Rio de Nuestra Senoma de los Dolores, or River of Our Lady of Sorrows, was named by Father Escalante in 1776, one of a small party seeking an overland route from Santa Fe to California. The party tried to stay close to the Dolores, along what is now called Ponderosa Canyon, but when they came to the serpentine sandstone Slickrock Canyon, they gave up, turning back up Gypsum Creek and way around to near present day Montrose.

About 230 years later, we were driving from Montrose way around to Gypsum Creek for a rare chance to canoe Slickrock Canyon. The River of Sorrows had carried little more than salty tears since 1999, the result of massive upstream water diversion plus Colorado's long drought. The past winter, though, had brought heavy snow pack, filling McPhee Reservoir and inducing BLM to schedule boatable water into the Dolores canyons through April, May, and most of June.

At the Gypsum Creek BLM access, I tied gear into the Synergy. Leery of BLM rangers, I had the required gear: a fire pan, a dishwater strainer, and two welding tube containers for human waste. Yet I had no need for fire, nor would I be straining dishwater.

Not wanting to bother with cooking and cleaning, I had a large supply of trail mix, food bars, and some jerky to last for a couple of nights in the canyon. I was also carrying 32 pounds of bottled water, some Gatorade and a couple of beers. The brown water hissing past the put-in is often too salty to filter, because it runs through the top of salt domes. Most side streams are small and unreliable water sources.

The river was running about 800 cfs through the open ranchland around Gypsum Creek, about the same as the Chattooga at 2.1. Occasional rafts came down from Little Glen Canyon, headed for the Slickrock Canyon entrance. Ellie tried not to fret aloud; none of my previous western solo runs had involved two overnights in a deep wilderness canyon. She was encouraged by the number of parties putting on, especially a canoe party of Coloradoans who offered to have me join them. But they planned to make camp rather early that day, while I hoped to cover at least 10 of the 36 canyon miles before dark.

The Synergy felt a bit sluggish as I turned out into the swift current, though it carried less than the weight of two paddlers. I was more puzzled than concerned, because the occasional rapids in Slickrock don't exceed class 2, and few of them are long. The main hazards would be rocks hidden in the swift current, or getting shoved into rocky overhangs. I paddled meanders down to the last bridge, while Ellie drove along the road taking pictures.

Then the Dolores ran into a great ridge of sandstone, and after feinting north, it cut east into its canyon. Sandstone rose on both sides. Some was marked by fairly horizontal layers, laid down along ancient seashores. Some rose in smoother swells and curves, formed from ancient dunes. Subtle striations showed how sand had blown in slanting revisions, one over the other. Countless dunes must have formed in deserts and blown away, but just these had been piled up to harden into sandstone. The sediments lay deep for millennia. The Dolores, once a tributary of the San Juan River, was forced northward by uplift, to meander on flatlands as it ran toward the Colorado. Then the land rose under the river, and those meanders began cutting Slickrock Canyon. The Sandstone is very old, Jurassic, Triassic; the uplift and canyon cutting happened fairly recently in geologic time.

Rock walls dropped straight to the water's edge. Bull Canyon, the first big side canyon, opened on river right; the rapid next to the mouth was not much. Around a couple of bends was a smaller right side canyon, where rafts were landing to camp. Opposite was a big wave train running along a low wall. I snuck right of the waves, my boat too heavy to dump and too cluttered to bail. Should have bought a pump. My gear was protected in tapered inflatable inflatable dry bags, Voyageur and Watershed, designed for kayaks. The fat ends were tied down next to the triple saddle, and the narrow ends were roped down under the end bags.

At the next bend was one of the most photographed spots on the Dolores, where it cuts so far under frozen dunes that they hang completely over the river. I landed on the shady bank opposite the overhanging sand wall for a late lunch. A large campsite up away from the river was as yet unoccupied. It was surrounded by dry grass salted with yellow spires and cactus flowers.

Returning to my boat, I saw a kayaker in a Wave Sport Diesel who seemed to have three support rafts. I called to him that I hoped he'd be comfortable, as he would be just sitting for much of the trip. Then I pushed off again myself.

The river snaked westward, then whipped north toward the most severe meanders in Slickrock Canyon. Intermittent rapids were formed by huge sandstone boulders which had crashed into the river. I had difficulty keeping track of where I was, even though I had the Dolores River Guide open in front of me, and the compass beside it. Part of the problem was that the River Guide was arbitrary in which landmarks it chose to include. La Luge Rapid, for example, "...not really a rapid, just a fun drop," was not a drop at all, and not at all noteworthy. I wasn't even sure which one the Guide authors meant until I later reviewed my photos.

