LGBTQ+ Yampa River Rafting Trips

Sample Itinerary

The night before your trip: Please join us at Holiday’s headquarters in Vernal, Utah, at 7:00 p.m., Mountain Time for a quick pre-trip orientation . Your guides will issue your waterproof bags, instruct you on how to pack them, and you’ll have time to buy any last minute items from our on-site store (see our packing checklist for items you can find at our store).

Day 1:

Meet back our Vernal operation center bright and early the next morning, packed and ready to load into our vans. Sit tight with anticipation for a 90-minute van ride to the put-in at Deerlodge Park in Colorado. After preparing the rafts and getting you oriented, we’ll push off and begin to better get to know one another and our unique identities, personalities and motivations for joining this affinity trip.  We’ll enter the walls of the Yampa’s Canyon right off the bat, and encounter several fun, splashy rapids. Enjoy lunch on a beach near a historic cabin. Make camp and fall asleep to the sound of rushing water.

Day 2:

Hike to a wide cave where ancestral indigenous peoples left signs of their presence. Follow the river’s entrenched meanders past the 1,200-foot Grand Overhang. Listen for the call of peregrine falcons or other raptors that nest on the canyon rim. Send a prayer for good rapid runs to come by carefully kissing the Tiger Wall. Then hold on tight for Warm Springs rapid, the biggest of the trip.

Day 3:

This morning may include a silent float as we approach the confluence at Echo Park where we will join the Green River. Watch the different colored-water flow side by side mixing together to form a truly unique confluence experience. The canyon walls changes dramatically as we float through the Mitten Park Fault and into Whirlpool Canyon. Spend the remaining daylight hours at Jones Hole Creek: fishing, hiking, petroglyphs, big horn sheep, and waterfalls are all likely in the cards.

Day 4:

Whirlpool canyon offers numerous playful rapids before exiting into Island Park: an area full of striking open-sky scenery. Peak into Cottonwoods for a watchful bald eagle.  We’ll follow the river as it makes a sharp cut through the aptly named Split Mountain. The river drops dramatically at an average of almost 20 feet per mile for the last eight miles. Enjoy your last several rapids before we break for lunch and finally arrive at the boat ramp. We’ll load the boats and then transport you for the final half hour ride back to our warehouse in Vernal. We typically plan to arrive back at our headquarters around 4:00 p.m.

Please remember that this is a sample itinerary, not an exact description of your trip. Our goal is simply to give you an overview of what the trip may entail. We invite you to embrace the inherent changeability of a wilderness river trip and come prepared to have fun and go with the flow!