­by Stacy Falk

Some of the greatest adventures don’t require a plane ticket to travel half way across the world. Turns out, many expeditions can happen right at home.

Which is why Greg Cairns, 23, and Stephen Witherspoon, 27, decided to navigate the entire 126 miles of the Animas River, from its headwaters high in the San Juans to its confluence with the San Juan River in New Mexico, to where it ultimately dumps out into Lake Powell. But the plan didn’t stop there. After hitting the lake, their small flotilla cruised 92 miles across slack water to Page, Ariz., using a motor powered by solar panels. Ultimately, they were stopped five weeks and 400 miles later not by a dam, but lack of a highly coveted Grand Canyon permit and funds to continue.

Cairns, a humanities major at Fort Lewis College with roots in Wheaton, Ill., hatched the plan with Witherspoon, aka “Spoon,” an environmental studies major from Melrose, Fla., while working at Outdoor Pursuits on campus.

During a two-week backpacking trip with the program, Cairns told of the short documentary he recently finished, “Walking In,” about hiking Vermont’s Long Trail. Cairns mentioned that he wanted to start another project.
 “We immediately started brainstorming a source-to-somewhere type trip,” said Witherspoon.

Just the Facts What: “The Current,” a 5-week epic adventure down the Animas and San Juan rivers When: Wed., April 10, 7:30 p.m. Where: Backspace Theater, 1120 Main Ave.

While the two friends spent the next eight months planning their adventure, they also learned about a similar trip. In 2011, Will Stauffer-Norris and Zak Podmore spent 113 days traveling 1,700 miles retracing the route of the Colorado River, from the headwaters of the Green River in the Wind River Range of Wyoming to the Gulf of California, in Mexico. The result was “Remains of a River: Source to Sea Down the Colorado.”

“We thought that was pretty neat and that we could take more of a local spin on it,” Witherspoon said.
In addition, Jesse Lamb, 23, was invited to join the trip about two months before departure to help with logistics and help film what would come to be called “The Current: Source to Somewhere.”

“I was super jazzed about the idea of the trip,” said Lamb. “I suppose they threw me the invite after they saw me as a worthy candidate.”

Lamb, born in Durango and raised in Telluride, said there was some apprehension from family about the trip because of the ruggedness of the terrain. But all in all, he said they were excited to see what happened.

And Cairns says, as far as they know, they’re the only ones to complete this trip over the duration of five weeks. Not just from the start of the Animas, but high above the mining town of Animas Forks at the very top of Wood Mountain, a 13,660-foot peak in the San Juans, where they officially kicked off the trip by snowboarding and skiing down on May 15, 2012.

 “We got about 1,500 vertical feet of snow,” said Cairns. “So a couple good turns.”

After the epic spring ski, they walked down the road from Animas Forks to Eureka. The next day, they kayaked to Silverton and camped at the put-in for the class IV-V stretch of the Upper Animas.

“We were fortunate enough to be guided down this section of river with 4 Corners Whitewater during their spring guide training,” said Witherspoon.
Leaving the biggest rapids of the trip behind, they met their final crew member, Brandon Lundquist, 23, at Rockwood and started walking the tracks to get around the treacherous box canyon, unrunnable for all but the most skilled boaters.

The rafts were shuttled back to the river below Bakers Bridge, and the four river trippers spent the next five days on the Animas en route to the confluence with the San Juan River in Farmington.

For Lundquist, a computer engineer from Milwaukee who would be involved in post production, this was his first river trip, but not his first adventure with Cairns. Nevertheless, as the river rookie, he sometimes was at a loss for the intricacies of rigging and river life. “It was an interesting learning experience,” said Lundquist. “And difficult because I didn’t always know what to do to help.”

Not only would Lundquist quickly learn the ropes of multi-day river tripping, but he would do so on parts of the river that most boaters shy away from. Aside from the popular reaches of the Upper Animas, the Durango town run and the BLM-permitted stretch of the San Juan from Bluff to Clay Hills, the river presents many hazards as well as miles of slow moving flat water. Navigating or portaging low-head dams around Aztec made for long days, according to Witherspoon.

Whether or not it was moments like these that led to the rafts being nicknamed after the guys ex-girlfriends is up for debate.

The boat that Jack built: the solar-powered motor rig chugs across Powell./Photo by Stephen Witherspoon

“We were worried that we wouldn’t make it to 4 the  San Juan for high water,” Cairns said. Luckily, the flows hung in there, making for easy going through the Navajo Nation on the other side of Farmington. “It was flowing high, and we knew it would be fast water and sand waves to Bluff,” he said.

The men made up for lost time, averaging about 20 miles a day through the reservation, which was a relief since were worried they would miss their June 3 launch date from Bluff.

“A lot of the time it felt eerie out there,” said Lundquist of the time floating through the vast expanse of desert. “But other times it was actually quite peaceful.”

At Sand Island, in Bluff, they were welcomed by friends and family who would spend the next 10 days with them before taking out at Clay Hills.

 

They were also joined by Jack Kloepfer, owner of Aztec-based Jack’s Plastic Welding, who would join them for the remainder of the trip. Kloepfer, who sponsored the trip with the use of boats, Paco Pads and dry bags, also built the solar boat that got them across Lake Powell.

“When the kids first asked me to be involved, I asked how they were going to get across the lake, and they said row,” said Kloepfer. “I noticed they were also sponsored by Solar Works, and I told them I had a better idea.”

The 24-volt system ran off of two 12-inch batteries that were charged by 240-watt panels, said Cairns. This created enough electricity to operate the 6hp motor for the 15-foot cataraft and tow two mini catarafts, called Cutthroats.

But before they could fire up the motor, the river runners had to contend with one last, formidable task. After the Clay Hills take-out for the Lower San Juan, the river plunges over a sediment-backlogged waterfall as it makes its final drop to the lake. Like most who obey the sign at Clay Hills warning boaters to take out, Kloepfer had never past that point of no return. However, he enlisted the advice of Tom Martin, river enthusiast and co-author of the Rivermaps series, on how to navigate the seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

“He told us exactly where to take out and what to be aware of,” Kloepfer said. “But the portage itself was definitely one of the most challenging parts of the trip.”

After the two hour portage, the sun-charged batteries were put to the test as the motor dropped.

“I was a little nervous to see if it actually worked,” said Lundquist. “There was some trial and error but overall a big success.”

Once on Powell, Cairns, Witherspoon and Lundquist were in awe of the beauty it held.

“None of us had actually seen Lake Powell before this trip, and we kind of had this negative image toward it,” said Witherspoon. “It’s very stunning.”

Kloepfer estimated there were 5 miles of river before and after the falls and then 85 miles of motoring. In all, the expedition, which hit dry land in Page on June 18, logged 400 miles, 10,000 feet in elevation drop and more than 70 hours of raw footage.

Through it all, Cairns said he gained a better perspective not just of adventure, but of the massively complex topic of water usage in the West. He said one day he would like to pick up where the trip left off, continuing down the Colorado River. In the meantime, he has spent countless hours interviewing various experts on the issue of water in the Southwest, from the San Juan Citizen’s Alliance and Glenn Canyon Institute to the Southwest Water Conservation District, in an effort to tie the whole experience together. “There can be multiple versions of this film,” said Cairns. “But for now it’s about the journey.”

The film will premier Wed., April 10, at the Backspace Theater, and the men hope it will open at least a few eyes to the multifaceted landscape we live and play in every day.

“I would encourage anybody interested in outdoor sports that take place in our environment to come and watch the movie,” said Lamb.