This sleepy little, somewhat dilapidated, town took its name from the river that is a major tributary of the Colorado River. The town has always been about passers-by, starting when the Old Spanish Trail forded the river here, due to a short stretch of shallow water. A ferry service in the 1870s gave the town its real start catering to travelers.Now it offers the only services along I-70 between Grand Junction, CO and Richfield, UT, each about 100 miles away.
Green River is just barely in Emery County, a vast wilderness area that includes the San Rafael Swell, where the earth's crust bulged upward until it eventually cracked. The crack, geologically known as an anticline and named the San Rafael Reef, is a 75 mile long piece of jagged sandstone steeply tilted with a multitude of twisting canyons hundreds of feet deep. The surrounding area has some of the most colorful and picturesque landscape found anywhere, although you must look past its harshness to appreciate its beauty. When early settlers arrived, part of the Mormon expansion program, one woman reportedly said, "Damn the man who would bring a woman to such a God-forsaken country".
The heyday for Emery County and Green River was in the 1950s, driven by uranium mining. The U.S. government was paying top dollar for uranium and this area had lots of it. Between 1950 and 1956, Emery County alone had more than 50,000 recorded mining claims. Abandoned mines can now be found all over the desert near here and the massive clean-up of waste material is still going on. Green River's population peaked at 1075 in the 1960 census and has declined slowly since then, now less than 1000. In addition to travelers passing through, Green River also hosts a large volume of outdoor enthusiasts who come to play in "the Swell". Prehistoric Indians lived in the many canyons and left their rock art as another attraction, which is why I come here.
A natural feature called Crystal Geyser is located nine miles south of Green River. While most geysers, such as those in Yellowstone, are driven by heat, Crystal Geyser is a cold water phenomenon driven by carbon dioxide pressure. I'm told its erratic eruptions can go as high as sixty feet, but I've never been lucky enough to see that. I was happy to see it bubbling at all on this visit.
With eruptions every twelve to sixteen hours, the water flowing into the Green River has created beautiful terraces of iron-rich deposits.
The Green River is vital to local farms and ranches that couldn't survive without irrigation. The area is widely known for its watermelon crop, said to be the sweetest melons anywhere. A "melon festival" each September draws people from far and wide. Old farm equipment can often be found left in the field for visitors to see.
The river is also a popular spot for locals to cool off on the hot summer days that regularly exceed 100 F. The rapids offer a challenge for the frequent rafting trips. John Wesley Powell's expeditions came by here in 1869 and 1870 on their way to explore the Grand Canyon.
Old homesteads, mostly made of stone, can be found scattered about. Stone was readily available, while wood had to be hauled down from distant mountains. Local cottonwood trees did not make good lumber.
As mentioned, Indian rock art was left on canyon walls and large boulders, usually in remote and hard to reach locations. The local visitor center provides hand-drawn maaps to some of the art sites near town. The first ones I visited were petroglyphs, and not very impressive. I know there is better quality that I'll see later.
In my travels searching for art, I did encounter some wildlife, such as desert bighorn sheep and the ever present pronghorns.
My first full day in Green River ended with a spectacular sunset that revealed rain in the distance, but none where I was.
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