In The Shadow of Longs Peak
Monday, 03 July 2017
I was up early as I had harped (& harped & harped) or so I thought about the wind coming up later in the day and how important it was to get an early start.
Hark! A voice across the lake (which is not too wide here) is calling for help. I am ready first so paddle across. They are the stranded boaters. They mention that they do have boiled water but no spare food. More importantly, there are no injuries nor health issues.
But this time, Harold, Sandy and Gary have arrived. The decision was that 2 should stay and help, the other 2 should head toward Firehole with the intention of raising the alarm that there is a disabled boat with passengers. Within minutes of heading toward Firehole a powerboat is headed our way. We flag it down with our paddles. They are out looking for the lost boat.
After an hour or so, the others catch up and we are underway, about 90 minutes later than planned.
Toward the end of the day, we paddle to the Lost Dog put in and paddle about 3 miles or so further up the Black Fork’s arm. The wind had come up. As we rounded the bend of a beautiful bench; the wind seemed to increase so we turned around and setup camp.
Flaming Gorge Reservoir
4th of July 2017
Saturday, 01 July 2017
Another Flaming Gorge 4th of July outing! This was a Rocky Mountain Sea Kayak trip with Harold and his wife Sandy joining us.
We left Longmont just after 12 noon and rolled into Green River at about 5:30. We generally estimate 5 ½ to 6 hours for the drive, so this is just right. This year we went up highway 287 instead of I-25. Lots of weekend traffic going thru Loveland and Fort Collins but not much once we were on the north side of the Fort.
Once in Green River we went down and checked out the put-in. The flow this year is about 3 times what it was last year but still seems very doable. We head for our bivy spot, this time going down the Lost Dog Road a bit, then a left, then right, in all less than 3 miles to a spot that would be easy to pull out of. Both were definite 2 tracks but we did not have the nice views of the lakes as we did in other years along road 11. We set up our tarps & bivy sacks & sleeping bags. There is a breeze all evening which kept the mosquitoes away. I sleep well though it seemed to have gotten way too warm at some point but it was chilly by morning which was surprising.
Sunday, 02 July 2017
We had a drive by breakfast from McDonalds and were at the put-in before 8 am. We unloaded and packed and Gary & Harold did the shuttle. Harold then left his car at Smith’s Grocery as recommended by a local guy who was at the put-in testing his outboard motor.
The flow was at 10,000 cfs, a nice float!
Tonight’s camp spot was at the ‘S’ in Whi’s’key Bend on the map on the west side of the lake and below Boat Bottom. Gary’s comment: “the sun will hit our tents early”.
After dark, a boat came by looking for another boat that has not returned to their camp at the Firehole Access. We were not up but could hear Harold & Sandy talking. I knew there was a power boat or 2 that passed us as we paddled down last, but I did not pay enough attention to track how many up…how many down.
Tuesday, 04 July 2017
Tuesday again was windless, the water again like glass. We are underway before long, making a stop at Lost Dog. Outhouses are a wonderful invention! After a couple of hours paddling, we are past Buckboard and stopped for lunch until the wind came up. We continued to make our way along the east side of the lake but soon the beach gave way to cliffs. We wander into a very cool cove but the camping was fairly marginal so we continued down lake. It did not seem like we would run out of cliff anytime soon so we crossed the lake into the wind (which has decreased just a bit) toward a long shore lined with tamarisk.
There was not an abundance of flat spots and Gary walked a long way to find one. I stay in the boat, paddling along, then return to fetch his boat and haul it across the inlet to our home for the evening. Fireworks abounded thru the evening but we could only hear them…no sparkles could be seen.
Wednesday, 05 July 2017
We paddled to the Brinegar put-in in the morning in about an hour or so. Overall, this was a nice excursion.
Possible next paddles:
(1) Park at Buckboard and paddle up the Black’s Fork Arm (at least as far as the camp for this outing). Spend 2 nights in the same camp with a day to paddle up Blacks Fork Arm into the delta. The water level at Labor Day seems higher than at the 4th of July, so this would be a better Labor Day outing
(2) Explore the areas on the east side, south from Brinegar, also north from Brinegar (we missed a whole section this time). Also, we were not always on the west side between Buckboard and Brinegar)