San Juan River Trips

Wild Rivers Expeditions, based in Bluff, runs guided day trips and multi-day floats down the San Juan River from Bluff to Mexican Hat and beyond. The stretch through the Comb Wash and Goosenecks section passes sandstone canyon walls, cottonwood groves, and Ancestral Puebloan rock art visible from the river — the pictographs and petroglyphs at Butler Wash being among the finest accessible by water.

The San Juan is a Class I–II river through this section, making it suitable for families and non-paddlers. Motorised rafts and oar boats are both available. Day trips of around 5 hours cover the best of the canyon; longer trips reach the reservoir at Lake Powell. The river trips are a good way to see canyon country that is inaccessible on foot.

things to do sight
A story
The stretch of the San Juan River between Bluff and Mexican Hat passes through the Goosenecks — a series of deeply entrenched meanders where the river loops six miles to travel one mile as the crow flies. The canyon walls here are 300 metres of exposed Pennsylvanian limestone laid down 300 million years ago. The river itself cut through them only in the last few million years, carving a canyon that is simultaneously ancient and geologically recent.