the beach areas.
After lunch, we continued downstream, and saw more bald eagles. We made the 3pm timeframe, but didn't get anyone on the shuttle then as they were all filled up. Rimrock sent another set of vehicles, and we all got back in one very packed trip which was shared with another group.
Overall, it was a great weekend; floating down a beautiful river section with a bunch of great people. The bald eagles were icing on the cake! Hope we can join them again on next years trip!
Hope you enjoy the pics!
A.J.
Movie:
20070714D2-14 View Of Arches.MOV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5C3ljtV1F0
Pics: http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=174594450/a=38054161/t_=38054161
Group Room (multiple albums): http://ajoutdoors.snapfish.com/snapfish