“It’s a classic!” said Tim, which by itself didn’t mean much to me since he describes most, if not all, sections of river he’s run as such. But in this case he wasn’t the only friend to speak of the the 85 mile stretch of the Desolation and Gray Canyons of the Green River as a must-do, so when he offered me an invite to join the six day Deso/Gray trip he and river-guru Rod Nash were organizing, I was in.

We were on the river for six days and five nights, and the river was in flood stage the entire time. The BLM says it’s runnable at a flow of 900 cubic feet per second, so at the 28,000 cfs we encountered, it was moving pretty quick. Sure, some of the rapids were washed out as a result of the high flows, but others were pretty big and the wave-trains went on and on. I think I agree, Desolation Gray is a classic.