Utah: Day 6 - Canoe Trip 1
On Wednesday, we started our canoe trip. We got up really early to pack our gear and pick up our canoe license - we forgot to get it ahead of time, so we were stuck scrambling the day of our canoe trip! It was a little stressful, but it was no problem in the end to get our free license from the information centre. Next, we drove over to our canoe outfitter, the Red River Canoe Company, and 'checked in'. This included us paying our fees, buying a river map book and learning out a few unpleasant things like the 'river toilet' we had to bring along with us. Next, we loaded our gear into the red Silverado and prepared to drive out to our drop-off spot. We were getting dropped off with another group of four, so we all squeezed into the vehicle and drove north on the highway for about an hour. Then, we turned off onto a dirt road which ultimately leads to a hillbilly ranch called 'Ruby Ranch'. We had to pay a fee per canoe and person to use the boat launch on the Ruby Ranch lands, however it's cheaper to launch there than at the State Park farther upstream, so it seemed a fair deal to us. Once at the boat launch, we unloaded quickly and loaded up our canoes.

We started out on the river promptly after loading the canoes, and at first the landscape was pretty plain. There were trees on the shore of the river and some low cliffs, but quite quickly the cliffs got larger and more interesting. The river itself was very calm and with little current, so most of our forward motion was generated by our paddling. Garrett quickly taught me the best way to paddle a canoe and we worked on synchronizing our strokes.



Since we launched around 10:30am, we only paddled a little while before stopping for lunch. We found a neat little beach in the shade, although we did end up in a bit of quicksand near the shore when we hopped out of our canoes. There are several kinds of river bottom that we came across. The two main ones were your standard sandy bottom or a silty, sinky, quicksand-like bottom. In any case, no one got too stuck, although Ian almost lost a shoe. We soon learned to take our shoes off before hopping out of our canoes - better to get a dirty foot than to lose a sandal!
Here is Garrett eating lunch:




As we paddled downstream, we saw a number of cliff structures which we called 'amphitheatres':
As we neared our campsite around 3:30pm, Garrett did something silly. He noticed the river was quite shallow - probably knee height, using his paddle as a measure. So, without warning me, he decided to climb out and swim the rest of the way to the campsite. He stepped out of the canoe, expecting the bottom to be right there, except that the depth of the river had changed suddenly and was now over his head. SPLASH! He went right over the edge, rocking the boat really good. I screamed, because I didn't know what had happened. I thought we were flipping our canoe for sure, and all I could think of was that Garrett's camera was going overboard too. I looked back to see Garrett in the river with a sheepish look on his face and I got angry!! My heart had stopped and he was just being foolish. In any case, now he had to swim with the canoe and I had to paddle us in to our campsite alone. It's really annoying to paddle the canoe on your own, because with every stroke on one side, the boat turns. Plus, Garrett can't swim as fast as the canoe can be paddled, so he trailed behind and couldn't really help me at all. Add to that, the wind came up at that point and started pushing us around, and I was pretty annoyed by the time we got in to shore. Here we are:

Our campsite was really nice and we had it all to ourselves. The rule on the river is that if someone is occupying a campsite, you head on to the next one, unless it's after 8pm and then you can share the campsite. In any case, we were at the campsite quite early and claimed it for our own. It had a really nice beach that we used to swim and refresh ourselves. We also played on the rocks, jumping off them into the river:
Once we started dinner, we opened up the cooler and cracked open a few of the beer we had brought with us. I can tell you, even Budweiser tastes good after a day of paddling in the heat!

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