I took a trip out to the Western side of Colorado back in late August to paddle the Gunnison river with one of my good friends and his housemate. We met up on a Friday afternoon, in 98 degree heat. The sun was a constant companion on this trip, and although it was beautiful, we would’ve been ok with some cloud cover.

Driving through Glen Canyon on i-70, it’s kind of a gamble these days with mudslides/debris flows caused by heavy rains on the burn scars from last years fires on the rim, but I made it.

This 40 mile stretch of water is probably the easiest shuttle I’ve ever had to do. We met up at Whitewater boat landing, just outside of Grand Junction, with three cars. There we loaded all our gear into Aaron’s truck and made the amazing 35 minute commute upriver to Confluence Park in Delta, CO. We loaded up boats and were on the water by about 230. The first 5 miles were pretty flat and unremarkable, then we began to enter the canyon, and things got beautiful real fast.

Day 1 heading into the canyon on the Gunnison River. I paddled myFolbot to keep the shuttle simple, Aaron and Maddie were in a 14’ canoe. We had tons of room, we even brought along my Yeti 65 to keep food and drinks cold on the water.

Around 4:30 that day we started to search for a campsite, and as there aren’t any designated sites in this stretch above the Escalante put in, we had no idea what we were going to find. We easily floated almost 12 miles in 3.5 hours. For those of you wondering, the river was at 630 CFS, lower runnable, but still a pretty swift current. By the time we found what we deemed a suitable spot, it was about six o’clock and we got to work unloading and setting up quickly. There was a steep bank we had to climb to get to the campsite, but the spot was flat, and there were some clear areas for cooking and sleeping, it wasn’t the best, but it served the purpose.

Aaron cooked us up a meal of pirogies with home-made sauerkraut for dinner, it was delicious. Afterwards we cleaned up the kitchen area, did the dishes and finished setting up our accommodations for the night. Maddie went to sleep pretty early, and Aaron and I stayed up to have a few more beers and watch the milky way come out.

There are train tracks that follow the river very closely for most of this 40 mile section. We were treated to a few trains passing us on our first night at camp, this one was cool to watch as it lit up the canyon walls and river. The one that passed at 2 am wasn’t so fun, it definitely shook me from a deep sleep and it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. Thankfully we made the wise decision to camp on the opposite side of the river that the tracks are on.

Late night train coming through the canyon.

As with most trips, I was up with the sun. The dessert gets cold at night, so even though it was in the 90’s during the day, I still brought along an under quilt, and I’m very glad I did. It was great to sleep in a hammock again under the stars, it had been too long.

My ENO Nomad enables me to hang where there are no trees, and packs down small enough to fit in my Folbot.

Killing time while waiting for the rest of the crew to get up.

The sun came up and warmed things up very quickly.

We made ourselves breakfast and slowly packed up the campsite. I believe we made it on the river by about nine. Our goal for the day was to make it to Dominguez canyon and check out the hiking there before heading downstream further to find a campsite for the night.

Red rocks on the left, lush green farms on the right thanks to irrigation from the river. This is how a lot of the canyon looks. Palisade peaches, apples, strawberries, cherries and corn are all grown along the banks of the river.

We stopped for a lunch break around noon, and found a large cottonwood to sit under to get out from the sun for a while. We paddled for another hour or so before we arrived at Dominguez canyon. There are 4 camp sites here, all on river left that start where Dominguez creek flows in and go all the way down to the foot bridge that crosses the river. We pulled up to an already occupied site, and asked permission to cross through to the trail. After filling our water bottles and a quick dip to maximize the amount of time we could hike, we set off up the canyon.

The remains of a corral from an old homestead that burned down long ago.

We managed to find some water in big Dominguez creek after wondering off the trail to a green oasis. We all hopped in the ankle deep water and refreshed our clothes that had quickly dried in the desert sun. We only hiked for about 1.75 miles up Dominguez canyon, but it felt like at least four. I was feeling the effects of the constant heat, and we collectively decided to turn back after finding some standing water to drench our shirts in once more.

