We ran the Gates of Lodore section Green River in Dinosaur National Monument between June 21 and June 25, 2010 on a permit obtained by Pete Whiteis. The crew was Pete, Jenn, and Phil Whiteis, Ron Thomas, Janet Brook, Lamar, Jeremy, and Ben Baggett, Kathleen Hodgkinson, Cassie Parker, Pat Palmer, and Craig Walker. We had Ron and my (Craig) big AIRE catarafts, Ron's Infinicat, Pete's new Jacks Plastic Welding Culebra Grande and Kathleen's Tributary inflatable kayak.

All photos were taken with my Pentax K10D and various lenses. Postprocessing from the raw files was done in the Gimp. The versions in this web show are relatively small size and have been made with a fairly low jpg quality setting. Anyone wanting a high quality version for printing or whatever should contact me. I have them readily available - they just take too much space on the web site.

As usual, I am thin on photos of us running the rapids. I am both the photographer for this set, and the oarsman for one of the boats. Since there are not very many boats in the group, we like to take them all through together for mutual support. That means I'm rowing, not shooting pictures, during these times.
 
 
  DAY 1: JUNE 21 AND BEFORE
 

The first group of photos covers the drive to the river and the first river day. The Socorro crew spent a night in Buena Vista and had dinner at the Eddyline Brew Pub - the sister pub to the Socorro Springs. We spent the night at a commercial campground just out of town (Arrowhead Point Camping Resort). We spent the second night at the putin at Gates of Lodore.

The river day included the first of the big rapids - Disaster Falls. Camp was at Pot Creek.
 
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	Ron, Janet, Cassie, Kathleen, and Pat at the Eddyline Brew Pub		The evening before launch. We assembled the boats the day before our launch date. We were camped just inland from the boats.
	Just about ready to shove off.		In the Gates.
	Winnies Grotto. A scary thing happened. Rocks fell down from above just as the Whiteis family was coming into the Grotto - just below where Pat is here. We don't know why they fell, but if some of the bigger ones had hit someone, it would have been serious.		The central part of Upper Disaster Falls. It looks easy here but there are rocks upstream that force the boats more to the right that you might like.
	The Pot Creek camp.

The major rapids of day 2 were Triplet Falls and Hell's Half Mile. At Hell's Half Mile, we portaged the Culebra and IK around the top bit. Pete just didn't feel familiar enough with the new boat to try the class 4 rapid with a big rock (Lucifer) in the middle and a long messy swim if there is a flip. The rest of us waited a while for the water to go down, but gave up and ran. We all expected to run left of the big rock, but the river had other ideas. We all ran right. Never the less, we had good runs.

We stayed left in Triplet because of the nasty rock strainer on the right at the very end. In fact, I strayed a bit too far left and spent some time trying to get ungrounded.

Camp was at Wild Mountain.
 
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	Looking upstream from a small outcrop just above camp at Pot Creek.		Hells Half Mile. This was the last, and main, drop before Lucifer. We planned to punch the hole in the foreground and go left, but the river had other ideas and we ended up with clean runs on the tongue further out, and then to the right of Lucifer. Even the ranger we talked to at Jones Hole said the same thing happened to him.
	At the end of Hells Half Mile.		Kathleen and Jenn after running all of Hells Half Mile below Lucifer.
	Lamar - I tried a number of portraits with my new DFA 100mm Macro WR lens. I like this lens!		A shot of the Moon over the river. The contrast is huge and I was only able to make this photo by combining two shots with different exposures and by some selective work on the brightness of portions of the photo.
	Pat Palmer		Jeremy Baggett
	Cassie Parker

This was the middle day of the Gates of Lodore trip and the day we passed the confluence with the Yampa. At that point, the river increased in size by a factor of several, going from (according to the gauges) about 1800 cfs (daily range 850 to 2200) to 8500 cfs (downstream a ways). The area around the confluence is quite scenic and there are some petroglyphs. Echo Park is a river access point and a place we could get water from a faucet. But it was mosquito infested. Unfortunately there was very little wind so the bugs stayed with the boats for quite a while.

Camp was at Jones Hole, which is a nice, reasonably high volume creek with fish. After camp was set up, I went to take a dip in the river and returned after a few minutes to fine everyone gone. They had started on hike and had forgotten about me. I guessed they had gone to the creek, so I started out with camera and sandals with no socks. I wound up hiking about 4 miles that way and nearly caught them, but didn't know where they were after a junction. The Baggetts caught 3 fish. In the morning they got more and that was the dinner the following night.
 
