San Rafael

Black Boxes of the San Rafael Trip Report

350 cfs: Perfect flows!

Did a 22.5 mile long sneak variation rappelling 200’ into the Upper Box and ran all the way thru the Lower Box to Black Dragon rd. off the I70 in a day. Epically cool and committing technical packraft day trip.

2-3 mandatory portages including climbing/scrambling and lining boats around a riverwide strainer/sieve, lots of land/boat scouting, and lots of beavers (and strainers they made)!

My partner Sylvan floated the Upper Box many times prior and I had creek experience and the combination of skills, local familiarization, and desert knowledge made getting around obstacles manageable.

The Black Boxes, particularly the Lower, was gorgeous but felt very daunting as you are way out in the backcountry with no egress inside either of the Boxes with very real sieve/strainer danger, particularly in a couple of the class 4s and the massive strainer portage. If you swim the small rapid before the strainer portage or fall into the river while traversing around it, it’d be deadly without quick throwbagging from upstream (will post seperately about the strainer)

The rest of the time outside the Boxes (majority of the trip) was a relaxed and mega scenic way to see the heart of the San Rafael Swell. Felt super good after getting thru the Lower Box, that’s for sure. Oh, we also did this 12 hours town to town (Moab) with a shuttle driver that dropped us off and pulled our rope up!

Visual trip report: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrXvN6Qvpzb/