This is about where I decided I had enough heat.

Standing water in Dominguez creek, a welcome sight 1.5 miles from the river.

We made our way back down to the river, and had a quick chat with the folks staying at the campsite where we landed with our boats. They weren’t sure if there were more campsites just down stream or not, but he pointed us to a few he had been informed of further down stream. After a very brief scout of the small rapid that was directly ahead, we pushed off and were on our way, until we weren’t. I approached the small riffle way to far left, and the current quickly pushed me far river left, and up against an overhanging boulder, know affectionally as the undertaker. I bailed out and away from my boat as it flipped over. I was able to get a hold of the bow grab handle as I floated by and free the boat, which had become wedged between the water and overhanding rock. There was a strong current below me, but I was able head toward shore and find a small eddy to collect myself, bail my boat and reset. Aaron and Maddie continued down stream a bit further grabbing my seat and a few other small items that had not been properly stored. As I bailed my boat on shore, Maddie hopped out and took a quick stroll, she came back with good news, there was a campsite right below us, with the sun getting low on the horizon, it seemed like a perfect place to set up for the night. We were all quite happy with the decision.

Overlooking camp, just below Dominguez canyon.

Maddie, doing her thing, makin some art.

Aaron stepped up and prepared us another meal, pasta with some home made basil pesto, thanks to Sloane.

We had a few neighbors that evening, but everyone pretty much kept to themselves. I spent most of my evening working on my boat. It turns out the rock it scraped underneath of tore a small hole in the hull. I’m very glad I checked it out that evening rather than finding out in the morning after loading all my gear back in. I emptied what ever was left in the boat, drug it up to shore, and began cleaning the offending area. I keep a patch kit with me, so I got the duct tape out and set to work. It was a long process but I was able to get it back water tight for the following days journey.

View down river from our camp. Some one was lighting up the canyon walls with a spotlight.

I was once again up with first light, and started the process of heating water for the crew, and slowly taking down my hammock while Aaron and Maddie started to stir. We had our breakfast packed the boats and were on the water by 8. We had 14 miles left to float, and with an average speed of 3.5 mph just drifting, we just sat back and let the river take us down stream.

Maddie and Aaron paddling under the Dominguez foot bridge.

We reached the White water take out around 11 am, and got to work unloading and lugging gear to our vehicles. This boat landing doesn’t have vehicle access to the water, so all the gear has to be carried to the parking lot area, it’s only 50 yards or so, but that adds up quickly with multiple trips. We finished up our load out around noon, and loaded up the canoe onto Maddie’s subaru for the trek back to Moab. Aaron and I said goodbye to our paddling buddy and took the quick trip up the highway to get his vehicle from the Delta put in.

We found some shade at the riverfront park in Delta and had a quick lunch while we moved all our gear from my truck to Aaron’s vehicle, which had our white water boats in the bed. We were lucky enough to find a restroom with running water at the park, we filled our water containers, disposed of our trash, and headed to the local Safeway to get supplies for the next adventure, a white water section of the Gunnison Gorge. With food, beer and ice secured, we took my truck to our next takeout, at the confluence of the North Fork of the Gunnison and the Gunnison rivers. We parked my truck at the public landing, had a quick look around, and got back on the road. This shuttle was a solid 2 hours, so we had to keep moving.

Most of our time was spent driving nine miles on the Chukkar Trail, the first seven are mostly gravel/dirt and could be driven by any passenger vehicle really, but the last 2 miles you need a high clearance vehicle at the very least. Aaron’s four wheel drive wasn’t working, but we decided to risk it anyway. It took us about an hour total to drive those nine miles, probably thirty minutes of that were spent on the last two miles.

Aaron driving on a more tame section of the Chukkar Trail

At the end of the 4x4 section of the Chukkar trail is a really nice campground with five sites. The road ends here, and the trail continues on for a mile, five hundred feet down into the canyon and to the Gunnison river. In this gorge are 10 miles of amazing gold medal trout fishing and some pretty fun class III rapids. There are pavilions, picnic tables and fire rings at each site, a few even have charcoal grills. A day use parking area and vault toilets are located here as well. The facilities are very impressive for how rough the road is getting back to it.

