The Cosmos is calling and we must go
The lack of young, strong team members was hurdle #1. The closed road and locked gate was hurdle #2. The 3 a.m. realization that we'd forgotten to disconnect our draining battery was hurdle #3. Was the universe telling us something, or were we being overly concerned? And then there was high water. [...]
Little Colorado River – The Enigma
The Little Colorado River is an enigma. It is often dry, but carries huge floods. It begins in mountains of spruce but flows through deserts of sand. In springtime, its water is borne of high country snowmelt from the south. In summer, the river runs with thunderstorm rains to the north. The [...]
Silt Kayaking — Monsoon season comes to the Colorado Plateau
The water was milk chocolate brown, with a slippery texture that required an extra tight grip on the paddle. Close your eyes when splashed or you'd feel the grit in your eyeballs. Flipping over was a very bad idea. Sunscreen wasn't necessary. The mud film that collected on my exposed shoulders formed [...]
Elwha River Source to Sea Packraft
Sinuous vertical walls reflected the Elwha's emerald green water. Dramatic and beautiful, yes, but unsettling. Weren't we supposed to be done with the gorges? My research—intentionally incomplete (isn't the mystery part of the fun?)—indicated two gorges above Elkhorn camp, but here was a third. Between us, we had zero helmets, and one [...]
Gros Ventre kayaking with women of whitewater
We gathered in an eddy, craning necks toward the whitewater below. The run was billed as a float trip, but the splashy river before us was class III or IV—we would see—and it vanished swiftly around the corner. Nobody uttered a word. It was all business. "There's a good eddy on the [...]
Salome Grotto – Arizona Bushwhackin’
Ed Price Photo Two hours before sunset, we found a campsite and water; slimy green water, so thick that I'd sooner drink my first-night beers and call it good. Salome Creek, and the hope of real water, was another hour away. And so, we marched. Thirty-six years ago, I first laid eyes [...]
South Fork Trinity—California’s longest un-dammed river
The longest continuous ridgeline in the lower 48 is a forested escarpment in far northern California called South Fork Mountain. The longest undammed river in California is the South Fork of the Trinity, at the mountain's base. Given those titles, both ridge and river demand exploration for a geography geek like [...]
Verde Source to Mouth—Below the Dams
I was dropped at a vacant beach below Horseshoe Dam. My companions rolled away toward the mad, overcrowded world beyond the hills while I slid into a clear, cold river. The dam came partly into view beyond shoreline phragmites, and it looked like it was spilling. Paddling upstream to investigate, I ran [...]
Verde Source to Mouth—Wilderness
Getting from Camp Verde to Beasley Flats was a slog. A large part of the problem was the beer barge I'd created out of a once svelte backcountry craft. With several day's food and enough barley pops to reach Rocky Point, my overloaded raft plowed a bow wake that threatened to wash [...]
Verde Source to Mouth—Verde Valley
About 10 miles below Sycamore Canyon, water began coming out of the river. Not that it had much to spare at 70 cfs. Nonetheless, the first siphon ditch came near the first settlement of the Valley, sucking a noticeable stream out of the warming, algae-fying river. Fortunately, the Verde constantly rejuvenates itself [...]
Verde Source to Mouth—The Upper Canyons
On day one, I set a personal record for packraft abuse. Some sections of "river" (can you call 20 cfs a river?) were idyllic fairy-lands of flowing clear water and green grass. Other spots were cattail Hell. Genus Typha; a.k.a. cattail, bulrush, or my personal favorite, from the Australians—cumbungi. They filled the [...]
Verde Source to Mouth—Ideas
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 [...]
Arizona Paddling 2026—Who says you can never go back?
A chilly take-out in '98 Twenty-eight years ago, my wife Lisa and I completed the first descent of West Clear Creek with the late Josh Lowry. Josh wore a wetsuit and paddled a leaky Noah Jeti. He was freezing most of the time, nonetheless probing blind horizons and committing slots. I always [...]
Big Island Big Trees
A cool breeze had me seeking the warmth of the jeep for the first time since I'd arrived on the Big Island. Standing in breezy mountain air at 7,000 feet among cinder cone hills covered in short grass prairie. Was I back in Arizona, or on the slopes of Mauna Kea? A [...]
November Arizona Kayaking!
November: Turkey, Football, Fall colors, but whitewater? Not really. Okay, sure, maybe back East you could paddle. The Pacific Northwest? Yes, but be ready to brave the cold short days. California can always hope for an early winter storm, but don't count on it. As for the Great American West? This is [...]
Canyoneering Illusions—A Cool Reality
Doubts surfaced while packing the ropes. A 165-footer and a 60-footer, would that be enough? It had been 18 years since I descended Illusions Canyon. I didn't remember any really big rappels, but were they all under 82.5 feet? We hoped so, because that's all we were really prepared for. "Well, the [...]
