I just found out that AOL is taking down the area supporting members' personal web sites at the end of the month. Not wanting to lose the online access to the story of my 1996 San Juan River trip, I'm porting them all to the blog. To those who have read the story before, apologies.
This is a text account of my vacation on the San Juan River during Spring of 1996. The writing's not great, and some of the pictures put up on my Shutterfly space leave something to be desired. I've left some detail out in an attempt to protect the sensibilities of the participants. Hopefully, this won't detract from the account. Allowing for this, feel free to leave comments on the blog.. I hope you enjoy it.
I took a special vacation from April 26 through May 5, 1996. The whole thing started off innocently enough. My manager's husband, Bill, then ran a commercial rafting company outside Salida, Colorado offering trips on the Arkansas River. One day in late March while at Happy Hour at Pitcher's, I was invited to join Bill and a number of his rafting guides on a six day excursion down the San Juan River in Utah. I accepted without thinking twice about it. This was going to be a once in a lifetime adventure, and I didn't want to miss it!
Two other older (!) people, also part of the Happy Hour gang, were also invited: Norm, one of the people in my work group, and Dave, a Brit living here and a friend of my manager, also a Brit. They too didn't have to be asked twice. While talking about the makeup of the people going on the trip, Dave referred to us as a 'bunch of fucking old people', and within minutes the FOPs were born. The next week at Happy Hour, Dave (who is a free-lance computer graphic artist by trade) produced tee shirts for us FOPs. They were a huge hit. He had printed the design on Cannon iron-on transfer paper with his HP Desk jet. The graphic is one of a cartoonish old man leaning on a cane giving the viewer a 'birdie', overlaying the letters 'FOP'. The shirts were worn with pride throughout the trip.
Bill loaned all the FOPs some specialized gear for the trip. We all got 'dry bags' - waterproofed bags made of a plasticized fabric. The tops of these roll down and the ends snap together with the type of clasps commonly used in fanny packs. He also offered to loan fleece jackets to those of us who didn't have a warm, water-repellent jacket. Norm and I also got a large dry bag for our sleeping bags and tent. Bill talked to us on at least three occasions about what to bring along: tee shirts, sport shorts, long sleeve shirts, waterproof jackets and pants, sandals, tennis shoes or hiking boots for walks, and our own personal beverages sufficient for the whole trip. (I underestimated the latter a bit, but others fortunately overestimated, so it all worked out.) Though I brought all the gear Bill listed, my dry bag was only 3/4ers full. I also supplied the CD boombox we used and a number of CDs, as did Dave and Bill.
The week before the trip Bill was fretting seriously because the water level in the San Juan was not coming up - the snowmelt hadn't begun, and there wasn't that much snow in the southern Colorado mountains to begin with. The lowest recommended flow rate for a good trip was 700 cubic feet per second. The river was running about 350 cubic feet per second (cfs). Bill was checking daily with the National Forest Service rangers and only once did the flow go over 700 cfs. He was really worried.
Originally written Oct96. Last updated 14Oct08
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