Green River

We spent four days rafting the Green River from Colorado to Utah through the Gates of Ladore and Dinosaur National Monument. We were literally one beer into the trip when we came to the first obstacle. It was either right or left of this boulder, but Rod decided to run her straight on. Rod was fine, but the dory couldn’t have gotten pinned any worse. Peter and I spent a couple hours trying to salvage gear and managed to snag enough between dives to keep the trip alive.

After trying a dozen different attempts to z-pull the dory off the boulder, we gave up and camped next to it on the shore hoping it would come off in the night as the water level changed. It never did come free so after much deliberation we decided to abandon it and float on.

Update: the dory did eventually come free a couple weeks later and beached itself just downstream. The Park Service was well aware of the dory by that time and made arrangements to have it choppered upstream to the put-in.  We’re not sure if Rod will have to flip the bill or not.