GOAAAAAAR Canyon: Some Photos From My Last Day of Paddling In Colorado

The day before I left Colorado, I took a day off work to run Gore Canyon with my friend Gordon from CKS and Ashely from MRP. When we arrived at the put-in we were greeted with a nice four mile flat water paddle in to the canyon. I couldn't even tell which direction the river was flowing. It's a good thing both of those guys had been there before because I probably would have started paddling upstream in the wrong direction.

It was a great day out on the water and I'm really glad I was able to snag one more Colorado classic before heading east.

(me in the meat, photo by ashley watts)

(Gordon)

(Ashley)

Verbal Beta in The Crystal Gorge

It seems that the summer boating season has finally ended. All the snow in Colorado has melted and the rivers are running dry. This is a great time of year to wind down and take advantage of the late season favorites.

I went to the Crystal Gorge with my good friend Eric Parker just a couple days after our Clark's Fork Mission. Neither of us had ever run the Crystal Gorge before, so we made sure to get lots of verbal beta.

We met in Marble and started driving the horrendous shuttle ride up the mountain to get to the put in. I was actually impressed with how mellow the shuttle was compared to the runs in the upper drainage (like the North Fork and South Fork of the Crystal).

We finally put on and started scouting our way down the upper part of the creek. It was LOW LOW LOW. We had to scrape over a lot of rocks and such, but we figured it wasn't necessarily such a bad thing considering neither of us had ever been there and our lack of a guide.

We eventually worked our way down to the big daddy rapid of the upper section, Corkscrew/Pinetree Falls. I think I ran it first after an extensive scout and I climbed back up the bank afterward to watch Eric run it.

There is some kind of sketchy broken dam or something right next to this drop on river right, so I was standing on that thing trying to set safety. Eric ended up getting pummeled against a rock in a swirly eddy in Corkscrew but he was able to get it upright and hold it together to style his line through Pinetree. Here's the shots that Eric took of me in Pinetree, unfortunately I didn't get any of him because he ran off with the camera before I could get it from him.




After the beating in Corkscrew, Eric wasn't feeling good about running the Inner Gorge, so after a lot of scouting I decided to drop in solo, while Eric ran ground support from 200 feet above me on the gorge rim.

The entrance to the Inner is a 40 foot waterfall called Zhute Chute. There have been several broken backs here, so it's not to be taken lightly. Luckily I didn't land too flat.

(camera mode accidentally got switched, so the photo is a little blurry)

After Zute Chute, you're incredibly committed to running about 7 more drops deep within the inner gorge. It's pretty intimidating being down in there alone. It made me feel a little better that my ground support crew (Eric) was a very experienced climber, so he could rap in pretty quick if I needed anything. Eric took a couple more pictures of the inner, but the camera setting was still messed up, so they didn't come out very well. I'll put them on here any way.



This was one of my favorite runs in the state (I would say it's tied with Pandora's Box for #1) and I'm so glad I was able to run it just before heading back east. I can't wait to get back out there next summer and run the Crystal Gorge again!

Aspen Trees in Independence Pass, just outside of Aspen CO

Clark's Fork Box

The Box Canyon on the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River is an experience of a lifetime. The whitewater is big, the portages are long, and the gorge walls are massive. So massive that The Box is the 3rd deepest canyon in the United States (just behind the Grand Canyon and Hell's Canyon). It's committing to say the least.

The run is about 25 miles long and takes 2 days to complete (if all goes well). It's also in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming, so it take a whole day to drive there and find it and do the shuttle.

The run starts out with a 3 mile Class IV/V warm-up called The Honeymoon Section, but then the walls gorge up and the honeymoon is over. Once in the box, you're greeted with the mile-long Green Monster Portage. It's a mile of bushwacking around in the woods, but it isn't nearly as difficult as the other 5-6 portages downstream.

After the Green Monster, there's about 4 miles of moving flatwater, but it's one of the most scenic flatwater floats I've ever done. Northern Wyoming is a spectacular place.

(lunch after the flatwater)

(here's what Tom thinks of flatwater)

After the flatwater, we ran some drops, did some portaging, and did some boat recoveries after a few swims. The best rapid of the day was Balls to the Wall, it was also probably one of the more difficult rapids on the run.

(Tom, opting for the rightside line in Balls)

(Sticking my line in Balls)

After an epic swim and an ensuing epic recovery, we made it to camp. The thing that's cool about this run is that you're able to hike out to the canyon rim and car camp between days on the water. The only catch is you haave to make it to the hike out gully before dark, or you're spending the night at river level. We luckily made it on time, with all 4 boaters, but only 3 boats. One of the group members (the only one of us who had ever been in there before) lost his boat after swimming at Balls to the Wall and we weren't able to find it.

So we were able to car camp after day one and hike back down and run the rest of the box on day two. The only difference on day two was that our crew of four became a crew of three and none of us knew the river at all, so we had to go in there 1st D style and scout everything.

Day two has much more difficult whitewater than day one, including 2 mandatory (and kinda hard to scout) Class V drops. Day two has some pretty burly portages as well.





All the above photos are from a rapid called Deliberation Corner. It's one of the mandatory drops that you absolutely can not portage. It's intimidating, especially since you can't really set safety for it either.

My favorite drop was called Leap of Faith, a blind/mandatory 20 footer near the end of the crux of the box.

After lunch on day two, we had 2 big portages and I was realllllly dehydrated. Halfway through the 2nd portage, my body shut down and I had to load up with sugar quickly and rehydrate because there was still 7 miles to go before the take out and it was getting late. Luckily the crew I was with was able to help me out and they were able to help me refuel before paddling out.

(Dave's Chasm - kinda reminds me of Pandora's Box on the Animas)

Finally, we reached the takeout and drank the appropriate post-paddling beverages. The scenery in this canyon is second to none. If you ever have a chance to get in there, jump on it.

It's not to be taken lightly, our guide swam twice and lost his boat and paddle on the second swim. This resulted in some sketchy exit procedures that I wouldn't ever want to repeat. Luckily, another crew found his boat a day later and he was able to hike in and get it out. Talk about good luck.