Canyonlands Packrafting and Backpacking Trip: Ultimate Guide to Explore All 3 Districts

Canyonlands National Park has some of the most remote sections of US National Parks and this 4-day backpack-rafting trip was the ultimate adventure. We explored all 3 districts of Canyonlands as well as the Colorado River and Green River confluence in Moab, Utah.

HIKE TO: Island in the Sky, The Maze, and The Needles districts of Canyonlands
TRAIL: Lathrop Canyon Trailhead
MILES: 31.4 miles hike + 35 miles paddling
TIME: 4 days, 3 nights
DATE I WENT: April 20-23, 2023
DIFFICULTY: strenuous 
HIKE / CAMP PERMIT: yes 
PARKING PERMIT: you need a National Park Pass
LOCATION: Canyonlands National Park in Moab, Utah

Fun Fact:
There are 3 districts that comprise Canyonlands National Park, 4 if you count the confluence. There are no roads that connect any of the districts. The only way to access one district from another is via the rivers.

We were able to hike and explore all three districts of Canyonlands: Island in the Sky, Needles, and the remote Maze; as well as paddle down the Colorado River to the confluence of the Green River.

Experience Level: This was my first time packrafting on moving water! I’ve only explored lakes with my packraft but I hear rivers are easier.

Traveling through all the districts of Canyonlands is a very remote adventure. We hardly saw anyone else for most of our trip. If you are looking for easier to access hiking trails, click here to read my guide to the best hikes in Canyonlands National Park.

What is Packrafting?

Packrafting is a unique outdoor adventure that seamlessly combines backpacking and rafting, opening up a world of exploration for outdoor enthusiasts. It’s a different way of traveling. Essentially, it involves packing a lightweight, inflatable raft onto your backpack, allowing you to traverse bodies of water encountered during a hiking or backpacking trip, so you can explore otherwise hard-to-reach places. 

How hard is packrafting?

Packrafting, while accessible to beginners, can vary in difficulty depending on the water conditions, route, and your personal strength. For beginners, calm rivers and lakes offer a gentle introduction to the sport. While parts of Canyonlands have rapids only for experienced rafters, the portion of the Colorado River we paddled, as well as Green River, was a tranquil float.

What packraft do I need?

Selecting the right packraft is key for a successful Canyonlands National Park adventure.

The beauty of packrafting lies in its inflatable nature. Choose a packraft that can be easily inflated and deflated, allowing you to pack it efficiently in/ on your backpack. Look for an inflatable packraft that strikes the perfect balance between durability and weight. Since you’ll be carrying it while hiking, a lightweight and compact design like the Kokopelli Rogue Lite is essential for ease of transportation. 

My friend had the Kokopelli Hornet-Lite which is designed for their lake series but it sufficed for this trip and comes at a cheaper price point. Shop at your own risk though.

Other things to consider are the maneuverability and stability of the raft, storage convenience, buoyancy and safety features, and paddle compatibility.

Planning Your Packrafting Utah Trip: Everything You Need to Know Before You Go

These were our main considerations when planning for this trip, the nitty-gritty details that you don’t encounter when in the mountains.

• You need a camping permit for this trip: Canyonlands National Park Overnight Backcountry Permit
• Food Storage: A bear canister is recommended for all trips but only required from March 15 – Nov 30; review food container regulations here
• Water Filter: The water source to filter from in much of the Southwest US is very silty due to the desert landscape; this can be hard on certain filters. My typical favorite ultralight filter, the Katadyn BeFree, did not perform well here. There was too much gunk which clogged up the filter. However, the MSR Guardian Purifier worked wonders with these water conditions. I’ve used this filter on other trips and highly recommend it for silty water. They are both good depending on what you need them for.
• Car shuttle: You will need to arrange a ride from your end trailhead and your start trailhead as you begin in different districts about 2 hours apart by car.
• Best Time to Go: Spring is a good time for a trip like this. The two things to consider when planning when to go are the weather and water levels. Since the rivers that run through Canyonlands for this trip are both really big, I wouldn’t worry about the water levels/ lack thereof. But you can certainly look into the speed of the flow and how the levels may affect your campsites. The weather is something important to consider when you are exploring in the desert. In the summer, the temperatures and heat can get unbearably hot, while the winter could be freezing. 

