It first entered my expeditions notebook as “Verde: Source to Sink,” as in, kitchen sink. That’s where the Verde goes; into the Salt River and one mile later into canals, and fields, and sinks. Thus, a source to sea was never in the cards. The 300-plus miles from the Verde/Salt confluence to the Sea of Cortez is more dry riverbed than moving water. No thanks.

But a 191-mile journey from the Verde’s first surface water to the river’s mouth at the Salt, now that sounded interesting. It was hardly novel. Jon Fuller completed the route for his book, Verde River Elegy. Jim Singluff, author of the classic Verde River Recreation Guide, describes canoeing the entire river in the 1980s.

Clearly, I was carrying a glorious burden. If I could complete 8 source to sea trips in far away regions, I would, at some point, have to make a full descent of my backyard river. In mid March, the runoff was over, the Verde still had a decent base flow, and hot sunny weather was forecast forever. Verde source to mouth time had arrived.

Scott Davis from Ceiba offered a ride to the put-in at the Verde River Wildlife Area. A few miles upstream from here, the Verde comes to life as a long reflecting pool.

Just below, Granite Creek doubles the flow—to a whopping 2 cubic feet per second.

Another couple miles down, the river was 20 cfs and knee-deep—a clear gurgling stream trimmed in bright green watercress. The open channel downstream curved out of sight into…a tangle of cottonwood? a cattail cluster? I didn’t know, but the watercress pool was too inviting to squabble over. I would put-in here.