Alright… Back to business.
Hehehe who am I kidding? You just wanna see some photos!
Well, here it is, a photo-journal of
my first Trip down the Yampa canyon through Dinosaur National Monument
yay!
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| My view from bed on the back of my raft at the Yampa Canyon put-in the night before we launched. Big bright moon, bright stars, the water cruising by underneath my tethered boat. Sounds really relaxing, right? It would have been had I not somehow set myself on a tilt all night. I felt like I was going to roll off the back of my boat, my co-workers woke to the sight of me with a cam strap seat belt around my sleeping bag! |
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| Entering the Yampa Canyon |
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| So I left this one really big so maybe you can see why i took a picture of rocks and shrubberies look closely! |
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| Lori Looking upstream from our first camp at Big Joe. Something interesting is happening… |
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| These crazy kids… running upstream… did you find them in the rocks n shrubs pic?? then they spend a couple hours trying to figure out how and if they can make it across the river. mind you, in this photo, you can only see about half the width. |
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| Looking downstream from camp at Big Joe |
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| Looking toward the canyon walls river right, behind camp |
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| The amazing number of natural amphitheaters in the canyon… the echos you can play with are awesome. |
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| We took a Hike up to Wagonwheel Point (rock?) Anyway, a decent hike, with a pretty solid climb in altitude. Desert flowers growing along the way, one of these was looking kind of wilty so i shared a splash from my camelback On the way back down, it had perked right back up. |
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| Looking back out toward the river, about 1/3 of the way up the canyon. |
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| No tweaking of colors at all on this shot, these contrasts come out exactly as they were. The changes in the color of the rock and sand as we hiked was like living in a fantasy world. |
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| This pretty cactus was loving the hot, sunny weather much more than I. Playing with depth of field is fun… especially when the shots come out so well without needing to crop anything! |
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| Looking down to where we had come from. That hike is no joke! on a side note: I don’t know if I inadvertently changed the setting on my camera, but I love the painterly quality that this photo took on. |
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| Some of our kids enjoying the view and the cool breeze, now that we’ve reached the top We had a really great group for my first Yampa trip. Outdoor Rec majors from Colorado Western Unversity taking a course called “water based” Learning what it’s like to be a river guide… they actually split into groups and did all of the cooking and grunt work all week, it was fantastic! |
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| The little guy I shared my clifftop shady spot with |
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| Chillin in the shade, enjoying the view from Wagonwheel. |
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| Panoramic shot from the top… if you look really close river left, bottom left of the photo, you can see tiny blue dots, those are our boats. |
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| Hello undercut! looking back upstream. I was on top of that mountain a little while ago! |
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| I seem to have the habit of attracting foam in the eddies each night. |
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| Looking upstream from halfway down Warmsprings rapid where we stopped to scout. At high water, I’m told this rapid is really formidable, the mantra, “rig to flip, dress to swim” was mentioned However, while fun, this rapid at 3000cfs, not so scary… …so long as you don’t drop the pour-over, left of center, or pin on a big rock. |
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| Early morning moon set over camp as the sunlight encroaches. |
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| Self Portrait… |
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| Steamboat Rock and Echo Park, at the confluence of the Yampa and the Green We pulled over on a beach near the rock for a drum circle and some fun with echos. |
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| The Confluence! can you tell which river is which?? Why do they call it the Green, I wonder? |
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Coming into some of the Lodore formations, (the purpleish rocks on the left)
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| Lodore Formations a little closer up |
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| Exiting the Yampa Canyon, entering the long meandering Island Park last day. |
Well that’s what i have for pictures, this go-’round,
but I assure there shall be more as the summer goes on!
I still have the 4 day Gates of Lodore trip to experience, and well, I’ll be doing both trips often enough!
There were so many things I wish I’d had my camera for this trip tho, like the last night, when we did shadow puppets on the cliff wall across the river! or the Extreme screepile Bocceball when the green ball hit a rock and exploded! yes, a memorable trip it was.
Admittedly, I felt a bit of a brat through part of the trip.
There is a LOT of flat water, and I had let myself come in with the expectations of challenging whitewater, so I did get a little disappointed.
But the more I look through my photos, the less it bothers me. I will have my challenges, there’s always Gauley season in September!
Anyhoo… next trip is on the 25th, until then, it’s fun with power tools!
Matt and I are retrofitting and rebuilding some oar rigs so we have shiny new-ish equipment to work with all summer!
Maybe I’ll be a photo-nerd and take some pics while we’re doing that too…
