Dirty Devil Bikerafting

March 10-14 2017 Posted by Doug.
"Well you wanted an adventure" I repeatedly muttered to myself as I drug my boat back and forth across the river trying to find floatable water.

In early March I decided to take a run down the Dirty Devil river in southeast Utah. Checking the gauge, the flow was 113cfs, just above the published minimum of 100cfs. I figured it would be good. And it was, mostly. Lots of dragging the boat especially in the first 5 miles. I rode my bike a little and walked my bike a lot descending the Angel Point trail to the river where just above the river a short class 3-ish area made me remove my pack, stage my bike, climb down below the bike and lift it down several times through the obstacles. A couple shuttles like this and I was through the short cliff band. 3 days later at Poison Springs cyn, I transitioned to bikepacking mode and made a camp about 8 miles up the canyon. The following day I finished the ride back to Angel Point by about 11AM. The Specialized Fatboy that I built into a 29+ over the winter was awesome in 29+ mode. Nice to have a fat bike and a plus bike in one frame.

In between I made camps at No Man's canyon, Twin Corral Box canyon, and Happy canyon. No water was found in any of the canyons beyond a few muddy pools. Settling river water overnight then filtering worked quite well. So beyond skinny water and lots of quicksand everything went very well. It really was a fine adventure. Ok now the visuals.

The put in

Short cl3 band to get down with my bike

Camp at No Man's cyn,

Arch seen between No Man's and Twin Corral Box

Camp at Twin Corral Box cyn.

Gypsum band

Entering Happy cyn. narrows

Petrified wood

Transition to bikepacking mode at Poison springs cyn take out.

Looking back to the Henry mtns. on the way back to Angel pt.

Reward time