San Juan River Dec 30-31

In some ways this little mid-winter Southwest trip was building to one question: would we be so bold to try to packraft the San Juan River? Our trip had been successful so far and we had been managing the sub-zero temperatures effectively from the psychological safety of the rooftop tent. If we were able to pull it off we would partially redeem the trauma We had the permit and the car shuttle arranged and now just needed to pack and do it. We certainly wanted to cover the 27 miles in less than a day and a half. With the cold hours at the start and end of the short days I did have some concerns that we could cover the 27 miles from Sand Island to Mexican Hat in less than a day and a half. If we could only make 2 mph of progress this was going to be a rough trip; I hoped (and frankly bet on) us being able to average 3-4 mph. 

Unsurprisingly we conveniently had the whole giant concrete launch ramp all to ourselves to spread out and get organized. We were ready to go at 10:30am but our shuttle driver was running a little late and so we started behind schedule, finally pushing past the frozen shore into the current closer to 11:15am. I had minor panic set in as I took my first paddle strokes on the San Juan and realized the considerable paddling resistance we felt plowing into and over the river's many slushbergs. It felt like we were resistance training. We did our best to keep a steady pace and I consulted my GPS tracker frequently at the start. The first mile took us 15 minutes, we reached the second mile at 30 minutes, we reached 4 miles at an hour. There was no guarantee the pace would continue but for the start of the trip I was relieved to see that we were making 4 mph. We past under the Hwy 191 bridge and swept underneath some cross-bedded sandstone cliffs before the river drifted us back towards the mouth of Butler Wash. We soon realized that the slushbergs were typically denser in the main flow of the river and so would often choose to paddle the slower currents and eddies for progress. We certainly did not have time for all the stops I would otherwise hope to do but I gambled a quick 10 minutes to quickly take photos of some of the petroglyphs on the canyon wall just upstream of Butler Wash before jumping back into my boat.

Shortly downstream of Butler Wash Heather and I got out at the obvious landing for the Kachina Panel petroglyphs. Here too we only had a brief look. The main panel was remarkably intricate and detailed. There were 8 or so large humanoid figures laid out on a roughly even plane with details suggesting ornate headdresses, necklaces, chest plates, and belts. Surrounding these were a dense collage of smaller patterns, humans, and animals against a dark patina. I would have loved to dwell here long to absorb the details but as it was I have probably already had a better look after from the photos I took. 

From Kachina we paddled on another couple miles until we spotted the landing beach for River House Ruins, which I considered a must stop. The landing had a sandbar upstream, creating calm waters that armored the shore in ice up to three inches thick that extended out into the river at least 10 ft. Piece by piece I icebroke with my paddle to inch our way to shore. It was very silly and probably the crux of the trip. I ended up putting some solid dents in my paddle blades but eventually we reached the shore. Heather and I both quickly grabbed some food to shove down our throats while walking the sandy quarter-mile to River House Ruin, one of the best ruin complexes in this area. The ruins featured a dozen or more rooms including rectangular, round, and two-storied, and some sizable multi-colored pictographs watch over the ruins on the alcove ceiling above. By all appearances it seems like it would have been a tidy home, presumably with a nice view over cornfields on the river flats and the river beyond.

It was almost 2pm by the time we put back on to the water so the pressure was on to power through 2-3 more hours of paddling and see where that got us. Leaving River House we left the sandstone and entered the anticline of the Monument Upwarp. We past the mouth of Chinle Creek and the Mule Ear Diatreme on our left and steep dip-slopes of red-brown Halgaito Formation on our right before cutting into the shale, sandstone, and cherty limestone of the Honaker Trail Formation and Paradox Formation that defined the main walls of the river canyon. Intermittently we would spot a bald eagle before it would fly further down the canyon and we would meet it again. We actually saw quite a lot of bird life as well as cattle, burros, and even a beaver. Thankfully our nearly 4mph pace continued. The shadows grew longer and shorter such that our pace naturally slowed a gear when we hit a patch of sun. We were mostly able to manage our temperatures but our feet certainly had the weakest resistance to the cold. Right about at the deepest point in the uplift vertical limestone walls gave an inner gorge feel to the canyon. 

Near the end of our day we reached Eight-Foot Rapid, one of the two named rapids on the run. Though it was really more of a read-and-run riffle with a couple rocks to avoid at this low 530 cfs flow, Heather was determined not to get wet or worse swim this late in the day and so I paddled through the rapid and then shuttled her packraft through after. She was able to get a few photos of me in action. 

