Nate O Taylor

Food, Fishing, and Outdoor Adventures

The Main

July 8, 2022 by n.taylor Leave a Comment

So quick backstory. We were supposed to jump off the San Juan and head straight to Idaho and catch this early season Middle Fork trip. It rained a lot, and snowed, and then the gauge was pushing 6 feet. People were dying, wood was everywhere and I pulled the plug and bowed out.

A week later I’m looking for cancellations at 10PM. I see a great date for the Main, but I can’t check out, I can only hold it in my cart. I cycle through trying to buy this thing for hours, and give up. Next morning, I check moutainbuzz and a member is dropping a cancellation. I call him, coordinate it, and snag it. Still can’t check out. I call my friend, he grabs, he pays, we’re going. He is pictured below.

The Permit Holder

Corn Creek is a pretty special place, sub-optimal road, but a little oasis once you get back there.

  • Water Levels: Good
  • Crew: Tight
  • Weather: Hot
  • Send: Full
Scientific Measurement
Corn Creek Levels
Ranger Cabins
RIP Frank Church

We befriended the rangers the night before launch. We brought gifts that we traded for their beer and consideration for first orientation on launch the next day. At this point, the Avalanche have apparently just won the Stanley Cup, but we are unaware as we sit at Corn Creek, eating a few chicken tenders from the grocery store we hauled in with us.

Salmonflies
Launch Pad

This river is moving, going 20 miles was nothing. Campsites were a little tough but with a small group, we made do. This was fun, really fun. How fast we talking here? Fast enough you could have done back to back layover days and still cruised into Carey Creek at 10AM.

Speed

Interesting note, the Pacific and Mountain Time Zone delineation in Idaho literally follows this section of river. If you’re confused why your watch and your GPS show different times every 2 hours, well, now you know.

High Water Camps
Games!
Casual 20 Mile Days
A Few Bush Planes

Casual rollers in class I water made boats nearly disappear. The hole in Elkhorn was the size of a bus. You floated past that thing and and saw your life flash before your eyes. You roll through 15 miles and its time for lunch. With daylight until 10PM, you sit around and soak it in. Then we eat the food.

Rolling

Food? We did some food. Shockingly enough, hot lasagna was actually pretty satisfying after it was 100 degrees all day.

Fried Rice
Lasagna
Dinner
Breakfast
Dessert

There are also some great sight seeing excursions, and with the speed record we were setting we had time. Bring money, you’ll want the ice cream sandwich at Buckskin Bills.

Campbell’s Ranch
Traffic Jam
Campbell’s Ferr
The Campbell Kitchen
Buckskin Bills
Water Dropping
People Live Here
Pack Bridge

Scenery here is really A+. With the long summer light of the northern latitudes you spend a few hours every afternoon escaping the death ray, before the sun “sets” for four hours.

8PM
Find Me Someplace Better
Enjoying that Sunset

Few things I learned on this trip.

  1. List of people that can go on a week long trip with two weeks notice.
  2. What a beer can looks like after you drag it through the water for 100 miles.
  3. Reflect and appreciate what legislators like Frank Church dedicated his life to preserve.
It Looks Like This
The Crew

This place was great, 10/10, must do. Will be back.

Filed Under: Summer Tagged With: Food, Multi Day, Rafting, Salmon River, Salmonflies, The Main

The San Juan

June 6, 2022 by n.taylor Leave a Comment

From the headwaters near Pagosa Springs it cuts its way through limestone and sandstone until it reaches the leftover sludge of Lake Powell. Boasting one of the largest gradients of any river in the United States (8ft/mile), it was this velocity and erosive power that helped the San Juan River carve one of the most famous entrenched meanders on earth, The Goosenecks. Few entrenched meanders are not only as tightly bound, but also as deep as the ones carved by the San Juan as the Laramide Orogeny lifted the ancestral headwaters of the San Juan. This event gave the San Juan velocity and gradient, allowing it to carve the deep canyons that had been established prior to the mountain building event.

Honaker Trail
Honaker Trail

All that being said the river now runs into what was formerly a full pool at Lake Powell. Which creates some sediment/sand bar issues, as well as some slow moving water so the more you have, the better your life will be.

Before any of that, we begin in Mexican Hat Utah. A bustling metropolis that is centered around a 7-11. Across the street you will find the boat ramp, a place to leave your vehicle for shuttle, a hotel, and the Swinging Steak. Most of these places are family operations and have been for years. There also is most likely meth.

Swinging Steak
Hotel
The Launch
Launch Time
Mexican Hat Bridge

This water is notoriously turbid (read dirty). I learned they say, “too thin to plow, too thick to drink”. Bring your own water. When you’re on the water, you’ll find a few things.

Cactus Flower
Peak Athleticism
Figured it Out
Hauling Firewood
Mendenhall Cabin
Mendenhall Chiminea
Wild Animals

The food game is critical. Taking it up a notch involved making ice cream not once, but twice. Including the second time on day 4.

