Originally posted December 23, 2017
By Dan Custer
The Escalante to Whitewater section of the Gunnison was a fun trip for everyone, especially since no one dumped their boat into the cold water. Water temps averaged around 55 degrees. The water was flowing between 1400 and 1500 CFS and when we stopped paddling the current was usually moving around 4 miles per hour. 1400 CFS is considered to be on the low range, but by looking at the banks you would think it was running in the high range.
The river was bank-full with very few sandbars. The lush vegetation on the
steep banks limited where we could pull over for a break. We put-in under the
Escalante bridge to avoid a rock just below the obvious put-in at Escalante.
Water depth occasionally was low enough to touch bottom with a paddle, however
we never saw the bottom because the water was so muddy. Dominguez creek was
even muddier, looking like chocolate milk.
I would definite recommend making this a 3-day trip with the second day devoted
to exploring Dominguez Canyon and launch on a Friday. By launching on Friday,
we were able to have our picks of campsites at the confluence of Dominguez
Creek and the Gunnison River. We would have had competition for campsites had
we put-in on Saturday. Most of the BLM maps do not indicate campsites at the
confluence but there are at least 3 campsites; one at the confluence and 2 shortly
downstream of the confluence. The third site has the hardest take-out, being on
the outside of a bend in the channel and having only grass to catch while
trying to land a boat. The first site at the confluence is the best for landing
and unloading boats and was our campsite.
Our campsite had plenty of space for our tents. We had a group of 8 people and
set up 5 tents. The site looked like it could handle 3 or 4 more tents. A word
of caution when selecting a place for a tent. When it rains the water runs
through camp. On Saturday we received close to an inch of water, which did
flood several tents and the space for sleeping under a rock (the Woman’s Cave).
Looking for previous water flows over the ground should help in picking a tent
space that will not be in a stream.
We decided to take our chances with leaving our cars at the Whitewater Boat
Ramp. The Lazy S Arrow looked just as risky if not riskier for our cars. There
were no car break-ins during this trip.
As an added bonus for this trip, Micki brought a copy of an old Spanish map
from a 1776 exploration of the region by the Dominguez-Escalante expedition.
Micki knew enough Spanish to interpret the map and made it great fun to study
the map.