Ultimate 4-Day Backpacking and Packrafting Adventure in Southwest USA

Day 1: Island in the Sky District: Hike from Lathrop Trailhead to Colorado River

10.8 mile hike

Before beginning our adventure, we had to set up our car shuttle so we would have a ride back at the end. With 3 cars in our group of 4 coming from all different directions in the US, we were able to drop off one car at Elephant Trailhead in the Needles district where we planned to finish (Thanks Emily and Sally for taking care of this)!

We started our hike at 3:30 pm after picking up our backcountry permits in town in Moab. The Lathrop Trailhead does not have an actual parking lot, but our cars were fine parked along the shoulder of the road. 

My backpack for 3 nights and all of my packrafting gear weighed about 26.5 lbs. I used my ultralight backpack and broke a strap right before so I tried to keep my weight down. An ultralight pack probably isn’t the best option for a multi-day packrafting pack but it’s worked for me on every trip so far. Ultralight packs are designed to carry a lighter weight load but since all of my backpacking gear is typically super light, it leaves just enough space to handle my raft weight.

The Lathrop Trail to the canyon rim is only 2.5 miles, it is 6.8 miles down to the White Rim Road, and 10.8 miles total down to the Colorado River which was our goal.

Overall on this entire hiking adventure, the trail exists to some degree but it helps to know how to route find and follow cairns as it’s not always clearly marked.

The trail starts off flat, very sandy, and completely exposed to the baking sun. The views from up here are absolutely breathtaking as you can see down into the vast canyon with the Colorado River and La Sal Mountains in the distance. 

After reaching the canyon rim, the trail maneuvers down 1,582 ft to reach the bottom of the canyon where the White Rim Road is. This part of the “trail” is along the edge of the canyon on uneven ground and requires route-finding skills – you are essentially scrambling down the canyon which seems sketchy and scary and almost dangerous at first, but if you can follow the path and be mindful of your steps and terrain, it’s a really cool experience.

Once you reach the bottom-ish of the canyon, the route is harder to find; just make sure you have a GPS track downloaded, researched your route beforehand, and know the general direction to go. 

I feel like the desert can be confusing sometimes because it’s hard to determine if it is better to hike in the dry sandy wash or the “trail” that weaves up and down around it.

We reached the White Rim Road at 6:44 pm around golden hour and continued our hike towards the Colorado River. The remainder of the hike was flat and continuously sandy. The trail also starts passing between closer canyon walls which could provide more shade depending on the time of day you are hiking.

The sun set behind the canyon walls after 7 pm but we had daylight until we reached camp and set up at 8:15 pm. The beach campsite by the Colorado River we planned to camp at was close but hard to reach upstream and possibly underwater still so we tucked ourselves off to the sides around our launch point in the morning. There’s actually a clean porta-potty here!

Note: The campsites along this route can vary throughout the time of year depending on the water levels.

The ten-mile hike down Lathrop Canyon Trail in Island in the Sky was one of my favorite days of the trip. We didn’t see any other hikers this day.

Day 2: Paddle Colorado River & Green River Confluence from Island in the Sky District to Spanish Bottom at The Maze District

27 miles of paddling

After packing up camp and setting up our packrafts, we launched at 10 am for a long day of paddling on the Colorado River! This was the first time I paddled on a river and the idea of it made me nervous (big open water spaces make me nervous). 

This day is 27 miles of mostly flatwater on the Colorado River to Spanish Bottom campground, but there is a small class 2 rapids section just before the Green River and Colorado River confluence.

First time Rafting on the Colorado River

The current looked like it was flowing along quickly but once I got on the water, it seemed to move so slowly. It took a lot more effort to paddle down this slow-moving river than I expected. I was always told that a river is easier to packraft than a lake because that is what it is designed for, but dang – this took a lot of effort.

For the first 4 miles, I struggled to keep up with the group of bad@$$ women I joined. I have always lacked upper body strength and need to train for certain objectives, but I also jumped onto this trip less than a month before which didn’t leave much time for me to strength train. My focus the past few months was skiing and I had not been climbing or strength training, so paddling took a lot out of me. Every time I caught up to the group, they were ready to go again.

In 1:15 hr this morning, we only went 4 miles. 

I believe good communication is key in any group activity so as much as I wanted to fake it till I made it, I expressed to them how physically demanding this was for me and they were very compassionate and helpful, trying to find solutions to help make the experience better for me. I hate being the weak link but I’m also not ashamed to ask for help when I need it and water sports are not my strong suit.

At 11:15 am, Sally ended up giving me a helpful tow. We did not plan for this so we were limited in our supplies, but luckily we found a way to attach my packraft to one of theirs with a cord and carabiner. 

