Day 22 – 4/4/1618(?) map / 23.6 GPS miles

328.5 / 354.3 miles total
So it turns out packrafting is really hard. Really, really hard.

After the final mile of hiking Moody Canyon we reached the Escalante River. We rearranged gear and inflated the packrafts, took some photos. Bubs scooted off first into the water, using her now perfected technique of launching without getting her feet wet. This turned out to be quite silly since within 2 minutes we were both soaked from head to toe and would remain this way the entire day.

I don’t know anything about rafting classifications, but as far as I’m concerned, in our little dinghies, the Escalante might as well be world class whitewater. We paddled hard to steer through rapids (riffles?), butt scooted over at least a few thousand rocks we got stuck on, occasionally getting out of the boat to drag it along, and then when we finally hit brief flatwater stretches, shared my half soda bottle scoop to bail out all the water we’d taken on. Oh, and I couldn’t even take any photos because it was so wet I had to put my camera away, and I forgot to charge my GoPro last night and it died early on in the day.

We felt like we were moving really fast but when we checked our position at lunch, we were extremely disappointed to discover we were only maybe 1/3 of the way through the 25.6 miles of river. There is a reason float trips are normally half day events. It’s not as fun after more than a few hours.

It was pretty warm but the there was a thin haze of clouds blocking direct sun all day so we never felt warm. Shortly after lunch I got pinched in a spot, my boat flooded with water and I went for a swim. Oh, and I don’t have any attachment system to lash my pack to my raft, so all my gear went in too. Thankfully I hung on to everything except my water bottle and the scoop. A quarter mile later I found the water bottle stuck in some rocks. I really wish I’d found the scoop instead.
The rest of the afternoon was kinda painful, especially for Bubs, though I was still finding it on the adventurous/type II fun side of things. Without the scoop, we had to stop and dump the boats of water every 10 minutes or so. We portaged around a few especially sketchy spots, and even the less sketchy ones became more difficult as we tired. Then Bubs took an unintentional swim in a manner very similar to mine. She lost her trekking poles and sit pad. This was the end of the day. As much as we wanted to push and try to finish our river miles today, we had to stop. We were getting too tired and sloppy.
We decided to camp at the next beach, which was thankfully came after just area minutes. And, lo and behold, one of Bubs’ trekking poles was bouncing around in the water just before we pulled ashore. She can set up her tent!
It was only about 5:30 when we stopped, so we had time and a little hazy sunlight to spread out all our sopping wet gear and dry out. Both of us had enough of a dry bag system worked out that the true essentials (sleeping bag and clothing) stayed dry, but water managed its way into everything else, including my damn phone despite the supposed waterproof case. The biggest tragedy of the day was discovering Bubs’ pill container had leaked and she ended up with a ibuprofen-Benadryl soup.

Yes well, tomorrow is another day.