We arrived around four to find a few cars in the parking lot, but the campsites were all empty, which was expected as it was a Sunday night. We pulled into a campsite and got to work organizing our gear to paddle the gorge. After we had gear ready to go, we cooked up a pot of veggie chili and had a few beers as we waited for the sun to drop below the ridge line. Our plan was this - carry our boats and extra water down into the canyon that evening, hike back out, eat chili, get a good night of sleep and be 100% for our 14 mile paddle the next day.

Cooking up a pot of chili before our hike

Once the sun finally dropped below the mountains, we shouldered our boats and went for a nice evening hike. The trail descends quickly via switchbacks that never seem to end, then flattens out in a valley and then quickly dumps you into a dry (in August) creek bed/canyon that flows into the Gunnison. We made it down the trail in about 45 minutes, found a small cottonwood to secure our boats to, took a dip in the water to cool off and had a quick look around. After a half hour or so we started our climb out, grateful to not have boats on our shoulders anymore. It was quite a workout, but we made it back before dark and celebrated with a cold beverage, and some hot chili.

Taking a much needed break on the way to the river.

Hiking down a creek bed, hoping it doesn’t rain.

Aaron slept in his truck bed that night, and I hung my hammock in the pavilion, it worked our very well for a quick tear down in the morning. We were both up early, and got breakfast going quickly so we could get down to the river early. It was a chilly morning, but the sun peaked over the rim of the canyon just as we were putting on, and we had a good mix of sun and shade for most of the day.

This section of river is used heavily by commercial raft companies who take clients on multi-day fishing trips. They use pack mules to bring rafts, coolers, and camping gear into the canyon via the Chukkar trail. In the first few miles, we passed by at least four groups camped on the riverbank that were just starting to fish for the day.

We had 10 miles of class III fun, and 4 miles of flat water to get to the takeout. That last 4 miles were kind of brutal, and very hot, but it was certainly worth it. We mostly just did a read and run on the water, stopping to scout a only a few times. I think we put on around 830 and got off the water around 2 or so. I had read that the Gunnison Pleasure Park has a bar, so once we stowed the boats in the truck and got dried off we eagerly went in search of a beer. We walked in to the dimly lit bar/tackle shop at the Pleasure Park, and were greeted by some not so friendly stares from the 3 old men going over papers that were scattered all over the bar top. We asked the bartender if we could get a beer, and she slowly obliged after clearing off some of the paperwork for us. Aaron and I quickly noticed that there was sports memorabilia from Pittsburgh teams hung up all over the place, so we asked if the owner was from Pennsylvania. As it turns out the two men at the bar who weren’t drinking grew up in Western PA, which is where Aaron and I also grew up, it was a good ice breaker.

Float trip of folks fishing in the Gunnison Gorge

After a few light beers, and lots of good stories from the bar tender and the local guy drinking with us, we decided we should hit the road before it was too late. Aaron and I made the decision to stay one more night at the Chukkar campsite, since it was 3 pm and we had a 2 hour drive to his car, plus another hour drive back out to the highway from there. We headed back to safeway and got some camp fire wood and ingredients to make some pie iron pizzas.

I was excited to drive the Chukkar trail as I hadn’t had the truck on a proper 4x4 trail yet. I can confirm that I had a blast, and I was also a little nervous at some spots, but the taco did great. We got back to our campsite around 530 sorted out gear, hung stuff up to dry and enjoyed a few more beers before getting a small fire going to cook dinner on. We decided to sleep in a little bit the next day, which was much welcomed. After our 5th breakfast of oatmeal, we finished packing our trucks and started the long drive out on the Chukkar trail around 9 am. It was a long drive home that day, but i70 was still open, and the mountains were beautiful as always, so I was happy.

Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area, Gunnison Gorge and the Chukkar Trail

Search Posts

Featured Posts