Where is the green river in utah
The Green River of Utah - Part I
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
you
[Music]
Utah's Green River was known to Spanish
explorers as early as 1776 and had been
a notable crossing on the arduous old
Spanish Trail linking New Mexico to Alta
California understandably the course of
the Green River was poorly known by the
early Spanish and maps of the day
incorrectly depicted the Green River
draining some of the large lakes of
northern Utah including the Great Salt
Lake
trappers of the Hudson's Bay Northwest
and Pacific fur companies pioneered much
of the area and used it as wintering
grounds in the 1800s John C Fremont and
Kit Carson explored the region in the
1840s
it was Fremont's work that established
the rivers true drainage and corrected
the error of the Spanish maps in 1853
shortly before he and his men were
massacred
Captain John W Gunnarsson's party passed
through the area near the present-day
town of Green River as they completed
the survey that would later bring steel
rails to the Green River and beyond it's
likely that the first organized European
passage down the Green River was led by
John Wesley Powell in 1869 Powell the
adventuring son of a New York Minister
was no stranger to long exposures
in 1855 he had walked across Wisconsin
the following year he traveled by
rowboat the entire length of the
Mississippi River from above Minneapolis
to the Gulf of Mexico in the years
leading up to the Civil War the
self-made naturalist and geologist rode
the Ohio Illinois and Des Moines rivers
after the war Powell led expeditions
into the Rocky Mountains and the
drainages at the green in Colorado
rivers at the time of Powell's
expedition in 1869 the Green River area
was almost entirely unknown seen by most
as an abyss too dangerous to travel
through
[Music]
palace group of 10 men left the
civilized railroad boom town of Green
River Wyoming and proceeded through
hundreds of miles of dangerous Rapids in
the canyons of Northeast Utah to the
Gunnison Valley lowlands continuing on
through labyrinth and Stillwater canyons
of the confluence of the green the Grand
in the Colorado rivers in 1871 Powell
made a second journey down the green
river this time enlisting the services
of photographer John Kay Hiller's
producing a definitive map photos and
other survey documents it was pals men
who gave names to the many geologic
features canyons and Rapids in the 1870s
the remote River Crossing town of Green
River began to see a new type of visitor
white settlers along with the settlers
came the establishment of an Overland
Mail route and soon afterward came the
completion of the Denver and Rio Grande
Western Railway on the route surveyed by
Gunnison in 1853 the location was
instantly recognized as the obvious
transfer and supply point for the river
the railroad built a maintenance house
and prominent hotel and greatly
bolstered the local population but in
less than ten years the railroad moved
its maintenance operation to help her
some 60 miles away this was perhaps the
first in a series of booms and busts
experienced by the town of Green River
as fruit crops failed mines went broke
oil drilling faltered and the markets of
America came and went
though the traffic on the river never
materialized at hoped-for levels a
number of small river boats traveled the
green to haul materials to and from the
mines and farms that sprang up along the
river attempts to commercialize a river
boat route between Green River and Moab
soon crumbled and equipment was scrapped
or sold for other uses
[Music]
a flat water kayak trip on Utah's Green
River usually means putting in at Green
River State Park just south of the town
some though choose to shorten the trip
by entering the river at Ruby Ranch some
20 miles downstream starting at Ruby
ranch for sakes the barren beauty of the
lowland banks of the gunnison Valley and
may deny a full appreciation of just how
colossal the canyon walls ahead will be
the green gives up its energy by
meandering making wide sweeping turns in
the desert lowlands these turns later
become indirect tight curves that have
carved gorges hundreds of feet into the
sandstone in some places the tight turns
have completely eroded through the
surrounding canyon walls and have
actually caused the river to change
course
the only opportunity to exit the river
is a mineral bottom 68 waterway miles
below the town of Green River continuing
past this point you enter Canyonlands
National Park and eventually the
Colorado River the waters of the
Colorado ahead are not navigable with
hard to maneuver flat water kayaks which
are designed only for ease of forward
movement and the current of the Colorado
is too Swift to paddle upriver it is
necessary to have a pre-arranged
motorized tow upstream Tomoya our
springtime trip came with a special
delight the waters of the Green were
higher than normal that offered us an
intimate water discovery of the many
side canyons that are normally dry
washes that can only be explored by foot
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
