River Adventure with SPLORE

How many of you have heard about or experienced the adventure with SPLORE? What is it? It is acronym being squeezed short from the long sounding words: Special Population Learning Outdoor Recreation Education. It is a non-profit organization for outdoor activities for the Handicapped.

The brainchild of 100% outdoor river trip were Jayne McGuire, Executive Director and Dottie Shinpock. It offered five-day canoe trip on Green River through Labyrinth Canyon in Southern Utah from September 25 to 29. Ironically it fell on my birthday so in a way this adventure was my birthday gift.

There were 12 of us. It turned out I was the only halfway septugarian with Koni Battad and Art Valdez halfway sexuguarians to go with the group from 20-ish to 50-ish. It was quite a feat for me to paddle the canoe heavily ladened with waterproof river bags for 5 days!

Not only the three of us were deaf with the interpreter. Travis Cook with his great outdoor skills, there were two handicapped persons, a man in the wheel chair and a lady with a cane and braces on her legs. This shows how advanced and possible nowadays I for them to be able to travel with help from SPLORE. The very able-bodied participants did all the hard work.

The river trip covered about 47 miles and was not based on time schedule like bus or train. Instead, it used mileage averaging from 4 to 7 a day with few camping spaces to be reached. Labyrinth Canyon indeed lived up to its name. Green River snaked and curved so much all the way that sense and direction to the sun or N – S – W – E became confusing and lost. It was like Time Machine that transported 12 of us back into eons ago where there were no electricity. No cars…no TV…no houses…no other people… just relaxing scenery…few birds flying around.

We progressed slowly and leisurely along with the river flow southward so we could soak in such creative beautiful work of God. At every curve of the meandering, twisting, winding river we saw different forms of canyons bathed in beautiful variety of brownish colors from reddish, rustic, brownish to few splashes of black. Canyons had various shapes with imaginative forms of statues like lions, birds, horses, frogs, and profiles of men and so on. It was OUTDOORS all the way!

It was like this: Paddle-paddle…beach by steep river bank…haul up food and kitchen gears from the raft up…lunch…haul stuff back…paddle-paddle…beach next narrow strip…haul up everything – camping gears, food and septic toilet tank up from both the raft and 5 canoes up steep bank to camping ground for a night…pitching up the tents…cooking, washing…singing around the campfire…then on the next day…hauling down all stuff, which were carefully packed evenly…paddle-paddle…for 5 days and 4 nights!

Five canoes with the raft tagging behind changed courses on Green River – strung up in a line…then clustered in a group, drifting down with the flow of the downstream river, then spread out side by side.

Camper’s Woes: When several canoes headed toward the flat sandy bank for lunch, it happened I was in the first canoe to beach, I jumped out into shallow water only to find myself sucked down in muddy “quicksand” up to my hip. Still holding on to the canoe, I pulled myself out with my only slacks all wet and muddy!

Art Valdez raved how lovely it was to sleep in open, gazing at sparkling stars in moonlight night and said others were sleeping without tents. So, Koni and I took his bright idea and slept without our tent for last two nights. Then, on fourth night around 3:00 am torrential rains with lightning and loud thunderclaps descended on us, soaking our sleeping bags and duffel bags wet. We scrambled frantically like ants, pitched up our tents and got into shelter cold and wet!

On fourth day of marathon paddling, Jayne rewarded us with free white T-shirts with SPLORE designs imprinted. Then, we painted colors of our choice – very recreative! The end of this Labyrinth trip found all of us sunburned, bug-bitten with disheveled hair and dirty clothes. No matter how dirty, muddied and smelly to high heaven we were, still we reaped this wonderful river adventure that kept us spellbound.

After grueling unpacking camping gears and cleaning up five canoes and deflating the raft, we took a harrowing ride up the narrow dusty one way road up the steep side of the canyon back to our cars parked 12 miles away. Such adventure we had! We would love to go back next year. Care to join us?