The other problem was that, in such a twisting canyon, small turns were hard to tell from big ones. For a while that sunny afternoon, I thought I was a couple of miles farther along than was actually the case. When I saw a campsite under a frozen dune, I thought that might be the Grotto, cited in the Guide, but I wondered why it was on the left rather than the right as shown on the map. Before I realized my error, I chanced to photograph the neck of the three leaf clover meander, where the river runs three miles around a stem about an eighth of a mile in thickness.

Still looking for the real Grotto, I gave up and camped opposite a noisy wave train. The small campsite was almost ideal, with one pocket just big enough for the tent, another with a ledge for sitting and spreading gear, and a third in cool shade where I lay and rested for awhile. Then I hiked south over fallen boulders and up to an overhang. I could look down on my campground to the SW, and around the bend to the north was the Grotto, the thing itself. Tiny tents and people lay in its friendly maw. Finally knowing my location, I saw that I had covered 13 miles the first afternoon.

It was cold that night, though pleasant enough in my Sierra Designs Omega, with the winter weather panels zipped shut over the screens. Empty Gatorade bottles obviated nocturnal trips to river's edge. The roar of the wave train drowned out night sounds.

Up by 7:30, I sat munching trail mix. An oarsman guided a raft down the wave train, with two passengers, one in the bow, one in the stern. They must have a lot planned, to be loaded and on the water so early. The current is strong and steady enough that a raft could cover the whole 36 miles in a day.

I repacked methodically, trying to put things back where I could locate them quickly later. I was on the water again by nine o'clock, but found that the party in the Grotto had left before I could take their picture from water level. Downstream on the right was the Leach Creek side canyon, said to be a good hike. The landing was high and small, and there was no good place to tie the canoe or beach it, so I kept going.

That second day began beautifully sunny. It would become memorable for its weather contrasts. As I rounded the lobes of the Cloverleaf meander and passed the Notch, a gap in the neck of the next meander, clouds built up overhead. A mile below the Notch I spotted the back of the neck of the Cloverleaf. Just a mile beyond that was the other side of the Notch. Around the bend I spotted a "small natural arch" designated in my guidebook. It was more like an undercut stone bench, not a walk-through. It was getting colder and raining a little, so I pulled over on a gravel bar to put on my Rapidstyle raingear. Back on the water, I missed pictures of the giant rocks at Pirate's Cove because raindrops blew all over the lens. The river meanders kept oscillating at about two cycles per mile all the way to Spring Canyon.

Spring Canyon was the one rapid I ran badly. "Spring Canyon (III) is worth scouting." I, however, was distracted trying to clean my lens, photograph the canyon mouth, and spot a landing, so I ended up not scouting or doing the other things properly either. Most of the water ran down a twisting course against an overhanging left side wall. I couldn't see through that, so I decided to try working through the half-covered boulder field in the center. The loaded boat didn't respond well to corrections, and I ended up humping crudely over some hidden rocks. No harm done except to my pride. The rain increased again and I stuffed the camera under my PFD.

Below Spring Canyon the river straightened, running west for a ways. Sometimes the headwinds were severe, and the best way to fight it was to lean way forward and bury the paddle next to the bow, using the strong current to pull the boat forward by its nose. But then the sun came out, the sky cleared, and I stopped to rest and rehydrate. Back on the water, occasional rapids were peppy enough to keep the paddling interesting. In a couple of miles I came to Coyote Wash, the biggest tributary in Slickrock Canyon.

Most of the side canyons are fairly steep, with scant water trickling down stepwise from pool to pool. Coyote Wash does not carry much more water, just a shallow ribbon in the sand even in this wet spring, but for some reason it has cut a level course, so that one can walk up over sand and grass for miles, even into Utah. I contented myself with a quarter mile walk, accompanied by rafters who were interested in my lone canoeist status. There were huge, grassy campgrounds at the mouth of the wash. I hoped to find a smaller campsite a few miles down around Muleshoe Bend.

Muleshoe Bend is another tight meander, two miles around with a neck only about two tenths of a mile across. The neck on Muleshoe has eroded so far down that one can land and climb across. This neck is the Muleshoe's Achilles Heel; someday the river will cut through and amputate the shoe. Clambering over the gap, I thought that only the most lightly loaded boater would consider a portage here to save half an hour's paddling.

I could have camped there, but it was rather open and over-visited. The sky was darkening, the wind picking up, so there would be a strong tailwind down to the toe of the shoe. Perhaps I could find a campsite sheltered by an overhang. Soon, though, thunder echoed down the canyon, hard rain pelted down, and the wind blew so that I could not keep the boat in line.

The boat was briefly forced so hard to starboard that the gunwale came within a couple of inches of the water. I managed to get to the bank, where I grabbed a double handful of willow branches and hunched over to wait out the storm.

It was over soon, and the rainwater left the frozen dune layers a shiny gray. The sky cleared, the sun shone again. This was perhaps the deepest part of Slickrock Canyon, the river at about 5000, the canyon rim up to 6000 feet. I stopped to look for a sheltered campsite, without success. Tamarisk, willow, and thick grasses thrive near the water and make it difficult to get to more open, drier areas above.

