birthday weekend float trip

We spent the weekend floating a Class II stretch of the Gunnison between Delta to Whitewater, also called the Dominguez run because the big attraction is Dominguez Canyon about halfway through, where there are historical sites and petroglyphs. We hadn't been on it before, but it's known as a good run for an open canoe, so we invited our canoeist buddies Dave and Julie, as well as our friends Andy and Betsy, who also decided to bring a canoe from their large stable of river craft.

The good: Saturday was my birthday, and Julie baked me a cake! Nobody flipped or fell out or even got sunburned. The weather was beautiful. We did not run out of beer, and it was nice and cold. We had a nice camp spot at Dominguez Canyon. We saw desert bighorn, and petroglyphs, and a couple of really nifty windows in the rock.

The bad: Loud group at the put-in that partied all night, and we could hear them from our camp. Loud train that went by twice a night, waking us all. Dogs belonging to loud group peed on our gear (!!) Britt came down with a cold. We got off the river kind of late on Sunday and drove all over the country between Montrose and Ridgway before finding a decent place to camp for the night.

The ugly: Nope, not ugly at all. Photographic proof (20 photos at Flickr).