Kayaking the San Juan

I fell a little bit in love with southern Utah this past weekend.  Gorgeous red rocks, fantastic archaeology, beautiful weather, a solidly-flowing river, and some fantastic company all led to a wonderful few days.  Josh, Liz, Justin and I kayaked the San Juan River from Bluff, Utah down to Mexican Hat, Utah.  We camped two nights on the river, drank lots of red wine, got really muddy, and had a great time.

The San Juan is a pretty mellow river (on the section that we were on, anyway).  Our three-day trip only covered about 26 miles on the river, and most of that was spent simply floating at a leisurely pace and enjoying the scenery.  We stopped at a few archaeological sites (We saw the famous Butler Wash petroglyph panel!  So cool!) along the way, and were able to see quite a few petroglyphs and cliff dwellings from our kayaks.  At one point we got to see a few bighorn sheep hanging out on the rocky terraces above us (though we never did see the big cat who left footprints around our campsite).  Our first night, we camped on a wide sand bar on a bend in the river, and the second night we set up camp on top of a sandstone shelf which backed up to the red walls of the canyon.  It was beautiful.  And the sky was so dark and filled with stars- it was spectacular.  We could see the Milky Way as we sat around our campfire and cooked dinner.

There were only three short sections of the river which had rapids, all of which we passed through on the second day.  Josh and I managed to over-steer one of the rapids and turn ourselves sideways, which promptly flipped our kayak and sent us downriver.  Luckily, we had done a great job of tying down all of our gear, so we lost only our map book.  Two water bottles and a bag of wine (yes, we had a water bladder filled with wine) were knocked loose and got away from us, but Josh managed to swim downriver and save them.  I tell you, my boy's got his priorities straight... stay on shore and try to warm up and get your heartrate down after being thrown off your kayak and struggling to pull everything back to shore, or jump back in the cold and muddy river to save the wine?  He didn't even think twice.

I would absolutely go back and do this same trip again- it was a blast.  I think this could easily work as a two-day trip, and if you pushed it you could probably make the 26 miles all in one day.  That being said, our pace and timing seemed just about perfect, and aside from the water being too muddy to really want to swim in, I have zero complaints about anything.  Everything about this weekend was awesome.  Even the drive up to Utah was beautiful and interesting (we drove directly through Monument Valley).  At Mexican Hat, where we pulled out of the water, there's a little pizza restaurant at the top of the hill which we happily and hungrily visited as soon as we had everything packed up in the truck.  We were muddy and smelly, and nobody even looked at us twice.  It was wonderful.

And of course, there was red wine in a nalgene: