Most people think of the "upper" Green as Lodore, or maybe the stretch below Flaming Gorge Dam. Not so. Follow that winding course north, clear to the Green River Lakes, on the southern skirts of the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. That's where the trip begins. It is all runable, in the right boat at the right time. On May 31, I started at the brook that feeds the upper lake. Twenty days later and three hundred miles below, I took out at Split Mt. Campground.

The Upper-upper Green was more than intriguing, it was necessary to a lover of the Colorado basin. It is, after all, the true headwaters of the Colorado, a couple hundred miles longer than the source of the "real" Colorado River. The Green originates in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. The Colorado originates in the Never Summer Mountains of Colorado. Those names alone beg a visit.

The river has so many different characters that I have divided the report into five sections.

Section 1: Green River Lakes to Warren Bridge (Hwy. 191). 58.4 miles.
Section 2: Warren Bridge to Fontenelle Reservoir: 95.6 miles.
Section 3: Fontenelle Dam to Green River, Wyoming: 65.7 miles.
Section 4: Flaming Gorge Dam to Lodore put-in, 45.5 miles.
Section 5: Lodore put-in to Split Mt. Campground: 44 miles.