Spaghetti & Meatballs
Prep Time
Ribs & Stuff
Nightly Charcuterie Board
Berry Cobbler
Root Beer Floats
Peanut Noodle Stir Fry

Much of the upper reaches of the Juan through the Goosenecks lend itself to rapid river travel. The Honaker trail allows you to hike out of the river corridor and get up on top of the canyon which otherwise constrains you to within its walls. The geology itself is also very unique, lots of limestone and rock formations in the upper section that I hadn’t seen before.

Rocks with…?
Rocks with Fossils?
Research

So before we take this journey through the mud flats, it is also important to note the size of all the side canyons and what some of the flash floods that run through this area must be like. Telling you, biggest I’ve ever seen with huge streaks of mineral deposits that are indicative of…enormous flash floods. Also scorpions, probably Black Hairy Scorpion’s but I’ll leave that to your google search.

Side Canyon
Scorpions
Massive
San Juan Rapid

There was the rapid pictured above, which deserves the mention it just received. More importantly however, is the slug from Steer Gulch to Clay Hills. The river actually stops moving about 400 yards downstream of Steer Gulch. It is also exactly 1″ deep in random places. Prepare your mind, this is your reality for the next 1.5 days.

Departure to the Flats
Deep Water Channel
Push…
We Made It!

Hey, at least there was enough water we could float the rafts onto the ramp. Pretty neat area, and floating into what used to be the upper reaches of Lake Powell is surreal. 7/10, recommend.

Filed Under: Spring Tagged With: Lake Powell, Multi Day, Overnight, Rafting, Rocks, San Juan River, Scorpions

So There Turned Out to Be Four

November 20, 2021 by n.taylor Leave a Comment

Early November along the Colorado Plateau isn’t supposed to be warm, at all. It is supposed to be cold, lacking sunlight, and the hospitality that the area provides in the spring and summer. It may have been good fortune, or the changing climate along the Colorado River and her tributaries but nonetheless, 65° and t-shirts in Lodore Canyon in November is pretty amazing. Because of this, 2021 was the year of not three, but four permits.

7 Participants in 6 Boats
Dutch Oven Breakfast
Hot Breakfast

No ranger to check us in and no one else on the river. We had the entire river to ourselves and every campsite at our disposal. The beach of Pot Creek had a temperature reading of 65 when we pulled into camp. With the sun setting behind the canyon by 4PM we made quick work of setup and made our way up behind camp to catch the last rays of sun before dinner.

  • Pot Creek 1
  • The Beach of Pot Creek 1
  • The Floorless Tipi
  • The Bereg Sputnik
  • First Evening on the River
  • Entering the Canyon of Lodore
  • Sunset at Pot Creek

On day two we spent our last night in the Canyon of Lodore. Running through Triplet and Hells Half Mile without incident we made home at Rippling Brook 2. As we pulled into camp the sun peeked through for five minutes and quickly retreated for the rest of the day. The storm clouds gathered and we spent most of the afternoon and evening hunkered under a tarp hiding from the rain.

  • Our First Rain Protection
  • Moving the Shelter
  • Hells Half Mile
  • Drop into Lucifer
  • Storm Coming

The race to Echo Park before 11 meant we were on the boats and moving by 8:30. Fearful of low flows coupled with the possibility of afternoon winds made for a brisk departure from camp. Our weather turned out to be incredible. We spent time at Steamboat Rock and near the confluence, watching the natural turbid flow of the Yampa combine with the clear dam released water of Flaming Gorge.

I’ve seen oil slicks at Jones before, I was told that fracking operations just outside Dinosaur increase the subterranean pressure throughout the monument. Regardless of if this is true, the slicks illustrate the obvious abundance of natural resources just beneath the surface.

  • Steamboat Rock
  • Panel at Steamboat Rock
  • Yampa Canyon from Steamboat Rock
  • Confluence of the Yampa and Green Rivers
  • Jones Creek
  • Oil Slick at Jones
  • Dads Fish

We had sun drenched mountains both up and downstream. Some epic ramen meticulously prepared with an accompaniment of exquisite inverted pineapple cake. To top it off we melted an aluminum fire pan with the last of our wood. Good evening was had by all. Jones 4 has an amazing beach and great landing zone. While it lacks the unique tree canopy of the upstream Jones camps it makes up for it with its ease of access.

  • Jones Upstream
  • Inverted Pineapple Cake
  • Melted Fire Pans
  • Bulk Ramen
  • Jones Downstream

For future reference, the right channel around Island Park is the only channel you can run. Ask me how I know…The Yampa provided over 500CFS for us that seemed to be the difference as we grazed over sandbars in Island and Rainbow Parks. With the lower water, I was able to finally find the hot spring in Split Mountain Canyon.

  • Split Mountain Hot Springs
  • Bison Petroglyph
  • Split Mountain Canyon
  • Split Mountain Ramp

The solitude of this trip made up for the colder weather and shorter days. With the right equipment, the elements are very manageable. I’ll be back for another one of these low season trips.

Filed Under: Fall Tagged With: Gates of Lodore, Green River, Multi Day, Overnight, Rafting

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