June 19-23, 2023
By Judy Moisey-Asay
On Monday, June 19, 2023, we launched on the Green River at Ruby Ranch with 15 people and 8 canoes. We went with Tex’s Riverways Outfitters and as usual they did a nice job of moving us, our canoes and equipment to the put in. We arrived around 11:30am and were loaded and on the river around 1pm. The river winds through spectacular canyons with beautiful geology, vegetation and wildlife. We were lucky and the river flow was down quite a lot, between 15,000 CFS and 16,500 CFS, with a fairly quick current. Wind had been predicted for the first couple of days and on the first day, we ran into some fierce waves, enough to form whitecaps on the river. We had some heavy micro-bursts which necessitated us pulling over and waiting them out till we could paddle on. Our first day camp was 7 miles downriver and we pulled in at Trin Alcove around 4:30pm. Normally we would not have been able to paddle into the camp site but because the water level was still high we had a very pretty and enjoyable wander back into the alcove to the campsite. The 2nd day was a lot better with less wind but did find the bugs were worse at the 2nd campsite. We had good weather otherwise and the temperatures were not blistering hot as we might have expected. There were a number of good campsites for small groups, however with our large group, it took a little more looking. The high water campsites we found that were big enough to accommodate all of us but lots(!) of bugs!
Although we didn’t see a lot of larger wildlife we did encounter a number of bird species and tons of six-legged critters. Our resident geology expert pointed out different formations and what caused the variety of colorations. The 3rd day was the best weather with little wind and a beautiful, almost cloudless sky. The lower part of the river had a lot more bugs and we ate lunch rafted together as we floated down the river to avoid them. We were not able to do any of the hikes as the river side conditions were not the best, the mudbanks were very high and there were not good places to safely tie up our canoes or get up the embankments. We took out a day early as we were not able to find a good spot for our last night so camped at Mineral Bottoms. The ones we checked out were extremely buggy and not very pleasant. We got a message to Tex’s and were very pleased when they showed up around 10 am to pick us up. For this trip this year, I think it would have been better to wait till later in the summer when the water level is lower and probably fewer bugs. We had a great time but wanted to take advantage of the many hikes in the area.