Eight-Foot Rapid

After passing through Eight-Foot Rapid it was pretty much spot on 5pm so we pulled into the excellent beach a short distance below and readied ourselves for camp as efficiently as possible. As the last of the sunlight climbed the opposing canyon wall, we deliberated a bit before choosing a spot for the tent on a raised sandy terrace above the beach level, psychologically (and maybe actually) several degrees warmer than near the river. Once out of our drysuits and into our many camp layers we were comfortably warm. I burned a "campfire" candle I got Heather as a stocking stuffer that put out a pleasant amount of heat for the low effort. As could be anticipated we turned in quite early. In our limited active hours between 11am and 5pm we managed to take in two petroglyph sites, River House Ruins, pass one of the two named rapids, and paddle 18 miles to leave us with only 9 miles to go the next day, which I was satisfied with and proud of. If we played our cards right it seemed like we could even get off the river in time to marathon drive back to be cozy in a warm bed before the new year strikes.

We got up and moving around 8am but it was closer to 9:30am when the first tasty rays of sunlight hit us and allowed us to melt the tent a bit. We hit the water around 10:30am. It was immediately noticeable that this spot had much thicker slushberg fields than the previous day and the air temperature seemed to be colder than the previous morning. Later I would find out from Jeff that this part of the San Juan can have ice jams in mid-January! I did not see any mention in our permit but we soon came upon a sign saying no camping between Eight-Foot Rapid and Ledge Rapid 2 miles downstream to protect bighorn sheep habitat so this further reinforced that we had picked the perfect campspot for our overnight. The two miles past and we approached Ledge Rapid which Heather also wished to portage. Because of the thick shore ice here we had to enter a small river channel then strategically get out on a spot with rocks. This was an awkward spot to get back into the current and so we portaged her boat and then I awkwardly carried my boat upstream over the shelf ice then ran the small rapid. Downstream of the rapid was the thickest accumulation of ice that we saw on our trip. 

Ledge Rapid

With Ledge Rapid behind us we had a little more than a mile to go to exit the tall uplift canyon and then some large swooping river bends through an open syncline and more Halgaito Formation. For such a short run there really was a solid variety of scenery. 

Leaving the folded rocks of the Monument Uplift behind us

Through the longest bend we could spot the unmistakable landmark of Mexican Hat Rock. We had one more bend in the river (it felt like the longest as it often goes) and then the Mexican Hat take-out ramp came into sight. 

We were ecstatic to find that the rafting group that must have taken out earlier in the day had done the hard work of icebreaking us a clear path to the shore and then also to see our vehicle safely got shuttled. We arrived a little after 1pm. We carried our boats over to the picnic tables and collapsed gear as efficiently as we could. Next was lots of tag-team driving, two courses of pizza at Fratelli Pizza in Flagstaff, and then onward to arrive home before midnight! The San Juan river trip was a most satisfying end to a great (if cold) getaway and year. Though we had no wind or rain or sleet or hard whitewater (or frozen solid river!) to add up to an epic trip, I was and still am proud of us for going through with it and being the last two brave souls on the San Juan River in 2023.

Natural Bridges NM Dec 28-29

For all the world-famous national parks on the Colorado Plateau, Natural Bridges National Monument quietly has some of the best natural and cultural features around. This small canyon network on the north side of Cedar Mesa is completely landlocked by the much larger and much newer Bears Ears National Monument. Despite driving past the turnoff plenty of times before, I first visited Natural Bridges over Thanksgiving 2021 during which I did a 6.5mi/2.5hr hike through the three namesake natural bridges. The bridges are great and each different in their own way but what was unexpected was the high density of ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs, pictographs, and cliff ruins I stumbled on along the hike, some in some hard to reach nooks and crannies. Further research after this trip revealed many other excellent petroglyphs, pictographs, and cliff ruins that I had missed and so I knew I wanted to go back. I even came up with an ambitious hike that involved rappeling into a canyon just outside of the monument and then proceeding down the canyon to avoid an out-and-back hike but this was quickly abandoned due to shuttle logistics, cold temperatures, excess weight, and short days. 

We awoke in the campground from perhaps the coldest night of our mid-winter trip (or at least the thickest ice development in the tent and the most frozen water). Relatedly we were slow to get going and when we did we opted for a less ambitious out-and-back hike from the Sipapu Bridge trailhead. Down we went into the cold shadows, careful to keep our hands in our pocket and off the cold handrails and ladders as much as possible. We walked the short detour out the halfway ledge for a view of the bridge from above before continuing down. Hiking through the bridge, we worked our way along the overgrown trail up the main branch of White Canyon. 

Sipapu Bridge view (and below)

The canyon was cool in the shadows with hoarfrost coating the leaves and twigs along the ground in a twinkling mat of clear white crystals. As we made our way up the sinuous canyon we had to frequently cross back and forth across the partially frozen creek at the bottom to maintain dry feet. About a half-mile up from Sipapu was the first of four ruin areas we would visit on our first hike. I slab climbed up to a prominent ledge where there were several nice roofless ruins. It was not until I was up here that I could spot the petroglyphs painted on the canyon wall below and some more ruins including one with the distinctive T-shaped doors sometimes seen on Cedar Mesa.

