Rafting the Green River through Desolation Canyon
After rafting the Yampa in June, we knew we'd experienced a once-in-a-lifetime kinda trip. We never expected to have two in one summer. When we got an invite to raft Desolation Canyon over Labor Day weekend, we jumped at the opportunity.
The trip started on Jack's birthday: Thursday, August 28th. We drove from Denver to Green River, Utah the night before, and had some adventures along the way. As we were heading down Vail Pass, our trailer started to swing from side to side, almost whiplashing us off the road. We quickly slowed down and didn't go over 65 MPH for the rest of the trip. I figured this was caused by the rear spring spacers we added to the Syncro. The heightened rear caused the raft trailer to be out of balance, and we needed a new hitch to drop it down.
We arrived around 1:30am, popped the top on our camper and went to sleep. The next morning, we woke up and met some of our fellow floaters for the first time. An hour later, were were getting ready to leave and I was inspecting our trailer. That's when I noticed one of the wheels was about to fall off. The bearings were shot and the wheel was barely hanging on.
Luckily, one of the guys we just met had replaced all his trailer's bearings the week before and was on it. He knew exactly what to do and went to work. There was a Napa Auto Parts store a mile away. Two hours and several trips to Napa later, we were back in business and on the road.
We celebrated Jack's 10th birthday while driving to the put in, opening presents and having a good ol' time. We also had some cupcakes to celebrate with everyone once we arrived. Jack was especially pumped for the huckleberries my Mom overnighted.
We launched with five families total, 10 adults and 10 kids. We had five rafts, a duckey, an inner tube and two motors to get us through the flat water. We didn't get on the river until 6pm that first day, and only made it seven miles before dark.
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