Not All Who Row Upstream Are Lost

By Jen Sauer

Sept. 15, On the Green River

When the orders came to row upstream, Mike and I were too exhausted to even respond. I imagine we exchanged looks of utter defeat, but because it was completely dark, I couldn’t actually see his face as he sat two feet from me on the Hyside raft. I’d been on the oars almost six hours, offering some relief to Mike after he put in a solid eight hours on the sticks earlier in the day.

There was no time to argue anyway, as Josh immediately rowed up the Green River with the efficiency of a veteran guide and I floundered at the oars in my very first attempt to defy the current and gravity and return to the place we had just moments before floated past. I watched in dismay as the beam of Josh’s headlamp faded into the night and then completely disappeared.

Luckily, the lightning storm that had been lingering along the top of the sandstone plateaus above us moved in just then and brought with it strikes that illuminated the entire river valley of upper Desolation Canyon. If I focused through the blackness at the river’s upstream course and waited for lightning to strike, I could see where Josh’s raft was headed. It was as if someone was turning the light switch of a room on and off, on and off.

Eventually I could see that he had landed on sandbar at river left. As I could barely hold the raft steady against the downstream current, I relinquished the oars to Mike who finally landed us on the lower end of the sandbar and Josh was able to pull us to shore and alongside the other raft. The three of us trudged back and forth through the shoe-sucking mud to unload the bare necessities from the boats and when to bed without a word spoken or a bite eaten.

It all started 14 hours previous to the “row upstream” orders, when we’d launched from our camp near the border of the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge in the northeastern part of Utah. We were hell bound for Sand Wash, the launch site for river trips down the permitted section of Desolation Canyon. There our party of three would grow to six as we rendezvoused with fellow floaters from Missoula who came bearing gifts of fine food, strong beer, stronger whiskey and true friendship.

But first we had to cross the Uinta Basin, a wide stretch of flat water on the Green River that leads from Split Mountain Canyon to Desolation Canyon far downstream. Just how far we didn’t know. We didn’t have any maps to tell us the exact distance but we suspected it was somewhere around 85 miles. After our arrival at Sand Wash, we discovered we had traveled 106 miles of desperately flat water in four days. Had we known that mileage when we started, it might have been a bit daunting. But all we knew was that Jimmy, Morgan and Allison were waiting a Sand Wash. And there was no way we were going to miss them.

That part the really screwed us was Split Mountain to Jensen, a span of 17 miles that we thought was already included in the 85-mile estimate. It wasn’t. And this wasn’t your typical 106-mile stretch of river. This water was still. As in unmoving. There was no downstream flow. And it was full of sandbars hidden just below the surface. Later, we mapped our route and determined that we logged 17 miles the first day, then 24 miles, 27 and 28 in the following days. These amounted to 10 or 12 or 14-hour days on the water, sticks always in the water, pulling and pushing across the river, chasing the elusive channel, fleeing the evil sandbars that trapped our rafts high and dry and stilled our progress. We figure our mileage was much higher than 106 miles due to our constant crisscrossing of the river in an attempt to remain in the main channel. And by no means was this river straight to begin with. At one point we traveled 10 miles around Horseshoe Bend to come within a quarter mile of where we had started. Several smaller horseshoes came before and after, slowing our pace to a what felt like a crawl.

On our fourth day, we entered territory for which we actually had a map but it did us little good as late in the afternoon we overestimated our progress and came to believe that we were within striking distance of our destination. This section of canyon country all starts to look the same after days on end, as misplacing yourself on one bend of the river can lead to absolute disorientation. Empowered and energized by our flawed knowledge, we pushed on well past sunset and into the night, always optimistic that Sand Wash was the next big drainage in the distance.

As we approached and then floated past one such drainage, we started to question our location. The photo of the ramp in our book showed nothing more that a wide dirt road leading straight into the river. The parking and camping areas are located above the ramp, out of sight from the river. The last drainage had what appeared to be a wide ramp-like area, but we’d disregarded it and continued on. Now it seemed we might have gone too far, overshooting our destination and missing our party despite all our best efforts. Thus the rowing upstream and silent retreat to bed.

In the morning, we assessed our situation anew and decided we were still just around the bend and upstream from Sand Wash, much to everyone’s relief. Flush with this new information, we treated ourselves to a leisurely breakfast of eggs to order, bacon and melon. It was only after we launched at around 11 a.m. and assessed our location from the river that we realized we were actually seven miles from the ramp.

