June 5, 2005: San Juan River in Southern Utah

After suffering a blown-out tire on the way across Arizona and spending in excess of 4 hours in Kingman getting a new one, Sarah and I finally arrived at Bluff, Utah in time for the 6-day raft trip starting the following morning. This was the first time in 15 years that my family drew a rafting permit, so we got to invite all of our friends. In attendance were: the Parsons (Shirley, Ken, Reid, Aaron, and Sarah), my uncle Bob Bernstein, Dwayne Thompson, the Horntvedts (Bob, Cindy, Jessi, and Colleen), the Chepkos (Dave and Corin), Paul, Marlene, Blake, and Steve & Peary Smith. We had high water for this trip, so most of our days on the river were very quick. Several times we arrived at our campsite around lunchtime. The one exception to this was our third day out, when almost all of the campsites were taken. Eventually we made camp on a small sandbar at the end of a 30-mile day. We all went to bed early that night. Mom and Dad presented Sarah and me with an early wedding present: a red ducky! The maiden voyage of the 'Tomcat' went pleasantly. Many of the rapids were washed out due to the high water. The rest were splashy, but simple--all the rocks were covered, and there were no big holes. The only mishap of the trip was when Sarah engaged Bob Horntvedt in a splash fight, but accidentally caught my face with the paddle on a backswing. I suffered a cut lip and a chipped tooth, and Sarah felt terrible for at least two days afterward. At Butler Wash we stopped to observe a fantastic petroglyph panel (the largest I've ever seen) left over by (I assume) the Fremont Indians who once inhabited Utah and western Colorado. Futher down the river we found some amazing ruins of some buildings and granaries under a cliff. The Chepkos brought a GPS unit on the trip, and at our second campsite, Corin, Paul, and Marlene (accompanied by Reid and myself) went hunting for a geocache which had been left up a side canyon near the camp. For those as unfamiliar with the practice of geocaching as I was, the idea is that someone hides a sturdy, small container in some random place and records its precise latitude and longitude at a website. Thereafter, people attempt to find the cache. These caches typically contain a journal for recording your success, as well as several trinkets. A finder gets to trade some trinket of their own for one of the found ones. In our case, Corin left a glass bear in trade for a velcro ping-pong set. On our 4th day on the river, we all stopped off at a natural spring. There Sarah and I found many tadpoles, and even some polywogs (partially morphed tad-frogs). The water was warm and pleasant, and we all bathed. At our 5th camp, Reid and I paddled up a small side canyon until the water ran out, and then continued on foot. Several Horntvedts and Steve had left earlier and hiked up the bank. Hearing voices ahead of us, Reid and I went into stealth mode to sneak up on them. We found them throwing rocks into a plunge pool. Reid and I joined in on the fun from behind some boulders along the side of the canyon. It took a surprising amount of time for our victims to notice the extra rocks that were arriving in their plunge pool. Reid and I continued up the slot canyon, scaling boulders and waterfalls, until we finally arrived at an insurmountable waterfall. Along the way we found a dead bat and lots of petrified wood. We took many pictures.