Dirty Devil Packraft Loop

After floating the Dirty Devil, Justin put his energy towards preserving our experience for posterity with a video. Within the week, the video below was making us laugh and smile.

It is pretty awesome having friends who are game to head out on a packraft trip with less than two weeks warning. Also, we didn't really decide we were going until about 48 hours before. We watched the gauge in Hanksville hover near the lower end of recommended flows for packrafting. Eventually we decided that whatever challenges appeared would be worth it and decided to go. Good choice.

This was another trip that is hard to imagine going any better. There are a hundred things we thought might possible go wrong. And none did. Also, the weather was pretty good.

Nice day on the river.

We headed down on Good Friday night after work and got to Poison Springs Wash Rd around 8 PM. There was talk of some people making camp while others set up the shuttle at the takeout near where the Dirty Devil flows into Lake Powell. However Justin convinced Julia and Katie it would be worthwhile to stay together and do the entire loop human powered so we dropped some heavy things at Poison Springs Wash and took off towards the take out.

Gear shuffle.

We parked the truck near Lake Powell and started biking the 26 miles back to Poison Springs Wash in the dark. Everyone was glad to bike together. Headlamps were optional. During the first half of the bike ride the stars were extraordinary. During the second half the moon rose and lit up the desert, making headlamps completely unnecessary.

In the morning we packed everything on our bikes and headed about 16 miles down the wash towards the Dirty Devil. I was fighting many thoughts about what might go wrong. But it turns out it was just a spectacular bike ride.

Hastily packing up for the bike.

Oh hello there. Hope you stayed warm last night.

Henry Mountains from camp.

A good representation of Poison Springs Wash Road.

We got to the river and found that it was certainly floatable so we loaded up the butt boats and headed down the canyon. We were concerned about being too cold and brought wet/dry suits for everyone. The photo above of Justin's boat indicates how overly prepared we were. Turns out cold temperatures weren't a problem. We started out the day in shorts and t-shirts and stayed comfortable whenever the sun shone down into the canyon.

Bikeraft transition chaos.

Standard beauty on the Dirty Devil.

We weren't too bothered by the relaxed pace.

Hot dang! Rapids, kind of.

We found a very pleasant campsite on a sand bar for the second night of camping. The sound of the river was wonderful. Also we kept our shelter door open and fell asleep with our heads outside, looking up at the stars.

Camp on Easter morning.

View of the moon setting from camp.

Boat loaded up and ready to launch.

Shirtless packrafting isn't half bad.

Safe to say Julia was enjoying herself at this point. 

Slot canyon of the Dirty Devil.

One of the larger canyon walls we passed.

Wonderful overhangs provided regular shade.

Enjoying another overhang.

The afternoon brought quite a bit of excitement. Justin's video captures that excitement very well. In fact, when we watched his final product I felt a hint of the kind of happiness I had while out biking, floating, and sleeping under the stars. Well done.

Anyway, in trying to convince Julia that bikerafting the Dirty Devil was a good idea I found this website that shows some guys going through a rapid. Clearly staying to the left to avoid smacking into the rock wall is the best approach. I mentioned this to the group about 30 times because I was kind of excited for this part of the adventure.

Well, we found the rapids. And I decided to stay to the left. And I hit a rock and flipped over. I had not yet installed thigh straps in my boat and I understand that rolling with 70 lbs strapped to the front is difficult. So I calmly and gracefully slid into the water and held on to my boat and paddle. Eventually I was able to push off the rock and wander back to shore without injury. Justin kindly jumped in and grabbed a dry bag that was not adequately secured to the raft. I still need lots of practice on identifying obstacles in whitewater. Better get on that.

Everyone else got through without flipping. Justin and Julia got acquainted with the wall while still inside their boats. I was very impressed with Julia. Just before she made her run Justin reminded her that if she found herself trapped against the wall to lean towards it rather than away from it. She ended up getting stuck there for a few agonizing seconds. For a moment it looked like she was going over as her boat completely filled with water. But she remembered which way to lean and eventually she was able to break out of the current's grasp. Packrafts are difficult to sink. By the end of her experience in the rapid, Julia was sitting in a bathtub full to the brim.

Katie had the most successful run. She was motivated by having the nicest bike of the crew. I'm not sure her bike frame even touched the rock. All in all, the rapid was really fun, as evidenced in the video.

The rest of the day was spent meandering down through the canyon. It was spectacular. Thankfully flows stayed above 100 cfs and we only had to drag boats 8 or 10 times. We all got tans and experimented with different ways to sit and paddle in a packraft. This was somewhat liberating. In Alaska it seemed like there were two options on long floats: under the spray skirt or hypothermia. I suppose hypothermia is always an option.

Justin demonstrating the "I-have-a-bike-and-40-lbs-of-stuff-
piled-on-my-raft" paddling position. Hypothermia was not
a concern on this day.

Oh hey. Take out coming up.

More bikerafting transition chaos. Nobody got stuck in the
mud but it was an option.

Not sure why we are getting out. Lake Powell offers some
spectacular bikerafting recreation as well. 

When it came down to it, we biked about 40 miles, floated about 30, and enjoyed an extraordinary canyon. And all of this was a four hour drive from home and pretty easy to pull off on an average weekend.

Happy to have friends to share it with. Katie and Justin also did a great job of helping me and Julia stop thinking about how to manage potential disasters and just have fun. So much so that Julia looks back on the trip and thinks something to the effect of "that was awesome." I am glad she thinks so. I couldn't agree more.