The first day started out fairly well. Last minute group checks had all come out positive, and I didn't have that usual nagging suspicion I usually have at the beginning of these trips, that I'd forgotten something critical. I suspected that we had too much beer, as usual, but I knew Marc wouldn't complain. And this was the best-documented trip I'd ever run. Everyone had directions to everything. At 7am we ran to the gas station and got on the road. Everyone else was heading out of Boulder instead of Fort Collins; we'd meet them at the put-in. And for the first time, we didn't have to deal with canoe rental. Marc, god bless him, had purchased a beautiful 17+ foot canoe with beer coozies built into the gunnals and a special rack to hold it, meaning that once set up, taking the canoe on and off takes about five minutes. No more anxiously watching the nose of the canoe vibrate up and down and wondering whether the thing was about to fly off and take out the minivan full of toddlers behind us.
The road was long and beautiful. Mapquest recommended that we take I-70 to Rangely, but Mapquest is full of shit most of the time, so I ignored it. Also, Marc and I are well sick of I-70. And we wanted to skip the weekend traffic and that we most assuredly did.
Marc drove up the Poudre Canyon and across the plateau to Walden, through enormous, verdant valleys speckled with antelope and cattle and horses with long elegant necks, and most amazing of all, enormous puddles of standing water that caught and reflected the mountains. As we drove past one ranch we saw a cowboy languidly lasso a calf. The tone, it seemed, had been well set.
We passed through an exquisite little town named Hayden, demurely bunted up with American flags for Memorial Day. We entered the Yampa river valley, passing through Steamboat Springs on the way to Craig. At Craig I made a navigational mistake, rejecting Mapquest's advice and inadvertently adding about 14 miles to our drive. At that point we were already going to be late by about half an hour and this tacked on more. We also made the mistake of ordering Taco Bell from the Slowest Taco Bell in the Known Universe.
We got into Rangely around 1pm, an hour late. Then we missed the turnoff to Rio Blanco County Road 2, partly because the road is actually called "River Road" and partly because we were so horrified by Rangely that we didn't notice that we'd crossed the White River and missed the turn. Rangely's city council came up with a nifty slogan to describe Rangely. "Welcome to Rangely," say the signs, "A Great Place to Live." Well, I dunno about the people who live there, but italicizing "Great" didn't really distract me from the fact that the town of Rangely is largely composed of trash, oil wells, tractors, and dust. It was one of the ugliest towns I've ever seen in my lives.
Anyway, we finally found the put-in, and that only because I could see the cars. The put-in at mile 84 is in no way marked, and the little road leading to the river is so small and difficult to notice that we missed the turn to it more than once, even after we knew where it was. The whole crowd was waiting for me, and I was embarassed since as the River Nazi I'm supposed to be punctual and whatnot, but everyone was gentle. We hurled everything out of the car and started the shuttle.
The shuttle was hellish. I was already flustered because we were late starting it. On the BLM pamphlet map, it's fairly straightforward, but on the real map you can see the area is networked with oil well access roads. It wasn't clear what was marked and what wasn't. Short on confidence that the turnoffs would be indicated by signs, and leery of overshooting, I undershot, turning too early and taking the shuttle caravan down to two separate dead ends. We turned back, and eventually found the turnoff, marked clear as day "Enron Takeout." From then on it was easy, but we'd wasted yet another hour. We got back to the put in around 5:30pm and launched almost immediately. We had to get at least 9 miles by sunset to camp in public land and I had no idea how fast we'd go. I was also worried about possible riffles, rapids, and people getting smacked into the bank and flipping, since the White meanders into consistently sharp turns for this portion . . . but it was pretty mellow and everyone did fine, more or less, and I concluded it might be advisable to crack a beer, so I did so. The built-in beer coozie, set up on a little swingarm, was unspillable. And I wasn't in a car anymore. Ahhh.
I'd been concerned that by putting in above the canyon, we'd be subjected to further Rangely-style unsightlyness. What I discovered was that the part of Rangely that runs along the river is fairly nice and green. Lots of fenced private land but the wildlife came out for us in the twilight. And frankly, I'm easily amused by livestock as well, so I don't mind seeing horses, cows, llamas, goats and sheep alongside the river, nor did they mind seeing us. A llama trotted up to the fence and eyed us in such a curious, friendly fashion that I waited for him to ask for a light. The highlight came when we came around a corner and heard a bizarre squalling. I saw a bushy tail disappearing into the cover of the bank, but the noise continued. Marc and I were about five feet off the bank when we saw four fox kits fighting over a rabbit leg right on the bank side. They were so infuriated that they didn't even notice us, like Democrat presidential candidates. We passed a wary mule deer who started when I went for my camera. And lots of cormorants, geese, and duck families who dove when we approached. We passed a bunch of kids jumping off a rock.
We passed a large island with a strainer in the center and heard Steve and Patrick's canoe making loud "Fuck! Fuck!"-ing sounds as they tried to make the turn. At this, a large adult fox broke from cover on the island and vaulted into the river like a gymnast right in front of Marc and I. We watched him make his way to the opposite bank. We turned back around, saw a perfect place to pull up our boats, and camped in a large field with a couple of cottonwoods and a perfectly camouflaged quail, whom we startled when scouting tent sites. There was a large abandoned shack on a ridge north of our site, and upon review it's possible we camped in private land, but it was also clearly unused and we were out of light and some folks needed a rest. So we set up camp under a cottonwood grove and waited for the stars to come out.
Unlike Group 2, who tried the same trick that night around mile 56, we did not receive a late night visit from an irate owner, and the stars came out on schedule and the night quiet was punctuated only by the crack of beers, the crackle of logs, and Katrin cackling happily about this and that. Patrick T and Alicia fried up a massively healthy meal of salmon and salad, sloshed down with white wine. Marc and I had filet mignon, delicious corn, and a cold Rioja. Derek and Katrin had some sort of freezedried thingey I think, and Steve and Patrick gnawed on human ears.
