After my job at Huntington Canyon, UT I stopped by the McEntire’s place and packed to go out to the wedge overlook equipped with a canoe, and various supplies. It was chilly and rainy in Salt Lake Valley, but we assumed that the weather would be better over the mountains and in the desert. We got a late start due to packing supplies, and purchasing last minute items. We eventually headed on out and stopped by David’s place to pick up an extra paddle, and some life vests. On our way out, Trevor realized that we forgot the tent. Since it was raining out, we figured it was worth going back for, since the only alternative was a few sketchy tarps and blankets with rope. We traveled all the way back, picked up the tent, and were off again!... Finally.
I sat in the back of the cab with Moki as we blasted on out past Price, UT. On the way out to the Wedge Overlook, we saw many lightning cells moving around in the distance. We went straight to the drop off point and got our headlamps out to stash away the canoe in the bushes, along with other heavy items we didn’t’ want to pack in the next day. By the time we arrived at the campsite at the wedge, it was really dark. Quickly we set up the tent, and tossed our things inside. Trevor and I were going to drop off the truck at the bottom of the takeout point, and ride our mountain bikes back to camp. We left Moki and Brandy to watch over camp. All was going according to plan until we were unloading the bikes at the bottom of the canyon. We had left Trevor’s front tire back at camp with the jumble of unpacking our gear. NO!!! So, we had to decide if we were going to just leave a single bike for our return so some poor individual would have to ride up back to camp and retrieve the truck. That or, have Trevor ride on my handlebars the entire 13 mile ride back up 1100 feet. The only other alternative would be for Trevor to retrieve the tire, and drive all the way back. We figured this would be best, so I just moseyed on up the road with my bike while Trevor raced back up to camp and returned with his complete bike at the bottom. I took several stops along the way, navigating by starlight, but occasionally using the headlamp. Eventually Trevor showed up, and we rode several miles up the wash without much difficulty at all. The stars were incredibly bright, and we didn’t use our headlamps for most of that ride. By the time we got out of the wash, I thought we were about half way done, but distances and elevation were deceiving. Everything got steep, sandy ruts in the road, and our starlight disappeared with the arrival of thunder cells looming overhead in the pitch black of night. We started sweating a lot with heavy pedaling in a relentless ascent. There were several coyotes howling in the distance which made for great entertainment though. We made it back to camp with sore lower backs, and tender butts. It was 3:30am by the time we were in our sleeping bags and falling asleep. Around 4:30am, the tent became illuminated with light, and a crash of thunder woke me up. Then the rain and wind hit. I was VERY glad we had turned around to retrieve the tent earlier.
We slept in until 9ish, or maybe closer to 10, due to our late night. I peered down to the river, and was somewhat shocked to see the water level not as high as I expected. Using binoculars I could see a large group camped below with 6 canoes, and two kayaks. Several tents dotted the area surrounding their camp. We snarfed some poptarts for breakfast, and packed our things for the canoe trip. We only had to ride our bikes down to where we stashed the canoe the night before. Moki ran alongside the bikes for the first quarter mile with much enthusiasm. From there it was a lengthy descent for several miles to where the canoe lay. Moki became exhausted. I thought there might be a shortcut without having to travel ALL the way to the intersection, and back the other way. I found a jeep trail which appeared to parallel the wash the target road was in. I went on ahead to scout it out, and returned to meet Trevor and Brandy to discuss options. They went the safe smart way, and I went the stupid risky way. The jeep trail went the way I wanted it to for a few miles, until it turned around and started to ascend back to the canyon rim. I got frustrated, and jetted off on some overgrown jeep trails that seemed to dead-end everywhere. I went hopping from one trail to the other. I had already invested a significant amount of effort to get where I was, and it would take far longer to retrace my steps that it would to just cut across the desert to where I needed to be. I figured all the washes would meet at Fuller Bottom Basin where we left the canoe, so I tried to ride my bike down the wash, avoiding cactuses, sharp rocks, and drop offs. I walked, and carried the bike for a long frustrating portion. It was hot, dusty, and windy. Eventually, the wash got wide enough where I could ride it for a short time until the sand gobbled up my tires up past the rims. After about a mile of frustration, I found a game trail which followed a gradual descent down to the target road! Only problem is that cattle leave deep holes in their tracks that harden and make for “paint-shaker” bicycle terrain. Without suspension, my body was in for more abuse, but I was in a hurry hoping that my absence was not concerning Trevor and Brandy who obviously beat me to the canoe. When I finally arrived back on the road, I saw two sets of bike tracks, so I knew they were in front of me. I flipped my bike into the highest gear and zipped down the road. Straight ahead was a massive black layer of clouds which had been growing closer and darker the past hour. It looked very unsettling. When I met up with Trevor, Brandy, and Moki, there was a Sheriff there who was giving us a warning/update about the incoming storm, reporting of hail accumulations, lightning, and heavy rain. He seemed a bit concerned, but wasn’t going to stop us from launching the canoe. After a brief discussion, we decided that since we had done all this work to get everything setup, we weren’t going to let a thunderstorm turn us around. In a few minutes, we were launched and paddling down the San Rafael River with booming thunder becoming louder. We already had a late start, and would need to make up for some lost time in order to take the boat out by nightfall. Just about ten minutes after we had launched, it started to rain, HARD! Then came the hail stones. We were all pretty psyched about the whole feat of getting there, and overcoming all the various obstacles that surfaced, and we laughed out loud at the whole ridiculousness of what we were doing. Any “normal” person would have turned around, and came back later. We were determined to go on, and the conditions just got worse and worse. We got to the mouth of the canyon, our “point of no return” and foolishly decided to press onward in hopes that the weather cleared up. It was around then when we realized that we didn’t have much extra warm clothing, and we were all wearing cotton for our anticipated 90-100 degree weather. It was getting windy, and the rain was getting worse. We were all shivering uncontrollably after about a half hour of misery. The ambient temperature was colder than the river water! It was just stupid! We then noticed that there was a large amount of water inside the canoe, and just about everything we had was completely soaked through and through. There was a little teeny bit of shelter on one side of the canyon walls that we spotted and after dumping out the canoe, somehow managed to scamper up to. Trevor collected some dry-ish wood in the downpour and sacrificed some pages of his guide book to act as kindling. After a few failed attempts of nothing but smoldering combustion and smoke inhalation, I finally got flames to catch on the twigs, and we piled lots of wood on. Even though it was all pretty wet, we got it to burn.
