The last day started late. Marc and I had conserved our big breakfast of sausage, eggs slathered in more Nacho Cheese Dip, english muffins with apple butter, coffee and the rest of the juice. It took a long time to prepare it, eat it, and start breaking down. Group 2, on the other hand, packed up at the first thing and hauled ass. Thanks to the shade of the cottonwoods, the campsite didn't turn into a furnace by 9am, making it that much easier to dawdle.
As we were loading the canoes, the Centennial group invaded our site, asking if they could scout the rapids. Sure, no problem. They stomped through our site, which was only half-clean at that point. When they returned, a tall man dressed like a refugee from a Jimmy Buffet concert approached me and began berating me about the pile of shit they had apparently had to walk by on their way to scout the rapid. I had no idea what he was talking about, but apparently somebody in group one had been avoiding using the shit shovel for the past two nights. I should have been more forceful indoctrinating the group, but what are you going to do? Anyway, this guy was getting all excited and pompous about reaming me our for bad camping etiquette in front of his audience of dorks and geeks. He said he was going to tell the BLM at the takeout, and they were going to require me to produce the shit for them. Apparently he was expecting the BLM to convene a federal grand jury and investigate whether we'd packed out our shit or not. To be fair, the shit was really revoltingly close to the path, and the violator had left toilet paper and the roll lying out on the ground. Nasty. So I could understand him chewing us out, but his threat to tattle to the BLM was pretty pathetic, especially since I doubted there'd be a BLM guy hanging out at the scorching takeout just in case there were any fecal infractions to investigate. Someone heard him saying, "This is an example of how NOT to camp." He was obviously exercised about showing off his good camper etiquette to the Centennial people, but of course the difference is that we weren't traveling with an army of cooks, janitors, and babysitters,one of which which is basically what this guy was. Obviously he was fluffed up by "scouting the rapid," which was his way of letting his customers know that he was an expert, but the rapid was pretty pathetic and identical to the dozens we'd gone through before.
Fortunately, I knew the BLM regulations, and told him that we weren't required to pack our crap out, just bury it, so we weren't going to bring the shit downriver to show the BLM. This made him look a bit uninformed in front of his audience, which I enjoyed. I felt like pointing out that the people doing the most ecological impact, and annoying other users the most, was in fact Centennial, who drags enormous groups of yammering yuppies down every river in Colorado, seizing campsites like pirates and driving away any and all wildlife with ears. In fact, I was somewhat glad they had to put up with our unintentional unsightliness, as we had to put up with their quite intentional and profitable obnoxiousness.
I also wanted to point out that chemical toilets have more adverse environmental impact than human shit, which is as natural as the cow shit and deer shit that covered our campground. The process of producing and then disposing of the chemicals necessary to keep some thirty pounds of shit from stinking for 3 days is not an organic one. But that's another argument. We assured him that we'd clean it up, and Alicia did so, god bless her, even though it was technically my responsibility. Nobody has 'fessed up to date, but somebody owes Alicia a drink or five for that one.
So we got on the river a little irritated. Frankly, I was infuriated less at this guy than at whoever had set me up to get lectured by Marty the River Dick, as we dubbed him later. I'm a firm believer in leaving a site cleaner than when I found it, and so is everybody else in my group, obviously with one exception. Rrrr.
Anyway, the rest of the day was great, but we went slow. Centennial passed us on the way to the takeout, and they were obviously going to be dominating the takeout area for a while. So we pulled over and swam for a bit across the river from the dog people. The beer was gone and Marc was out of cigarettes and getting a bit cranky and it was time to go. When we got to the takeout, Centennial was ready to drive off, thank God. We started loading up the Subarus. Steve had misunderstood my instructions, which were unclear, and kept the straps for his canoe in their car, which was sitting at the put-in. I should have clarified that the point of keeping the straps in the car was to have them available at the takeout, therefore the shuttle car that returns to the putin should drop its straps in another car. We were so fried on the shuttle, it was perfectly understandeable that both Steve and I hadn't thought this the whole way through. Anyway, we had plenty of straps, so no harm done.
Most impressive was the maniac who strapped his canoe onto a Geo Metro. The canoe was bigger than the car was, and lord knows how the suspension handled the roads. This maniac was friendly and useful; he noticed that we had left a set of paddles on the bank, out of sight. Obviously we were distracted, but damn! I was getting sick of looking like a noob.
Everything after that was the usual post-trip sleepy, cranky haze. The car smelled terrible for some reason. Either one of us had stepped in something or something had spilled. Fortunately my nose was clogged with river boogers so I couldn't smell it, but Marc had to drive with the window down. Everybody got home safe and sound.
In summary, the White River was a great trip. Most of the crew apparently thought it was better than the Green; I have my reservations, because the Green is never as crowded as the White was that weekend.
Lessons learned:
