Labyrinth and Stillwater Canyons, Green River canoe trip April 1-11, 2025

 Jeff Norby contacted me a few months ago interested in an Utah canyon country trip.  Juggling our various commitments, we settled on the first two weeks of April and since those were the Utah school spring break weeks, we decided to float both flat water canyons on the Green River rather than a car camping/hiking trip.   We went 100 miles, roughly half in Labyrinth Canyon and half in Stillwater Canyon on the Green River, ending at the confluence with the Colorado River, and a jet boat ride back up the Colorado River to Potash/Moab.  This is a wilderness trip with no cell service, only one road access halfway down at Mineral Bottom, and getting out requires a jet boat ride as there are no roads into the end point.  If you keep going downstream after 4 miles past the confluence you end up in a major rafting whitewater canyon (Cataract Canyon).  I’d done two other trips, Stillwater Canyon with Brad back in 2016 (?) and down Labyrinth Canyon with Jeff in 2023.  This time both canyons in one trip.

It was a great trip with solitude 90 percent of the time.  Sandbar camping every night.  It started out cold with highs in low 40’s, and freezing temps at night, but gradually it got a warmer every day, and it ended up being pleasant temps and blue skies for most of the trip.  We did have a few mishpaps, with the biggest happening right off the bat at our first camp.  After setting up camp, a microburst  hit us, ripping our tents out,  blowing my hat in the river and then our canoe blew into the river.  Luckily Jeff had secured his tent. By weighting it down with our water containers and was able to leap into the river before the canoe sailed off downstream. He saved the day.  My tent got damaged but was useable.  We dodged a bullet.  Then the next day another major wind occurred while we were paddling on the river creating standing waves and treacherous conditions, resulting in the loss of our smallest water containers.  Luckily we made our 12 gallons that we had in our other two containers last for our 11 days.  Then finally on our last day of paddling a back eddie current nearly flipped our canoe in the Colorado River.  And this is an easy trip with very few hazards!  

We survived and outside of those crazy moments had a very relaxing and fabulous trip.