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Roy Webb on Kayaking Split Mountain Canyon on the Green River Split Mtn. Canyon has the greatest fall of any of the canyons of the Green, about 21feet/mile. It's the last canyon you pass on commercial trips down the Green through Lodore or the Yampa from Deer Lodge Park, through Dinosaur National Monument. It's also a pretty popular one-day trip, although since it's controlled by the NPS it rarely seems crowded. What's too bad about it is that since it's the last part of a multi-day trip, everyone is in a hurry to get to the boat ramp which is right at the mouth, de-rig and go on their way. But Split Mtn. is a beautiful canyon, white Weber sandstone walls that soar over the river, hot springs, big cottonwood trees, historic sites. It s the nicest one-day trip on the entire river and indeed, on the entire Green-Colorado system. I ve run it probably 75 times, and never tire of it. There are four named rapids, Moonshine, SOB, Schoolboy and Inglesby, At low water, though, which this was (about 2000 cfs) the whole canyon is one rapid/pool/riffle/rapid/pool, so it's a lot of work in a raft but a lot of fun in an IK. One particular trip, in 1993, I was along on a Hatch RivExp. day trip for a bunch of librarians; I know the Hatch folks real well so they let me tag along and use one of their Riken inflatable kayak, a double. I'm one of those large folks and a single seems on the verge of sinking. I like a double for the carrying capacity and stability (I said I liked to kayak, not that I was good at it). Turn it around, deflate the middle thwart and then sit in that like a saddle. My butt pushing out on the sides imparts the same rigidity the inflated thwart would. I never felt unstable the whole time. Maybe emotionally unstable, it's just so beautiful. I didn't even want to go at first, I was feeling an oncoming cold, my shoulder was a little sore, and the day before, while swimming at Placer Point (downstream from the mouth of Split Mountain, a perfect swimming hole, where we used to skinny dip when I worked there) I had watched mouth agape as a bullsnake nabbed a ground squirrel and squeezed it dead in about 10 seconds. Hmmm, is this a time to mess with nature? Why not? As good a time as any. Plus I had a wetsuit I'd just bought and wanted to try out, and my helmet. If I couldn't do it outfitted I shouldn't be there at all. Plus the Hatch folks had already dragged the boat out of the warehouse, I couldn't just send it back on the truck. So I suited up and paddled on down; it's about a mile from the ramp at Rainbow Park to Moonshine, and the entrance is dramatic; the huge fault lifting the layers of the earth above your head; just as you cross the fault you come to the head of Moonshine rapid, a sharp drop between two entrance holes, with reflex waves off the right side cliff. I've seen boats flip in those reflex waves, and in the two holes at the top, and then swim the rest of the rapid. Not this time, though, the Hatch boatmen were at the end of the season and could have done it asleep, and I had run this a zillion times. Rafted it many, many times in the last twenty years, and kayaked it a few. The sound and drop always make me pay attention though. Once past the top holes there are waves, smaller holes and exposed rocks; DeSpain Rock, where two guys drowned in 1962; the rock/hole I went into through sheer relief at making it through the top part during the big flood in '84, when this was running over 30,000 cfs (shouldn'a been there, I know, but I was young and foolish). Between Moonshine and SOB (so named 'cause there's no clear route through it) there's fast water, a shoal really, then the river makes a sharp left turn and you drop into the rapid, which S-turns back to the right against a cliff. SOB is the only place I've ever swam in Split Mtn., from an IK on a trip a few years ago. I think it's finally been pounded into my brain and shoulders and arms; start right, go center, go back rightrightright! So this time a great ride, playing in the warm waves. Relatively warm, by this time I was sold on the wetsuit; good purchase! I learned how it feels as the colder water finds its way into the previously dry part of the suit. Next is Schoolboy, named because although it looks tough it's easy enough for a schoolboy to run. (All these names come from the 30s and 40s, when the namers were indulging in the Moonshine produced just upstream). It's a fast approach through pretty big waves to a hard right turn against a cliff; just upstream the Hatch boatperson (too nice looking to be a boatman!) warned me about it; I thought "I was running this when you were in diapers, whippersnapper!" but of course only thanked her and reassured her I wouldn't go onto the wall. I'm sure she was tired of dragging enthusiastic clients out of the river; it had been a long season, so they said. I pointed away from the wall and paddled easily down the right; I'm sure it would be exciting but I can never erase the image of seeing the pillow against the cliff swallow an IK and two people like a kid slurping spaghetti. When was that, 1988? The woman popped out just below, after what must have been a very frightening underwater scrape against the wall, the man much farther down; when I pulled her into my raft and asked her why they had gone against the wall, she sputtered "I don't know but when I catch up to that asshole up there I'm gonna find out!" Lunch at the Hatch beach, by the huge cottonwood on the left. Likewise I eschewed the chance to go into the hole against the cliff on the right; this time it was the image of the snake and the squirrel. I didn't want to get out of my boat; as it was I floated around in the eddy in my life jacket, not wanting to leave the river. It always amazes me how many people go on river trips but won't have anything to do with the river itself. I love being in the water; one of the things I regret about the Grand Canyon is that you can't just float along in calm stretches, the water is just too cold. Just below is the hot spring; I paddled on ahead and lounged in there until the rafts went by. It's a tough landing for rafts, very shallow next to a small rapid. I knew they would stop at the swimming beach below Inglesby rapid, so I relaxed and admired the canyon walls, by this point over 2000 feet high, sculpted into sharp fins and points, the white sandstone stained with long streaks of desert varnish. Finally I realized I was enjoying myself way too much when there's a republican congress, so I paddled on to Inglesby. Named for an adventurous dentist who got thrown out of his boat in 1940, it's a big rock in the middle of the river. I thought about going right but couldn't see a route, so I took the usual left hand run and tried to get into the eddy below the rock. No luck, so I went on down to the rafts and spent the break giving rides to the kids on the trip--one of them, a little girl, is a 4th generation Hatch along for the day's ride. Dynasty. Below there the river starts a big swing to the left and the end of the canyon; the walls squeeze in and tower over you, smooth and polished. While I was playing in the wave trains down the right, I thought about the big cottonwood bottom on the left; over in the brush is the remains of a BurRec camp, or U.S. Reclamation Service then, in 1914. If anyone knows about it at all it s usually said to be an outlaw camp, and indeed, it might have been before or after 1914, but I know for sure the Bureau of Reclamation had a camp there. No one ever goes there; the boat ramp is right across and everyone is focused on that, reluctantly breaking the river connection and preparing to go back to everyday life. So no one stops in the big bottom on the left. I stopped there once on a private one-day trip just to poke around and see what there was, and discovered the remains of the camp. I never really knew what it was until I found an old photo of it in the library where I work one day; it was a camp to test for possible dam sites, and the photo shows tent cabins, a cook tent, a string of horses, a corral, and two long test pits, now overgrown with willows. The river is reclaiming it in its own way. So I smiled in my exclusive knowledge and paddled down to the boat ramp. I always think of a statement by Colin Fletcher; he said he always wanted to be the one coming out of the wilderness, rather than the one standing at the viewpoint looking into it. Roy
Webb,
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