At 1 pm and just over 10 miles on the Colorado River, we came across our first good “beach” we could pull over on to have a lunch break.

20 minutes later, we were back moving on the water and Chelsea towed me for the rest of the day… and trip. The way I understand it – towing another boat/ human (me) isn’t much more work for the person in front. You feel it most when the cord attaching the rafts gets tugged on from being taut and loose; this happens when I paddle and stop paddling so the front boat feels a little yanked by the back boat. When the person in the back paddles too, you obviously go faster. When it’s just the front person paddling, it’s a more leisurely pace.

Honestly though, this way of paddling is nice because you can talk to your friends and really share the experience together as opposed to literally floating around on your own and having to yell to communicate.

As we continued floating down the Colorado River, we saw no other rafters, just a couple of motorboats. There are areas along the river where you can get out and hike which we saw some people from the motorboats do, but we didn’t have the luxury of time and extra energy so we continued our long float.

Colorado River and Green River Confluence to Spanish Bottom

There is a small class 2 rapids section called The Slide about 20 mins before reaching the confluence (which we obviously untethered for). I almost got stuck in an eddy at the end of it and tried not to panic but looking back – it was thrilling and makes me want to do more!

Once we reached the Green and Colorado River confluence, our camp at Spanish Bottom was just 3 miles away. The rivers separate the different districts of Canyonlands so once we passed the confluence, we set our eyes on the Maze district for the first time on our right side. The Needles district is on the left.

As we approached our camp, we saw a DANGER sign warning us of hazardous rapids 2 miles down the way at Cataract Canyon. I’m not even going to pretend that this did not scare the crap out of me. Cataract Canyon has some extreme world-class whitewater rapids and the idea of missing my beach to pull off on and getting swept down the river to the canyon terrified me, but I’ll talk about this more on day 4 below

It took us a bit to find a spot to dock along the right side of the river for camp – the beach we were looking for was underwater, and there was a group at the other option already, so we ended up on an awkward point of docking and launching. 

Getting out of the boat in the water was awkward. The small piece of land we had was muddy and slippery. The branches provided no stability. We lugged our little rafts with all our stuff still loaded in them up a small log with steps cut out to reach our campsite at Spanish Bottom for the next two nights.

After 30 mins of regrouping and figuring out how to get out of the water (one of us ended a bit more downstream), we made it to camp just past 6 pm.

The water source to filter from at camp is the Colorado River which is very silty and hard on certain filters. The MSR Guardian Purifier works well for these conditions or iodine tablets but I prefer an actual filter.

We didn’t see anyone else paddling this day, just a couple of people traveling by motorboats.

Mindset going into the next day:
I hate being a burden to anyone. I like to be able to handle my own and carry my own weight, so I told Chelsea I was thinking about sitting out the next day of paddling the Green River and I would just hike and explore the Maze on my own that day since we were camping in the same spot. Chelsea (whom I only met 7 months prior to this trip but we’ve grown close on many adventures since) was so sweet in her response – she offered (several times) to help tow me along the Green River so I could continue with the group for our Maze and Green River day. Now, that’s a true friend.

Day 3: Hiking the Maze District and Paddling the Green River

10.6 mile hike through the Maze, 8 mile paddle (5 miles on Green River and 3 miles on Colorado River)

Exploring the Maze district was so much cooler than I imagined! I looked up photos of the Maze area beforehand and didn’t think it was any better than the Needles district that I was so excited about. Well, I think the Maze might be my new favorite district of Canyonlands.

We started our hike at 8:38 am up to The Dollhouse Granaries from Spanish Bottom. It’s a steep and exposed trail of switchbacks, gaining 1,299 ft of elevation in just 1.4 miles.

At 9:34 am, we reached the top and the trailhead to the Doll House. We were finally beginning our journey to explore The Maze. The Granaries was only a short 0.2 mile detour from the Dollhouse trail so we went to check that out first. Granaries are where food was stored back when people still lived here and these were well-preserved.

Moving on with the Dollhouse trail, our adventure through the Maze required a lot of route finding and even a slot canyon. There is no well-marked, maintained trail out here so you will have to make sure you do your research ahead of time so you know where to go. It helps to download GPS tracks, read some maps, and follow cairns.

