28 September 2017, Thursday
Green River, day 3
It continues sprinkling gently through the night. By morning about ½ inch of rain has fallen. Our guides are up early preparing our breakfast. Today it is scrambled eggs and ham and cheese on English muffin. As we are eating, the rain stops and the sky begins to clear. A rainbow arches over the canyon walls. I guess we will be paddling through a rainbow today.
Our intrepid Sierra Club members pack up damp equipment and we are back in our rather muddy boats paddling downstream by 10 once again.
The canyon walls are growing higher. We pass Register Rock where explorers and settlers inscribed their names and some pictures. One is of a man drifting in the river. Many people find it spooky because he looks more like a baby. Nowadays the BLM asks that people sign their names in a book at the site instead of defacing the rock face further. We also pause to look at a heron rookery, although all the nests are empty this time of year.
We arrive at today’s island campsite early. Greg, our leader, wants to ensure that we get a good site. We all set up our wet tents. They begin to dry slowly in the damp air. Lunch is soon served. I’ve been barefoot since we began camp set-up. I think my feet are finally dry enough for socks and boots.
The remainder of the afternoon is spent reading about geology and chatting with trip participants who chose not to go off on an afternoon hike. Dinner is excellent once again. I am enjoying five days of having someone else tell us where we are going and taking care of food prep and cleanup. A vacation within a vacation!
After dinner Greg regales us with tales of ridiculous trips he has led down this river and the Gunnison in Colorado. Of particular interest are the tales of a grandfather whose wish was to take his entire non-athletic, non-outdoorsy family on a trip down a river with rapids and the tale of the bachelorette party canoe trip in which a bevy of drunk bachelorettes met up with another party of drunk bachelor partiers. We retire to our tents chuckling.