This trip report will contain a lot of details about the top four sections because very little information is available on them. There is a bit available on Section 4, but virtually no one runs the top three sections. In fact, in that 220 miles we saw ONE other boat and less than a dozen shore fishermen, in spite of perfect weather, lovely scenery, amazing wildlife, reputedly good trout fishing, and generally great river travel. Section 5 is so famous I won't spend any significant time on it.

Logistics are always the most daunting element of a river trip. Over the winter I had contacted several people in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming through internet news groups who expressed interest. Every single contact fell through. However, another Arizona boater, Douglas Green, was interested. Doug and I had only one three day trip together, but I was very comfortable with him from that trip and a few visits to plan others.

I did a lot of research but could find very little first-hand information about the river above Flaming Gorge Dam. Undaunted, Douglas and I decided we would take our chances. Not counting on commercial shuttles, we each drove our own vehicles, Doug in his Toyota pick-up and me in my Honda Odyssey. This proved to be a really good decision. All told, since we drove from southern Arizona to Wyoming and leap-frogged our shuttles, we put over 3,000 miles on each car, but it gave us the flexibility to pull off a nearly seamless adventure.

When I had contemplated doing the trip solo with an outfitter in Pinedale dropping me at the Lakes and leaving my car at Green River, it would have cost close to $500 anyway, so the flexibility using our own cars made the trip easy and relatively cheap. It also made it possible for us to run in shorter two or three day sections, which gave us a lot of flexibility since the river was largely unknown to us.

It was a three day drive to the put in. Day one was Eloy to Moab. Day two we drove to the New Fork River south of Pinedale, stopping along the way in Dinosaur, Colorado to pick up a permit to float into Lodore launch ramp. The permit is free, and the river ranger who arranged it for me in advance by phone and e-mail was cheerful and helpful. At the BLM campground on the New Fork, south of Pinedale, a cow and calf moose wandered through the camp at sunset, then again at sunrise, making us a bit nervous. We had bear spray and large caliber hand guns, but it was a wake-up call that we were now in a world with a lot of very large, wild beasts. We both slept in our cars, not exactly a hardship with mine a roomy Honda Odyssey and Doug in a Toyota pick-up with a shell on the back.