Soon I floated to the downstream side of the Achilles Heel. Campsites there were still exposed and unappealing. Campsites in the Dolores River Guide are marked by white or black teepees, and the dark ones are supposed to be for smaller parties. There was a small-party site marked about half a mile down on the left, by the mouth of a small side canyon.

I paddled down, landed on a gravel bar, and explored the site. It was not small, in fact it could have accommodated an entire GCA Extravaganza with ease. Up on a gravelly step was a gathering site with logs arranged for sitting, and more logs landscaped to protect a colony of flowering cactus. For my own tent, however, I chose a pocket sheltered by small trees, an easy walk from my landing. Having done about 15 miles, I was too tired to go on, and if I was joined by a larger party, there was the chance of getting fed something more interesting than trail mix and jerky.

Back at water's edge, the view south was right through the gap in Muleshoe. One large party passed, the three rafts and the lone Diesel kayaker. Wave, shout, hadn't seen them since the overhang the day before. I explored the little canyon behind the camp. It was too boulder-choked to go far. Then the tent had to go up; no prospect of sleeping out with the sky still doubtful and a cold night coming on.

Next morning I woke with a migraine, but the weather looked to stay fair. I shifted some of the water bottles toward the back of the boat to improve handling, and sure enough, when I set out, the Synergy was more like its old self. I had only about 8.5 miles to the Bedrock take-out, and there were four "name" rapids along the way, so handling counted more than tracking.

A mile down I passed Bip Rock, a big chunk of eroded sandstone perched oddly on the water. The Dolores whipped back and forth twice more in its canyon and then the walls began to pull back, revealing more open vistas.

Opposite a side canyon was One Holer Rapid, where the guidebook said I could stay left of an island and enjoy the big hole at the bottom. Well, there was no island, and there was no big hole, though there were some nice waves, and some half-hidden rocks which might catch a careless raft. The open views were so beautiful that I pulled over to the right bank and threw up. Where would the BLM want me to barf? Never mind, it went in the river. I was not sorry for retching, for as is often the case, it ended the migraine.

I found a place in the shade and dozed for a bit. Then it was on to La Sal rapid, which the guidebook said "looks awful" but can be run in rafts at less than 800 cfs. At 800, there really wasn't much to it; waves and hidden rocks were the only hazards. Just beyond on the left was La Sal Creek running smoothly out of a side canyon. Though there is a pack trail running up along the creek, I couldn't find a good landing, and turned out to paddle through some multi channel rapids.

I missed the left side landing where one can see petroglyphs and dinosaur tracks, and soon came to S-Turn rapid, described as a III+. It was much more open and easy than, say, Spring Creek or One Holer. The only problem might be that the first leg of the S would shoot a loaded raft toward some right side rocks lurking in the turn. These were easy to skirt in a canoe. I landed for pictures and to kill time, even napping a bit again, knowing that Ellie didn't expect me at the take-out until 2 PM.

The last name rapid was "Madam Curie," next to a big side canyon. This was radium mining country, but I don't know why the Madame's glowing reputation was attached to this particular rapid. It was a nice one, though, with a bit of length to it.

In the final mile a big pumping plant appeared up the right bank. This Bureau of Reclamation project is not to extract or purify water. Instead it takes brine from shallow wells and pumps it deep in the ground so it doesn't run down the Dolores and into the Colorado. As mentioned earlier, the Dolores has high salinity, and reducing salinity in the Colorado supposedly helps farmers and communities far down in Arizona, southern California, and Mexico. Of course it would work just as well not to have built two huge reservoirs on the Colorado, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which increase salinity by leaching salt out of the rocks they cover, and lose enormous amounts of pure water to evaporation....

But I digress. Though I hadn't seen any live people all day, just one parked raft, when I got to the take-out there were lots of vehicles and several rafting parties loading up. A couple in an oared raft, the same one I had seen parked earlier, said they had seen me dozing at One Holer rapid. They were fairly experienced canoeists, but decided to try rafting to better cope with the gear challenges of multi-day western rivers.

Ellie appeared on time, in spite of some temporary route confusion. I loaded up while she explored, and then we hit the road, meeting my sister and her family to camp along the Dolores' sister river, the San Miguel. The San Miguel was cookin' with cold runoff, but I had run that section before, and I was dog tired.

In fact I did not run anything after the Dolores. I watched practice for slalom Nationals in Durango. We visited Sand Dunes National Monument, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Mount Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico, and Tishomingo State Park in northeast Mississippi. It just didn't seem important to run anything after the Dolores, not for a while.

June 2-4, 2005

by Gary DeBacher

From The Eddy Line, March 2006

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