The White River

The raging White. A river tucked away in the desert plains of Utah. Wildlife abounds, including herds of wild horses. Suzy was hoping to see a giraffe, but no such luck ;) Carving through the landscape, the river spans approximately 195 miles in Colorado and Utah until it meets its confluence with the Green River. This is the raging White (not really raging at the time we traveled it) and we conquered it.

On the White River - Suzy wants me to point out that she does know how
to hold a paddle, she had just switched sides when I took the picture.

Well... only 35 miles of it. Or rather, we survived it as we decided to bring Zane with us. Or maybe I should say he survived us. Zane is not a confident swimmer and he is a very high energy dog. These two things combined means that he won't sit still in a canoe without continuous corrections and he doesn't like to swim next to the canoe or be too far away from us. It was a rough start, which we knew it would be the first time, but by the end we figured it out and can't wait to do it again.

We put in at the Bonanza Bridge launch point (about mile marker 59) on the
right side of the map and floated 35 miles to the Enron take out point

We dropped the truck and trailer off at the Enron take out.
The White River and the take out sign can be seen in the back.

Upon ditching the truck and trailer at the take out point, we had to navigate the Enron oil drilling operations in search of the secluded bonanza bridge. With the canoe loaded we set sail! I had read that water on the floor of a canoe can be uncomfortable for dogs so I had rigged up a deck for Zane to lie on. No lying happened. We learned that Zane really likes to try and eat the water. He would stand over it, hold his mouth open and then splash with his front paw and try to catch the water. It didn't take us long to realize that this activity was not ideal while in a canoe. He would dart back and forth trying to get the best angle of attack. It was actually quite entertaining to watch but we had to put a stop to it. Traveling at a rate of 1.74 nautical miles per hour (about 2 miles an hour), we arrived at our campsite between mile markers 51 and 50.

Zane kept himself entertained for almost three hours at the water's edge.

Our campsite - you are not allowed to camp on the tribal lands, so with the sun still in the sky we setup camp on the trial land outskirts. If we had decided to continue it would have been another three hours of travel before we could make it to the other side of the tribal land.

Moments before arriving at the campsite, Suzy's keen eyes spotted a herd of elk.

Bringing up the rear is a very large bull elk.

Other animals that we saw were wild horses on the way to the take out spot and while on the river Suzy, again with her keen eyes, had a bear encounter! Okay, actually she just found a bear print but still pretty cool. A surprising number of cattle were along the bank of the river. Zane liked to bark at them, which was actually the most barking we had ever heard from him. That night we again heard unnatural noises from Zane - steady continuous growling. We know not what scavenged about in the night, but we are grateful to God that no harm or accident came upon us or Zane.

It makes one a little nervous to know that there be bears about.
We had to bear proof our campsite by hanging our food up a tree.

As the sun raced towards its apex, the morning silence was shattered with the boom of a gun shot. I believe our bull elk friend is no more.

Just as with a typical race, the gun shot marked the beginning of our race as we had more than a marathon to travel and based on our superior speed the evening before we knew that a race it would be to arrive at the Enron take out before night fall.

We made it! And what a fantastic trip it was, if you are interested in embarking on a canoe camping trip let us know, we would love to join you. A brochure on the White River can be found here: Floating the White River, it was a life-saver for us.

There is more to the story, but you'll have to actually talk to us to find out about the broken trailer on the way home.