Green River Part 2: Prelude to a River Trip

With June 8 as our scheduled launch date, we arrived in Green River with over a day to spare. Mark and Kerry decided to find their way to closer to the put-in, so they could meet up with the shuttle driver and have plenty of time to get to the put-in during the day. We stayed back in Moab for a day before heading north.

The mountain bike trails near Moab are legendary, with good reason. We rented some bikes from Poison Spider and headed for the Klondike Bluffs trail. The semi-inflated rafts made great bike carriers. We tied the bikes in with extra ropes on Lucas’ great big ball of twine. Our trail was essentially a six or seven mile climb up to a trail that leads into Arches National Park. Then we would turn around to head back to the trailhead. If we had listened to the guy at the bike shop, we would have driven into the trail head from the road. Sadly, we listened to a guy at the outer trail head who said it was a really treacherous drive to the trail head, especially with the trailer. It wasn’t. As dirt roads go, it was pretty easygoing.

The trail itself was pretty cool. The early sandy stuff was hard to ride, especially when we took the wrong trail through nearly ankle deep coarse sand. Once we found the hard pack sand, we were much happier. The sand led to slick rock as we began the climb in earnest. I’m used to Lock 4 style rock, which is much bonier and in some ways more slippery than the normal dirt trail. Slick rock wasn’t that kind of rock. I was impressed at how good the traction really was. We wound our way up, slowly at times. Along the way, dinosaur tracks were visible on side of the trail. Some of the tracks were protected by crude barriers of smaller rocks. The clearest of the tracks that I saw were uphill a little ways from the rest, unprotected by any barriers.

The heat wore on as we rode upward. We didn’t have enough water, but we forged on to the end. I thought about turning around, but when I heard the entrance to Arches was only about a mile farther, I made up my mind to finish the ride to the top. Reading the trail was a bit more challenging than back home. Sometimes cracks in the rock were pretty deep. None were so sudden that stopping or correcting was impossible, but it was a bit unsettling to not see the bottoms of the cracks. Periodically, the trail wound out toward the edge of the butte to give us a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside, including the mountains in the distance.

As we got to the last little bit of trail, we saw a few people coming down from the top of the trail. Unlike the rest of the trail, the last few hundred yards were tight, steep single track. One girl was still on her bike, walking gingerly down hill. We pushed our bikes up to the top and wandered a little way into Arches. The view was pretty cool, but not nearly as awe-inducing as the view near the edge of the butte.

The ride up to the top at Arches probably took close to two hours. The ride down took probably fifteen or twenty minutes. Gravity is a beautiful thing. The little bit of single track was really cool, although I will confess to putting a foot down at the narrowest part with the steep dropoff. The wide open trail made planning ahead relatively easy, but there were a couple of precarious spots. Even Lucas squealing on the brakes down the hill still made great time. I lost my balance and nearly dragged my butt on my back tire, but kept enough control to not wipe out. We flew past people who were struggling up the climb, grateful for the downhill this time. The only downside was reaching the trailhead that marked the end knowing we still had two miles of ups and downs before we reached the truck in the outer parking lot. Those miles passed slowly because we rode slowly. The dehydration really hit me about half a mile from the end. I started feeling light-headed and woozy and seeing the truck in the distance actually made it worse. I was very happy to get there and even happier to dump some warm water over my head. Lacking a cooler for everyday stuff, we lacked cold water or Gatorade. We loaded the bikes back into the rafts and then I vacated the contents of my stomach before we headed back into town. Dehydration sucks.

The lady at the bike shop helped us find the mythical green chili at the Moab Diner, which we shared as part of lunch/dinner. It’s not too spicy, but it is damn good chili. It was a great end to a really cool bike ride. Next time, we’ll go when it’s not a blistering 90-something degrees out.

The next morning, we set out for our put-in at Sand Wash. We picked up the last of our grocery needs in Price and then drove through the mountains. Snow was still on the ground at the top of the mountain pass. The last town before the long dirt road to the put-in was Myton. We made sure to fill up with gas there and then began the drive in. I had learned how to use the GPS on the way to Price so now I could watch as we slowly wound our way to Sand Wash. We saw a prong-horned antelope on the way in, but we thought it was a deer. Natural gas wells pumped away in the fields beside us.

About an hour and a half after leaving Myton, we arrived at Sand Wash. Its normally wide beach was just a narrow muddy boat ramp since the river was running around 26,000 cfs. Mark and Kerry were already there sitting at their campsite, drinking beer and enjoying the entertainment of watching other disorganized groups attempt to launch. Two private groups were running late, including some Mormon Boy Scouts and another group of private boaters who had to make a last-minute scramble to replace rejected PFD’s. A commercial group arrived to prepare for a launch the next day. They had secured two launches, so they would be bringing fifty people on the river. We wanted to make sure we launched before them. We loaded our boats and cooked dinner, excited about getting on the river in the morning.