The rain let up some, and we were able to gain feeling back in our extremities. It was nice because we then felt that we were no longer in mortal danger after we got warm and dried off. I was concerned for a while with the pounding rain, and not being able to start a fire. We spent over an hour warming up, and drying our clothes. It was about then when we discovered we had forgotten our food back at camp. Luckily, I had some jerky we rationed, and in another backpack we had some fruitsnacks along with 3 apples. Before launching off again, we found where Trevor had patched the canoe with fiberglass, and the patch was missing. The patch didn’t bond with the plastic of the canoe. We used duct tape, our only other option to make a temporary fix. It worked surprisingly well when the water was deep. As soon as we hit bottom, we could hear the tape tear, no matter how many layers we used, and it was back to ankle deep water inside the canoe. With repeated bumps, and the waterlogged stresses of weight on the canoe, the aluminum frame finally snapped in two places in one hidden rock impact. The only good thing about our trip was that the sun was peeking through the clouds. Our travel was frustrating having to pull the canoe over multiple times to dry off and re-patch the hull. The terrible thing was, that the water level was dropping noticeably in the river as the hours progressed, making our frequency of necessary repairs increase dramatically. We tried only to patch when things got really bad. Brandy helped in scooping the water out with a juice container, but one would need to do that non-stop in order to make any progress. We were all getting tired and frustrated. About at our half-way point, we were already exhausted and not having quite the enjoyable time we had planned on. Much later, we finished off the rest of our food, and patched the canoe for the last time. We had heard a loud crunch during one impact which connected several fractures into one large one. Water gushed in rapidly. We realized we still had several miles to go, and with a canoe that was literally being held together by duct tape, that it was going to be dark by the time we got out of the river. Just then, behind us was another sinister dark thunder cloud closing in on us. We trudged on through the water with our waterlogged canoe, and kept paddling despite the water we were carrying. We knew that it was going to be pouring rain, dark, and cold very shortly. We needed to cover ground fast! Finally it got to the point where water was spilling over the edges of the canoe, and we tipped it over to dump out all our wet gear again. About ready to do one last repair, we could at least see where the takeout point was, and it seemed about one mile away. Trevor and Brandy spotted a sign across the river which marked a trailhead, which meant that a dirt road would meet up there. Brandy took Moki, and she sprinted down that road in flipflops/bare feet down to the pickup truck while Trevor and I hauled the broken canoe and all our saturated gear inside up to the trailhead. Using our backpack straps, we dragged the canoe all the way to the road. As the wind picked up, the sky got incredibly dark. Spats of rain came down here and there, but we knew that there was a lot more coming in soon. Brandy came blasting down the road like a hero in the pickup truck. Trevor and I strapped the canoe to the roof and threw everything inside the bed. In just a few minutes we were all in the truck with the heater blasting, laughing, shouting, and yelling in victorious excitement. Just minutes after we had crossed the bridge, the sky opened up releasing hail, lightning, and rain. Along the wash we could see waterfalls crashing down off the canyon walls. The ground was caked with a layer of white hail stones as well. Not the typical view one would expect to see here in June. Especially since the week before it was too hot to walk on the sand barefoot! We were extremely excited to tear into our food supply that we left at camp, and to get a roaring fire going and cook some hot dogs!
When we pulled into our campsite, it was pitch black and raining. Our spirits dropped a little when we saw the tent collapsed under the weight of water saturated hail. After fixing the tent we realized that the damage had already been done. Everything inside the tent was soaked with water, including clothing and sleeping bags. I went to try and start a fire with some dry cedar kindling and some paper. It was far too windy to get matches to start, but I tried anyway. At a point, I got some kindling to catch, and I was excited to see the fire spread past kindling. Suddenly gusts of wind ripped though the campsite, and extinguished the fire. From that point on the air was far too turbulent for any open flame to exist. The tent was whipping around uncontrollably, and it was raining again with flashes of close lightning. That was it. We were done! We all threw all our things into the bed of the pickup, and left the firewood behind. It was time to finish off our camping at the Price Holiday Inn. We had to stop by Wendy’s because we were still starving without or hot dog fix. I checked back into the Holiday Inn that I was staying at earlier while working in Huntington, and thankfully one of the receptionists recognized me and hooked us up with a family suite. The room still had the AC cranked up all the way from the days before, so we flipped them on heat. It was past midnight by the time we got in, and devoured our food in silence. Trevor tended to Moki in the truck, and we all fell asleep quickly in soft dry beds.
We slept in till around 10 and cooked some of our hotdogs in the microwave for breakfast. My phone was soaked, and I thought it was completely toast. I opened it up and stuck it in front of the hairdryer for several minutes. Surprisingly enough, it came back to life! We packed our things and headed on out back to Salt Lake City with plenty of stories to tell.
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