Another mile or so of frozen creek dodging led us to the second ruin area. This one mysteriously had some apparently very well preserved ruins built into a spacious alcove above a 20-30 ft sheer rock face. I could not see the canyon wall changing very much here and so suspect this site would have only been accessible by ladders. A couple hundred feet past these inaccessible ruins was another cluster of accessible ones including well preserved roofs at ground level and a pair of granaries nicely built into the overhang. The overhang nearby had a nice wall of about a hundred red-outlined hand paintings; my favorite part of this wall was how the hands got bigger the higher you went up the wall with a cluster a few feet off the ground clearly belonging to small kids.

Past a prominent bouldery rockfall area requiring extra care around the deep semi-frozen pools, we detoured slightly to check out a frozen dryfall and its plunge pool. It looked like it would make a nice ice skating rink. We continued over a mile to our next cluster of ruins. This was a particularly nice section of canyon with easier travel on bedrock patio benches instead of trails through vegetation. Along the way I enjoyed the many intricate patterns of frozen crystalline water.

This third area was probably my favorite with an assortment of well-preserved ruins including two double decker granaries right next to each other. These had nicely constructed entrances and one still had its carved stone door mostly intact. I spent quite a bit of time photographing the ruins here from every conceivable angle and even tried lidar scanning with my phone with fairly satisfactory results. 

The day was getting on and we had a way to go to get back to the car and so Heather decided to wait in the sun while I had a quick half-mile run up to the fourth ruin area I wanted to check out. This had two kivas that did not seem to be nearly as well preserved or photogenic as the other groupings and so my visit was brief. Once reunited we sped our way downcanyon, noting that the creek ice had started to melt in a few places. We made it back to the car with daylight to spare and then looped around to snag our same campsite in the most empty campground.

The night and morning felt warmer than the previous one, even if only psychologically, giving me the fuel to suggest that gearing up for a San Juan River trip might not be a completely absurd suggestion. We opted to do one more short hike in the vicinity of Kachina Bridge and so drove on to that trailhead once sufficiently defrosted. 

Trailhead view: subtle ruins in the shadows at right

Partway to the bridge we followed an unofficial trail along a bench network out to a prominent gooseneck peninsula. On the way we poked over to an interesting archway, then hiked out to the end of the peninsula for a novel view of Kachina Bridge below. The ruins were on the next ledge network above us and so we spent some time searching for the best way to climb up a level. I eventually did a slabby traverse to a mantle move that got me up and then looked around for other options. Heather ended up doing a face climb to get up and then afterwards we both found a much easier way for us both to get down later utilizing a well positioned pinon pine. Once on the Ruin Rock ledge we had a lot of things to see. We hiked out to the narrowest part of the gooseneck for panoramic views. We admired the extensive wall of creative petroglyphs from below, marveling both at the creativity of them and the difficulty required to reach them. We then had a detailed look at the three main ruin areas, the structures furthest out being my favorite, two adjoining granaries expertly built into the rock of the overhang, one with a well constructed roof. For the heck of it we then traced the ledge all the way around in a loop, not lingering very long in the dark, cold shadows but enjoying the views from this island-like perch. We then climbed down the pinon tree and returned back to the trail, continuing down to Kachina Bridge, the chunkiest one of the three.

On the peninsula looking towards Ruin Rock

On my last hike I moved quite quickly through the Kachina Bridge area. This time more leisurely I noticed much more detail including a collection of petroglyphs on the east side and some faint pictographs on the west side. Beneath the archway were thick slabs of a frozen pond; the urge was too great and I grabbed one to break over a rock, with an echoing glass shatter ringing around the canyon.

Subtly hidden behind some boulders nearby was a trail that led into an alcove with several unique ruins and a great collection of pictographs and petroglyphs (that I also missed on my last hike). The standout feature was the circular ruin with painted figures and an intricate mud streak on the cliff behind. Another favorite feature was the granary built into a couple large boulders. Some of the painted hand prints here had swirling patterns painted on the palm, almost resembling the swirl of fingerprints. After we explored the features here we hiked back up to the car. Once again I was impressed at the variety of features and views we got from a short 2.5 mile hike.

We exited the monument and drove down the Moki Dugway, always an exciting drive for a stretch of state highway, and on to Mexican Hat. At the boat ramp we confirmed there was plenty of slushy ice floating in the San Juan, much like there was around Thanksgiving a year ago. We then drove out of town past Mexican Hat Rock to the first pullout with reception. Rather incredibly in the short time before the BLM Monticello office closed I managed to get us a San Juan River permit (clearly we would be the last people on the river in 2023) and then shortly after to arrange a car shuttle. We were on for the San Juan! We found a camping spot at Sand Island campground and started to get organized for the overnight river trip the following day. We were more than a little curious as to what we were getting ourselves into, especially as the gear I had laid out developed a layer of frost almost immediately after the sun went down!