Here's Maria and Lara's tent after it sort-of survived an intense thunderstorm. They got up and moved it around, and propped it up with some folding chairs in the middle of the night. We had the most intense sound and light show I've heard in years at around 2:00 am.
Here's Lara, Brian, Liz, Ingrid, Jim C. and Dale, gathering for an excellent geology talk that's about to be given by Heath. We're standing on the site where we had cleared out the dead Tamarisk the previous afternoon. Behind Jim's shoulder is the pile at its new location, where it'll make a nice bonfire soon. Above Ingrid's head is the spot where the river enters the Gates of Lodore.
Heath's talk is educational and entertaining. We learn about the ancient Uintah basin, and the fact that we're on the the side of an anticline. The anticline causes the rocks to be tilted in this canyon, so as we go down the canyon, we'll go from the lowest (oldest) layers of rock to the highest (newest) ones.
Following are some miscellaneous pictures of us on the river.
Lara's holding a river birch which we'll plant at our first campsite. It makes for quite a "fern bar" atmosphere on our boat.
We stopped to look for ferns at a neat narrow side canyon called Winnie's Grotto. We had to do some minor scrambling over a boulder, which was fun. Once we got up over the boulder, we realized we'd have to come back. Jesse did an excellent job of guiding us back down.
We camped for the night at Pot Creek. We pulled a little bit of Tamarisk from the site, and also planted a few little river birch trees. There was a nice little swimming hole upstream from our campsite, which felt good after a long hot day.
Here are Andrew, Jaime, Lara, and Heath after pulling some Tamarisk.
Some folks stayed up late in a meadow to watch for wildlife. I think they only saw bats. I was too tired, and hit the sleeping bag early.
Our guides got out to scout a rapids called "Hell's Half Mile". They spent awhile studying at it, and discussing things. It turns out this section of the river was our most troublesome. Dale and Gary got thrown out of their boat, after being "high-sided" on a rock. Blair quickly and expertly pulls them back in, but somehow in the chaos, Dale has injured her finger and it starts swelling. Jesse's boat gets parked on some small rocks, and we all watch as Jaime and Andrew jump on the boat like a trampoline in an effort to dislodge themselves.
We survive Hell's Half Mile mostly intact.
As we're finishing dinner, yet another thunderstorm blows up. This one has lots of wind and rain that comes along with it. We all scatter to the shelter of our tents. I serenade folks from my tent with an attempted rendition of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head", played on the harmonica.
The rain stops fairly quickly, but most of us stay put in our tents. We're tired.