Well practiced at mindless rowing by this time, Josh and Mike put their backs into it and pushed us downstream until we finally arrived that the bend in the river we’d been waiting for. We could see the Missoula crew rigging Morgan’s cat boat long before we reached them.

We arrived at the ramp amid cat calls and hollers at 1:22 p.m., just one minute before Morgan’s prediction. They had their own tales of adventure down the windy, rocky road that leads to the put-in, and hadn’t rolled in until after 4 a.m. that morning. Even if we had reached Sand Wash the night before, they wouldn’t have been there.

After conferring with river ranger Jim Wright about the stretch ahead of us, our newly augmented floatilla of four men, two ladies, three boats and two dogs pulled out of Sand Wash and into the slightly increased current for six days of whitewater and revelry.

Bob's Cooler

Today we came across Bob’s water jug that he lost when he wrapped his boat on a rock in rapid way back in Dinosaur National Monument. That was 17 days ago and 260 miles upstream.

Since then, that 2-gallon water cooler has floated – on its own – through the canyons of Lodore, Whirlpool and Split Mountain, down 106 miles of the Uinta Basin, through Desolation and Gray canyons, past the town of Green River, Utah, and into Labyrinth Canyon. 

Roselle spotted it this morning, not long after we launched for the day. Josh pushed our boat to the left bank, where the cooler lay beached in the mud, left behind when the river rose, then fell after heavy rain fell a few days before.

We approached in awe; surely this could not be the same water jug that went bobbing down the river with the slew of other gear that fateful day. We’d made an effort to chase down every item, but when the two red water jugs floated into a crevice across the river, we decided to let Bob swim for them. He opted not to retrieve them, and they continued their journey downstream. One was later rescued by a river ranger and left for Bob on the shore at Echo Park. The other disappeared, never to be seen again. Until today.

Now, almost 300 miles later, the water jug was back. And it was ahead of us. We’d been through dozens of rapids, past hundreds of sandbars, rowed countless strokes through the flat water for eight, 10, 12 hours a day.

I disliked Bob’s cooler before it was lost because its handle fell off every time I looked it. If this was the same cooler, it seems unlikely that it would still have a handle. We hit shore and I jumped from the boat into the mud. The handle was still attached. I reached down, grabbed on to it and yanked the jug from the sticky mud – and the handle snapped off.

Seventeen days, untold hours spent rowing, thousands of calories expended. And the cooler had beaten us.

“Bob’s cooler lasted longer than Bob did,” Josh said.

The top of jug had been smashed by the weight of the water and it was heavy with sand. We retrieved it and strapped it to the boat for proper disposal at the next takeout.

For the rest of the day we speculated on how the jug could make it that far, at virtually the same speed we were traveling, without being beached or sunk or at least seen.

We can only agree on one thing: The river giveth and the river taketh away.

There is a reason most people do not row reservoirs in rafts. In fact, there are several reasons.

The first of which is that there is absolutely no current on reservoirs. None. We are moving at a rate of slightly more than one mile per hour, rowing from first light to sunset and often late into the dark of night. Flaming Gorge Reservoir is roughly 91 miles long. Thankfully, we have some extra time to play with.

Another reason not to row a reservoir in a raft might be the motor traffic. This is Labor Day weekend and hundreds of Utahans have descended upon Flaming Gorge with their toys. Our boats are awash in their wake as they speed from one end of the lake and back.

Yet another reason might be the wind that blows up and down this man-made body of water with fierce strength. It creates white-cap waves that lash at the rafts and almost always send us the wrong direction – upstream.

The reliable afternoon thunder and lightning storms also making reservoir rowing a risky endeavor. While these p.m. storms may also strike on the river, something about being in the middle of this massive body water during one such weather event evokes a new special kind of fear. During one such storm, Bob actually got out his boat and refused to get back on. He opted to scale his way over the steep, rocky shore more than a quarter mile to a cove where the rest of us had already sought shelter. Roselle, on the other hand, was forced to row their raft off of the shore it was blown into and down the reservoir to reach safety and wait out the wind.

But none of this is to say that more people shouldn’t float reservoirs without motors. They should.

It is a supreme practice in patience. There is no use in hurrying, no point in multitasking and there are no shortcuts.

There are just two roles on each boat: sitting or rowing. And neither of you are going anywhere fast for several days. There is plenty of time for self-reflection, life analysis and overall introspection. There is time to follow each daydream to its end, every conversation until it’s all been said, entire thought trains until they dead end.    

It takes some getting used to. But once embraced, reservoir rowing is a welcome change.    

Jen Sauer is one tough river rat. Read more of her stories on downtheriver.org.