Report from August 7-8, 2026
My wife recently got into river rafting with her friends and had me, an old high school buddy, Vince, and his wife go on a class 1-2 river rafting trip on the Colorado River from Fruita, CO, toward Moab, UT, in August 2024.
The whole trip was hilarious in lovely warm water, and I even found little badge frogs with purple spots (Arizona toad?), and I was hooked.
This year, we went for the Green River, UT, starting at the Flaming Gorge Dam.
Green River, UT
Sections A, B, C
Spillway to Swallow Canyon
- Start – Flaming Gorge Dam Spillway
- Camp – Big Pine II campground
- Finish – Swallow Canyon
- Elevations – 5,600′ – 5,400′
- Day 1 = Spillway to Big Pine II Camp – 10 miles – 4 hours – Average Speed 2.5mph
- Day 2 = Big Pine II Camp to Swallow Canyon Take Out – 18 miles – 5 hours – Average Speed 3.6mph
- Temperatures – Highs in 90s, lows in the 60s
- Permits – Flaming Gorge Recreation Use Pass and campground reservation
- Recommended Gear: sunscreen, sun shirt, shorts, hat, food, water, GPS maping app with pins preset for your camp and take out (I used Gaia), wag bags (required by law)
On paper, the trip looked epic, with only 2 caveats:
- 60°F water is pretty damn cold
- One class 3 rapid – Red Creek Rapid
The class 3 rapid is scary enough in itself, I suppose, but my main concern was that I was bringing my 72-year-old dad, who is battling chemotherapy (and kicking ass!), along, and it just wouldn’t feel good to flip him out of a boat in big water.
I was once a river rafting guide…
Just for one summer on the Truckee River near Lake Tahoe, California.
I wasn’t very good.
We rafted the Boca to Floriston zone, and it had a few class 3 rapids that were technical.
I flipped my clients in “Jaws” once, and I’ve been scared ever since…
I also guided one of the American River forks once that summer, too, which was bigger water – up to class 4 – but easier than the Truckee because more water and less technical.
Anywho… the trip was slated for 2 days and 1 night.
We rented all the rafting gear (raft, oars, oar frame) from Dutch John Resort, and they dropped us off and picked us up – easy.
In blazing sunshine on Friday, August 7, we drove from Park City to the Flaming Gorge Dam, grabbed our recreation passes, dropped our car, and Ilian, from Kazakhstan, dropped us off at the spillway with all our stuff.
We threw our gear in the raft and set off with Miss Erica rowing first.
Honestly, it felt weird that they just give you a raft and set you free down an unknown river and I loved that.
The river was electric with rafters and swimmers and fishermen.
This is a big fishing river, and we were the only people I saw on the river not fishing.
Most people seemed to have a guide in these very nice row boats, with the guide in the middle and two fishermen on either side casting like crazy.
The Green is full of fish, and we saw them constantly through the violently clear water.
I’ve never seen so many osprey in my life.
They were everywhere along the river – flying, fishing, perching, and chilling in their oversized nests.
My dad loved it, and that made my heart soar like an osprey.
Section A in the gorge was busy.
I dodged a guide in her boat just before one rapid, and she twice said, “Thanks for not hitting me,” which I took to mean that she gets hit often enough to have found relief in this instance…
The day was hot in the mid-90s, and we all took turns jumping in the crystalline water and swimming around the raft.
We dodged rafts, smiled at people swimming and cliff jumping, mostly avoided people’s haphazard flies and lures (one cast lure did hit one of our oars as we were paddling), and lazily reveled in the best way to travel on Earth.
The initial canyon we traveled through, which I believe is called Section A, was incredibly striking.
My dad called it “The Wall of a Thousand Faces” as his imagination created contorted faces and expressions in the brilliant orange rock walls.
We had bought sandwiches from Wasatch Bagel in Park City the previous day, and ate them as we drifted along.
The rapids were all mellow, but a little techy.
You had to be on the right line to avoid hitting rocks and bouncing off walls.
All class 2, all easy enough, all very fun.
