Full San Juan River Rafting Trip

Sample Itinerary

The night before your trip:

We’ll meet at the Arch Canyon Inn in Blanding, Utah, for a pre-trip meeting at 7:00 p.m. (Mountain Time). Pick up your dry bags and meet your guides and fellow passengers. This meeting lets us take care of all the final details so that we can get on the river that much faster the next morning.

Day 1:

Meet back at the Arch Canyon Inn this morning, where we’ll hop into our vans and travel for 45 minutes to the Sand Island put-in. Spend the day encountering archaeological sites representing five distinct cultures of indigenous peoples. See pictographs, petroglyphs, and hand-hewn steps in the canyon walls. Investigate elegantly designed Ancestral Puebloan ruins before descending through Comb Ridge. With plenty of choices for campsites, we’ll have gorgeous canyon views as we settle into river life tonight. Consider resting with your toes in the water, or start up a game of ammo-can tug-of-war with you family. Dinner will be ready shortly!

Day 2:

Mornings on the river start early – but you don’t want to miss the sun creeping its way down the canyon walls anyways. After an impressive first coffee and breakfast on the river, w’ll be on our way. Pass through the settlement of Mexican Hat, then wave at visitors on the rim of the Goosenecks, hundreds of feet above. Climb up to Mendenhall’s cabin, home to a determined gold prospector in the late 1800s. Camp at the foot of the Honaker Trail, another relic from the gold rush in 1892; hike up before dinner for an unforgettable view of the river canyon and Monument Valley. Fall asleep looking for summer constellations.

Day 3:

Small rapids and soaring walls are on tap this morning. Choose to float silently as a group, letting all of your senses come to life and open to the essence of the canyon. Take a ride through Ross Rapid and roll into camp in time for lasagna dinner at our very own river-front restaurant – no table reservations needed!

Day 4:

The biggest rapid of the trip, Government Rapid, will get our morning going with a splash. We’ll lunch at Slickhorn Gulch, one of the most celebrated side canyons along the lower San Juan. Be sure to scrub off in the river before hiking to the secluded, lush swimming hole—sunscreen and other oils disrupt the fragile ecosystem of the freshwater pool. After plenty of playtime, we’ll make our way to set up camp for a final camp circle evening of dinner and stories.

Day 5:

The canyon walls begin to descend around us until we are surrounded by smooth, golden Cedar Mesa sandstone. We may explore Oljeto Wash and play in the mud at its mouth before pushing on through the sandbars and riffles of the lower canyon. Our vans await at Clay Hills, our take-out, and we’ll wave farewell to the river as we climb out of the drainage and across the rugged topography of the Monument Upwarp, back to Blanding, Utah, between 4:00–5:00 p.m.

Please keep in mind that this is a sample itinerary. Your trip may include different hikes and attractions – there’s so many to choose from. This is meant to provide one possible example of how you may spend your time. Five days gives you plenty of opportunities to see all sorts of interesting things. We invite you to embrace the expeditionary nature of a river trip in the wilderness and arrive with an open mind and a willingness to go with the flow!