Floating Man

On the Colorado..... by: Steph Davis

By KAVU

October 20^th, 2020

I’ve never made it to Burning Man—sounds like an amazing experience, but also a lot of effort and time, and it’s right at the start of prime climbing season, so it has not been in the cards. This year, with the pandemic halting so many events, a group of local do-ers decided to hold their own small, socially distanced gathering on the Colorado River instead:

Floating Man!

Ian, Cajun and I love floating down the river with our SUPs, especially when we lash them together and form the “party barge,” so we realized Floating Man was not to be missed.

We have two 11 foot SUPs, and once they became a party barge, they had no problem carrying us with camp chairs, a Yeti cooler (not the lightest cooler you can get!), a big duffel full of water and warm clothes and one medium sized dog.

Most of the group decided to put in at Gold Bar, but we drove all the way down Potash Road to the final take out ramp to drop a car and were a little behind schedule, so we figured we’d put in a little bit down the river and either meet or catch up with the party-mada.

We’d been hearing a lot about the DJ raft that had been constructed to lead the float, but even so we were not prepared for the pure glory of the decked out floating DJ boat, completely solar powered and with its own oarsman, macrame sun shades and a wooden man on the front. We heard it before we saw it, with a fantastic assortment of watercraft floating behind and around it, including an inflatable unicorn of course.

We floated down the Colorado, with a few beach stops for dogs and kids to run around and for some dancing, and we approached the final beach as the DJ channeled the vibe of the changing light and the sun dropping behind the cliffs.

We stayed on the beach enjoying the music, fire spinning and the moon rise, until there was enough moonlight for us to make the final stretch of the float to take out at Potash Boat Ramp, where we’d dropped our car earlier.