We are considering a trip to canoe in the area. Labyrinth canyon sounds great. Probably before the hot season. Sometime in April or early May. How is March or it still too cold? Would early Sept be better. A few questions for now. Permits- is there a quota? WAter flow - we mostly want class 1, when is the big snow melt and does this make the river dangerous? Between Green River and Ruby Ranch (I’m redaing the BLM site) is privately owned, camping in that area without permission ok or …? Transport to put in and take out - recommendations on an outfitter for trans? Where can I rent a canoe? Thanks.
Green R
Mark
Just sent you a detailed trip report, a bit too long to post. Should answer most of your questions but let me know if you’ve others
Thank you
I’ll check my mail. Thanks again.
I did the river from Green River to
Spanish Bottom twice, both times in April - ten day trips. I was in the Moab area in March mountain biking before the trip and it can snow. In May it was starting to get hot and buggy. The first year the river was high and the next low. I would like to go for longer but would have to get more water, supplies and empty potty to do it by making arrangements with an outfitter to leave them at Mineral Springs. A great trip.
Suggest getting a map with GPS coordinates if you want to explore since while you never get lost, you can miss a take-out because you’re not exactly sure of your location. The flow rate is fast enough that you can’t easily paddle up stream, and definitely would not to do it for a long distance. By the time you figure out that you should have landed back there, you’re a long distance downstream.
Ruby Ranch to the confluence
Is a great trip, just under 100 miles. We did it several years ago over 7 days. Soaring canyon walls, etc. We’re going back in 09.
We did it the first week in May and the water level was fine. The previous post about current strength is on the money. The big snowmelt runoff doesn’t usually occur until later in May and early June. Early May was very comfortable temperature-wise, but it can get brutal in late May. I’ve been in Moab when it hit 100 on Memorial Day.
Outfitters are in Moab. Try Canyon Voyage Adventure Co (I think they have mostly kayaks, but they arranged a canoe for us)and Tag-a Long or Tex’s for shuttles. I think Tex has canoes too.
Tag-a-long shuttled us up to Ruby Ranch and picked us up at the confluence in a power boat. A little pricey, but very convenient and efficient.
One of the cool things about going to the confluence is that you can get access to the Maze area of Canyonlands Nat’l Park. Great day hiking in an incredibly beautiful and convoluted canyon area.
Rick
May of 07
Me and a couple of friends did the trip from Ruby to the Confluence via the use of Tex. Great experience. Went in late May, water was about 4.5 mph (too fast and too high). We paddled touring kayaks. We did it in 7 days and felt too rushed to take it all in. We started out with a larger group of mixed people so we planned carefuly. I posted some of our notes on a blog and I included a bunch of links of good resources for our planning needs. http://greenrivertrip.blogspot.com/ It’s a good resource site as we accumulated the links over about a years time before taking the trip. I never got around to doing a full report of the trip but if you need any details or if I can assist in any way, just shoot me an email through the blog site. We had a hard time getting info from individuals. Good luck.
when it rains …
– Last Updated: Dec-02-08 7:36 PM EST –
the river goes down. Sunny, the river goes up. Nobody can tell you what the river will be like in May. Depends so much on how the snow is melting up in the mountains far away. Be prepared for being hot, like melt your brain hot, or snow, or just a cold ugly rain. Might be high water, could be low, you wont know until like a week before. This year there was almost 500 inches of snow on some of the mountains in Utah. Plenty of snow melt going on. The water was high and swift. Some years they less than half of that. Catch a week of clouds and you will get no snow melt. Get a week of brilliant sunshine and you will have lots of water. It really is a crap shoot trying to figure out how high the river might be. It really doesn't matter. You will love it no matter what the conditions.
We took sea kayaks down the Colorado to Spanish Bottom a few years back when the water was wicked low. It was still spectacular.
Some pics from this years green river trip in may:
http://picasaweb.google.com/scottb03109/MoabFloatNBloat2008#
http://picasaweb.google.com/scottb03109/MoreMoabFloatNBloat2008#
Can't wait to see it again for the first time!
Use Tex's Riverways for river rats. Tag-a-long if you want to feel more catered to. The folks at Tex's have always been extremely accommodating when I have dealt with them. They are cheaper. A little rougher at the edges but always felt good about using them as our shuttle.
I seem to recall there is no quota. First come first serve. Permits are easy to get and only needed below mineral bottom. No chem toilets needed above mineral bottom. Required below.
Texs riverways will hook you up with all the info you need if you just give them a call or visit their site. They will be happy to answer all your questions or at least that is how they have been with me.
Thanks all
Thank you everyone. It would be my wife and I. Good info. Thanks.