On this first section, the biggest hazard really was the other boats and finding spacing and room to cruise through rapids cleanly.
I didn’t see a single person on this river who wasn’t smiling and happy.
After 10 miles and 4 hours of pure joy, we found our camp, Big Pine II.
The camp was very accommodating, with a big fire ring, benches around the fire, 4 tent platforms, and 2 picnic tables.
We hauled our gear, set up camp, and started chilling out.
We swam a few times, as the temperature simply would not drop.
Our last swim was after 8 p.m. and we swam 8 times in total.
The 60ºF water I’d feared was absolutely perfect on this scorching hot, dry summer’s day.
During the downtime, I put some energy into gathering dead and down firewood and got lucky to find a huge branch with lots of sub-branches that I hauled back to camp and processed.
My dad is a fire-freak pyromaniac who spent over 20 years of his life living as a camper on a very small island in the California Delta.
I spent the energy creating the initial fire teepee and then just stacked everything else alongside the ring, knowing damn well that Dad would happily take care of the rest.
It never did get cold enough for a fire, but after dark, a fire we had.
A big fire, and it felt amazing.
There are so few places in North America that will let you have a fire in the summertime these days.
Dinner was a simple charcuterie board with bread, crackers, brie, Irish cheddar, salami, bell pepper, carrots, cucumber, broccoli, pear, olives, and more.
We all slept well on massive, thick air mattresses, with no mosquitoes.
Our camp had a ton of ants, but they were pretty cool.
We were on the river the next morning around 8:30 a.m., and I was anxious…
Erica took the helm, and we kept our eyes peeled for the dreaded “Class 3 Red Creek Rapid.”
There was even a warning sign foretelling disaster ahead…
Erica was rowing – I was spotting.
Last minute, it looked obvious that the best line was going to be far right against the rock wall, through the wave train, so we went for that.
Erica nailed the line, and we goofily bopped up and down through the wave train, happy, smiling, and hooting.
Class 3?
Naw, class 2+ I’d say, as long as you stay right, you’re gonna nail it (and you can see the whole thing in the video above at 2:04).
Once past the nefarious rapid, our minds could lean into the fact that this was our big day, with something like 18 miles and 6 hours of travel to cover.
All of Section B was pleasant, with every rapid mellower than the Section A rapids (except for Red Creek Rapid, of course).
We had been told that the river could be really slow on this second day, especially in Section C, but the thing moved along really nicely, almost the whole way.
- Average speed on Day 1 – Section A = 2.5 mph
- Average speed on Day 2 – Sections B & C = 3.6 mph
On this day, we were completely alone, and the river’s calm brought out the wildlife.
We saw fish, tons of osprey again, beaver, otters, and more.
It was special to have the river to ourselves after the entertaining hubbub of the previous day.
It was quiet…
We pulled off for lunch at a picnic table and enjoyed another delicious charcuterie board.
The Swallow Canyon takeout was not easy to find, and we did go past it and had to walk the raft back up a bit.
Make sure you have your maps and/or GPS dialed in.
Note: We used our Gaia GPS to drop pins on camp and takeout so that we wouldn’t miss them, and this was key.
Ilian from Kazakhstan picked us up and brought us back to the spillway and Dutch John Resort and told us colorful stories of his homeland.
We hopped in the car and drifted 15 minutes up to Flaming Gorge Resort for showers, rooms, and dinner.
On our final day, Sunday, August 9, we cruised around the Red Canyon Overlook, where we drank in spectacular views of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir and truly enjoyed the interpretive center they have there.
John Wesley Powell was one badass mofo.
From Red Canyon, we drove south to Vernal, then east to Dinosaur National Monument, where we had our minds absolutely blown off by the in situ dinosaur bone exhibit there.
We also checked out the petroglyphs, which were inspiring, and then cruised back to Vernal for a simple lunch at Carol’s Kitchen.
From Carol’s, we headed home to Park City with one very stoked Dad.
Thanks, Utah!
Photos in Chronological Order