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			We saw a number of rocky mountain sheep during the trip.
	There was losts of interesting geology hitting you in the face on this trip.		A deer.
	Approaching Echo Park and the confluence with the Yampa River.
	Pat rowing near Echo Park.
	There were lots of what I presume were cliff swallows in the area. Note that most of these nests have a bird peering out.		The confluence. The Green River is on the left against the cliffs. The Yampa is on the right. The Green has a large dam (Flaming Gorge) upstream and has a carefully controlled flow. The Yampa is free flowing. During the spring runoff season, which was starting to taper down when we were there, but was still fairly high, the Yampa is much the larger river.
	Echo Park on the far side of the river can be reached by car.		Some of the petroglyphs on the cliffs on the west side of the river at Echo Park.
	Looking back at the confluence from the petroglyphs.		Some more geology downstream from Echo Park.
	Another group of sheep. They insisted on pointing their bums my way so I didn't get the best of pictures.		Another of the sheep. The lens is my Pentax F 80-200 lens left over from the film days.
	Someone want to help me with the flower name?		From behind camp at Jones hole at the start of the walk up the creek.
	Ben with the first fish from Jones Hole Creek		Jones Hole Creek. It comes from a spring at a fish hatchery about 4 miles upstream from the river.

June 24 mostly spent hiking and fishing at Jones Hole. We actually moved our boats to the Day Use boat beach because we would have collided with the next incoming party. We hiked up the creek to see the petroglyphs and a waterfall. The waterfall could be dammed by people sitting in the creek above. One could get a good shower by getting under it while it was dammed and then having the people sitting in it stand up. There are photos showing this sequence.

Eventually we moved down to Cove camp. It was nice except for the Arctic grade mosquitos. I've learned to live with such things, but most of the group was going nuts. There was some nice lighting in the evening. The Baggetts had caught several more fish in the morning, so we had a good feed of trout this evening.
 
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	The morning's take by the Baggett family. This is our dinner for the next night.		Again, can someone help with the flower name?
	And yet gain, can someone help with the flower name?		One of the pictographs just beyond the Ely Creek trail junction in Jones Hole Canyon.
	The small falls along Ely Creek that can be butt dammed to make a good shower. This is the state while the dams are in place (note Cassie sitting in the creek) and the flow stopped.		Here the dams are let go (see Cassie sitting up) and Lamar and Jeremy are getting a good dousing.
	Phil and Cassie (and maybe others upstream) have just let the flod down on someone.		A closeup of the creek above the falls.
	Cassie and the view from a small summit that we walked to above the falls.		Prickly Pear flowers.
	The group in the small summit - or really a ridge.		Looking across Ely Creek. The trail to Island Park goes up there somewhere.
	Some bighorn sheep that were across from the Cove campsite.		The boats at the Cove campsite.
	One of the fish, partially eaten.		The Cove camp near sunset.
	The boats at sunset.		The ridge above camp.
	Farther along the ridge in the sunset light.		Pat.
	Janet, using smoke to deal with the mosquitos.		Cassie hiding from the mosquitos. It certainly was not raining.
	Jenn says too many mosquitos!		Another of Pat.

June 25 was the last day of the Gates of Lodore trip. We continued down through Rinbow Park and Split Mountain Canyon. In Split Mountain Canyon, there were rapids with moderately big waves including one vertical one that slammed the box on the front of my raft and nearly stopped us.

Eventually we got to the takeout were we derigged. There was a groover dump station that I used to empty the cans. We drove to Glenwood Springs and stayed at the Cedar Motel. We had quite a nice dinner at the Rivers Restaurant (I think the name is right). The following day, Ron and Janet went to see other family over toward Buena Vista while Jenn and Cassie in Jenn's car and Kathleen, Pat, and I in the Suburban drove back to Socorro. Jenn came to Socorro because Pip will be getting married soon.
 
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	The wall that was reputed to have a pectoglyph of a large buffalo. We kept watching for it.		Finally I spotted the buffalo petroglyph after we had almost gone by. I fired off a couple of pictures. This picture actually shows it better than I saw it because of the rush at the time.
	Heading into Split Mountain Canyon.		More Split Mountain Canyon.
	And more.		Nearing the takeout, which is just out of site down the river in this photo.