Parked in a flood plain

 Between Happy and Fiddler is Poison. The spring was once called pissen spring by cowboys, but the name didn't stick. A few hours ago we were dropping off our shuttle vehicle at the take out. Standing on the small escarpment overlooking the reeds and willows on the banks below. I'm trying to decide if the mud we see is firm, or will swallow our shoes whole. I heap a rock down below and watch it disappear into the mud. I've heard horror stories and seen photos of adventurous desert rats trying to get out at this spot to avoid the flat water paddle.  I guess we should take out somewhere else. We look up river and determine that the river looks like it's deep enough from here, but thirty or so miles up river, could be a different story.

   Some highway roads, washboard roads, and eventually a box canyon that is "smooth" enough  to drive down, we reach a small box canyon. The dry wash gives way and we find a small riparian area and a few puddles to drive through where the water seeps out. The walls are tall now and the canyon bottom is less than fifty feet across. Sandstone walls are closing in on us now,  The wash, yeah we are driving down a wash, is mostly gravel and basalt river rock which contrasts the red sandstone canyon walls above. The river rock washed down from the mountain range above.  Slowly filling the wash bottom and giving us some support so we don't sink in the fine blow sand that is everywhere out here. Our road snakes through this place, climbing out in sections to avoid dry falls and dropping back into the canyon for easier passage.



 We stopped every hundred yards to make sure the Subaru could navigate this place on the return shuttle to pick up our car. I'd jump out and look at the approach, glance at Lukas for confirmation. Nod and agree that yeah, we'll be fine. The girls became more uneasy the further down we got. Enlightenment and eagerness to get to the put in continued. A few sharp turns and easy does it's, and we were through the thick of it and onto the other side of BFE. Climbing out of a wash and over a ridge the river came into view. Dirty, filthy and a consistency of  heavily dissolved minerals in river water, there she was.


 I scanned for shady places to park in this treeless desert. It was July, and everybody was smarter than us to stay out of these desolate places in the middle of fucking nowhere. Except for the highway that is ten miles away as the crow fly's, there is nobody in a fifty mile radius. Felt like a hundred. There was no trees, so I parked under the thick shade of an alkali loving tamarisk.

 Explosion of gear on the sand spread in our proximity. Food and camp gear zipped up in the tubes for the next few days. I walked down to the river to gauge its depths. While the profundity of this place is measured in vertical gain, a meager foot and a half was its abyss. Walking through it, the silt is enough that you can no longer determine what will lie after the next step. You'd find a shallow sandbar with one step, and stumble down into its flow on the next. I watched a few clumps of surface debris as it morphed and spun in circles down the canyon and around the small meander out of view.

  "Damn it's hot here." I thought, "..and these cicadas are going to make my ears bleed."

  Left a few items in the car out of view from any adventures side by side riders that passes by. Locked the car and floated down river a few miles to find camp for the evening. Some gandering and boat walks later we found a long sandy beach that was ideal for sleeping on. Ant and stick free is my request. Kb brought some reading material. A small paper on things to do near lake Powell found at a gas station. I vaguely remember there being a senior sampler with ads aimed at the retirement crowd. But I've been known to make things up.



 I looked up on the horizon for clouds, dark clouds in particular. I just realized I parked in a flood plain. No clouds, you'll be fine. You're fifty yards and at least ten feet above the water line snapped me out of those worries.

Next morning was spent watching the the variety of colors and earthen tone shades as they morphed and solidified into different shapes as the canyon unfolded and gained elevation every mile down we traveled.

  To break up the window licking we'd give our arms a break and walk in the six inches of water. More times than not we had no choice but to free ourselves from running aground. Since I couldn't see an inch deep into this water I mastered the art of reading the water. Only after getting six feet above the water is this actually attainable. Watching the ripples and rate of movement in the water you can start to see what the water is doing and how water responds to the ground underneath it.

The banks were lined with coyote willow. A refuge for the millions of cicadas. The willows create a chemical similar to asprin.  The Natives have a list of uses for it. The Cicadas also preferred the willows over tamarisks.

Undercut meanders, that rock has as much roof as it does wall.

 Cami hunting for flow.

  A good time to take photos is once you hit a sandbar. You can look like it was all planned out if you immediately pull out your camera and begin taking photos. In a few moments the back of the boat will grab hold the current and send you rotating around on display for all to see. An amusing spectacle for the locals, A few canyon wrens perched on flood debris watching us pass through.

  The river is slow, taking its time here.  Spending its last few days moving through wild unadulterated country. Soon it will come to a rest. The heaviness in the water will break free, loose it's life and settle down deep below the surface, slowly filling up the canyon bottom in silt. Entombed for a short time in the grand scale of things, but almost an eternity for us mere mortals.

  This will allow the masses to come in with ease, catering to the lowest common denominator. The small ribbon of life that exists on the bottom of these canyon will be bleached and starved from its habitat. Life here thrives along the river. These wild places are too remote for development or extraction. Once the water stops moving and becomes stagnant from our attempts to control our surroundings, the riparian retreats. Almost protesting us.




 We've reached full pool and find camp for the night. The banks have gained height and we are seeing the years of stagnation piled around us in layers. Rich colors from old mud flows that lead out flash floods and compressed blow sand from dry periods are deposited here along the banks. Rich soil that is overcome with salt cedar makes camp spots difficult to find. 

  It was a long day. More time walking than floating. It is work being in the boats.  Hitting a sand bar required you to roll over and out of your boat, stand up, take a few steps, find the flow, fall back into your boat and repeat again a few yards down river. So much to look and gawk at though.

  Camped on a small perch of inlet deposits. We found the only clearing large enough for four people to sleep on, twelve feet above the water line. The tamarisks love these banks and the walls are chocked full of them. Every square inch of blank sand is soon buried under branches. The tamrisks grow faster than native plants and out compete the Desert Willow. They also are good at holding the banks together from floods. That's why we brought them here and they're doing their job. The river slowly keeps cutting its way down through it as the lake levels drop.

  Camp was windy, so we spent the evening hiking up the small side canyons to finish off the day and find some break from the wind. Noticed darker clouds on the horizon that brought the edge of a small cloud burst by, It skirted the high cliffs above us. More verga than precipitation. All this made me uneasy of my car thirty miles up river. Who knows whats happening up there. I'm parked well below the historic floods marks which was not comforting.

  The lower canyon was narrow and the river deeper. Felt like a different canyon. Up river the canyon is large and wide. Huge comes to mind. Here the canyon walls start right near the banks and trap any form of exit out of here. An hour down from camp we saw some coyote tracks along the banks. Shade was a dear friend here. Still early in the day, so there was long stretches of it.

  Hayduke Lives. After the bridge was a shit show of flood debris and arroyos as they cut through the lake bottom. We found the flat water, joined the last of the grand and hit the lake.