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| | | Meander Canyon of the Colorado River, UT | | | |
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Meander Canyon of the Colorado River, UT
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| Kayak | 52.71 Miles |
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| | Kayak | 52.71 Miles | 4 Days 4 Hrs 12 Mns | | |
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| no partners | | 9/13 to 19, 2022. Meander Canyon is the 52-mile flatwater section of the Colorado River leading to Cataract Canyon, which is a whitewater section. Those rapids begin just below where we ended our flatwater touring kayak trip. There is a jetboat service that will haul you, your boat, and all your gear, back to Moab. They also take backpackers into this remote area, allowing easier access into the Maze District of Canyonlands. Not cheap, but very worthwhile. This section is also doable for ordinary canoes.
I had booked Tex's Riverways jetboat backhaul service back in January, intending to paddle Meander Canyon solo. (There is no vehicular access to the take-out point, hence the jetboat service.) I'd be meeting up with friends who were planning to come down the Green River. We booked our end dates to be the same. I had already paddled the Green four times in two years, and I wanted to do something different. My solo idea didn't last long, since a couple friends really wanted to go. There was still room on the jetboat and in the shuttle van for them. We scheduled it at just the nick of time, because it was full soon after.
It was a seven day/6 night trip, with 5 days of paddling, one layover day at the end to hike to the Dollhouse, and one day to return in the jetboat and shuttle bus to Moab. Dollhouse triplog and photos here: [ photoset ]
Everything went just as planned, except for the weather! We caught the tail end of Pacific Hurricane Kay, which blew up to Utah in bands of thunderstorms. We weathered several during the trip. The intermittent storms and other factors (such as difficult shoreline landings for our kayaks) meant we did very little of the planned hiking during the paddle trip.
We had really nice camps every night.
On the second day, while paddling, we got hit with some rain and wind. There was nowhere to really pull ashore there, but we stopped at a strip of sandy mud about 20 feet long and 3 feet wide. Enough to nose our boats in and wait out the storm.
My friends coming down the Green were hit with more weather than we were. After one storm, they saw waterfalls from flash flooding pouring over the cliffs. When we reached the Confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, I was surprised at the amount of mud and debris coming down the Green.
We reached Upper Spanish Bottom on the 5th day, and found my friends were already there. The next day (layover day) we hiked to the Dollhouse. |
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There is a point of no return unremarked at the time in most lives. Graham Greene The Comedians
A clean house is a sign of a misspent life. |
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