Rive Music on The Green River – Paddling with Dvorak Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com Read this entire feature FREE with photos at: http://www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/sports02/raft/dvorak/dvorak.htmlMy wine glass is almost empty. A long, sweet note from
cello signals end of first movement. I stand and make my way to hors d’oeuvre table as warm sand sifts between my toes.
This ain’t Philharmonic.
The rock walls projected Kirstin, Jackie, Maurice, and Lynn's music throughout canyon.
It’s a rafting trip with a soundtrack — or a concert with scenery, if you prefer. For decades, Bill Dvořák's Kayak and Rafting Expeditions has combined splendid isolation of scenic rivers with at-home comforts of good food and relaxation. The collision with music occurred over 20 years ago when a guest brought a violin. Bill must have said, “Hey, your classical music is in my rafting trip!” and then discovered that it was a wonderful combination. The Classical Music River Journey was born.
Rafting on Utah's Green River.
Desolation Canyon is a wilderness area in eastern Utah, named in 1869 by explorer John Wesley Powell, and it seems almost as inaccessible today as it was then. A small airplane delivered us to a dirt strip on a plateau beside river. The musicians arrived on a second plane, and we got acquainted during short hike down to our put-in point at Sand Wash. Conversation turned briefly to local black bears that occasionally make pests of themselves. How might we scare them out of camp, someone asked. Maurice, cellist, suggested, “Make violist play!” The violist in quartet happened to be his wife. I liked this group already.
For eight days Green River carried our rafts through Desolation and Gray Canyons to take-out 84 miles downstream at Swasey’s Rapid. Guests who wanted exercise could go on hikes with Bill, swim in khaki-colored water, or paddle an inflatable kayak. Actually, those last two were one and same if we weren’t careful: nimble little “duckies” were lots of fun in Class II and III rapids, but they could easily be turned and flipped by waves. However, I wasn’t worried that my fellow guests might laugh at me from their nice stable rafts, since for next week I would know where they lived.
“It’s probably five or six hundred years old,” Bill said of huge, gnarled cottonwood tree. We were lunching in its shade. The sunshine wasn’t hot, but we would be getting plenty of exposure in next few days and didn’t want to overdo it. Eying a distant thunderhead, I wondered if we might soon have more shade than we wanted.
The tree was young compared to petroglyphs we saw during trip. Carved by Fremont and Anasazi tribes 750 to 1200 years ago, depictions of warriors and animals were well preserved in clean, dry air. More recent residents left their marks, too: in Fire Water Canyon we visited an abandoned moonshiner’s hideout with remains of distillery inside, and next day at Rock Creek Ranch we walked through old stone house and mulberry orchard.
