IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

Since it looks like Amanda and I are heading out on Sunday to raft the Colorado River from Grizzly to New Castle, I decided to get myself my own Personal Flotation Device (Life Jacket). I figured as I start getting on the rivers more often around here, that getting a jacket that fits me comfortably would be a good idea.

Anyways, on my lunch break I headed over to Whitewater West Rafts & Supplies and tried on a bunch of jackets. I ended up getting the NRS Big Water Guide in the slate color. This jacket had a longer torso section than the others and it also had 22 lbs. of flotation. The zippered pockets and fleece lined pockets are also nice features.

I think this PFD will work out well for me.

On Saturday I was invited by a friend at work to take his raft down the Gunnison River from Escalante to Bridgeport. He’s planning a big trip on the Yampa in a few weeks and needed to get more practice on the water beforehand. This is a pretty easy section of river with a couple of Class II rapids along the way and is about 14 miles in length. With the spring runoff, the water was flowing pretty fast and we ended up completing the trip in about four hours. The water was also pretty cold, so we did our best to stay out of it, and succeeded.

I didn’t end up bringing my camera on this trip, but my friend had his, and I ended up taking a bunch of photos with it for him. Here’s some of the pictures from our short day trip.

Andrew inflating the raft at the Escalante boat launch

The raft along the shore near a campsite we stopped to check out

Headed down the river

A coal train zipping by us

Continue reading

After living next to the Colorado River since March and watching all of the rafts and kayaks floating by, we figured it was finally time to give it a try. We went on a short float down the Colorado River this morning for a few hours in a raft. We started out in Fruita and took out at Loma.

We both had a great time and are looking forward to more float trips in the future, as well as hitting some rapids down the road, too. Here’s some pictures from our trip.