After 1.2 miles of exploring, we exited the Doll House area and connected with a dirt road at Beehive Arch Trailhead to begin our 3.3 mile flat ish hike on the Colorado Green River Overlook Trail to Shot Canyon/ Water Canyon Trail. The hike was only a dirt road for a very short portion. We passed the Beehive Arch, lots of impressive and unique sandstone landscape, and while the trail is relatively flat, it does have a lot of little ups and downs on rocks, with some drop-offs that were high and steep enough to require dropping our packs first and booty-scooching.

At 12:30 pm, we made the left turn at the trail junction to connect to the Shot Canyon/ Water Canyon Trail. Make sure you pay attention so you don’t miss the correct trails; not every trail and side canyon will have river access so be sure you know where you are going. 

1.6 miles further, we connected with Water Canyon at 1:16 pm.

This is 6.1 miles from the Dollhouse Trailhead (7.5 miles from Spanish Bottom Camp) and the first time we came across a water source with clear, non-silty water. The whole trail up until this point is sandy, dry, and exposed so be prepared with enough water. 

Hiking through Water Canyon was beautiful – to be in the presence of water in the dry desert just makes you feel happy – it’s like an oasis and almost reminded me of Escalante for a split second. 

As we began a slight descent of 140 ft in 0.9 miles, we finally reached the beginning of our exit canyon at 1:53 pm.

We exited the Maze from Shot Canyon/ Water Canyon; this was our launch point to paddle the Green River. Shot Canyon and Water Canyon share this same unmaintained trail out. The trail does split off from each other but not for the portion we were hiking. As we descend, Shot Canyon is first and Water Canyon is along the river. But this photo below is basically that whole canyon.

The hike down Shot Canyon and out to the Green River was 1.26 miles with 616 ft of descent, but most of the elevation loss in that first 0.8 miles that drops 580 ft. The trail resembles the first day of our adventure while descending into the canyon… but worse. It starts off high along the edge of the canyon with a steep drop-off, is unmaintained and requires route finding and boulder scrambling, and can be hard on the knees.

There is another (and better) clear water source to filter from at the bottom of this canyon, closer to the exit. Fill up here! You are close enough to paddle from here and don’t need to worry about carrying the extra weight for too long, and will really appreciate it when you get back to camp.

There were some good campsites by the river access here, but we left our camp set up at Spanish Bottoms so we inflated our pack rafts, paddled about 5 miles down the Green River to the confluence which was even slower-flowing than the Colorado River, and repeated the 3-mile section of the Colorado River to get back to camp.

We got back to camp at 6:50 pm, grabbed our dinner, and went straight back up the morning’s trail halfway so we could get a nice vantage point for sunset.

Day 4: Hiking the Needles District: Lower Red Lake Trail to Elephant Hills Trailhead 

Quick paddle across the Colorado River + 10 mile hike in The Needles district

This morning started out with a lot of anxiety. The Lower Red Lake Trail is one of the only trails in The Needles District with river access, and it was our way out of Canyonlands. It is located directly across the river from Spanish Bottom where we camped; however, to get there, we had to paddle really quickly perpendicularly against the current to cross the wide Colorado River… and we had a short downstream distance to get there before reaching the Betty Brown rapids and Cataract Canyon that was literally just around the corner. 

We only had one shot to paddle fast and not miss our beach landing, otherwise, we’d be in for a wild (& likely deadly) ride through some world-class whitewater rapids that we have no experience paddling.

The smarter thing to do may have been to hike upstream (backward) a little and launch from a different point, giving us more time and distance to make it across the river without being swept away too quickly. But that would require us more time to transition so we had one person go first to make sure it’s doable before the rest of us committed.

I knew I needed help so I tethered my raft to Chelsea’s again and we paddled our little hearts out. Our plan was to paddle directly straight across, knowing the river would move us downstream.

Well, we made it across and just around the blind corner was our beach landing. We didn’t have the momentum to paddle hard and land on the beach, so we stayed along the left edge of the river by the vegetation until we found a spot we could crawl out one at a time. Our beach was very muddy but we all made it.

At 9 am, we began our 10-mile hike out of the Lower Red Lake Trail through the Needles district to Elephant Hill Trailhead. The hike was a lot of ups and downs through the Grabens and open flat dry washes for 4 miles on a somewhat used trail. We passed Lower Red Lake which was completely dry and for the first time on our adventure, we saw 3 other hikers!

We reached a 4wd road, Devils Lane, around 12:45 pm. From here, Elephant Hill Trailhead is 4.1 miles away and you start to see the Needles better, or you can add a few miles detour to see Chesler Park. While Chesler Park is one of my favorite places in Canyonlands, it had been a long journey and we were ready to be done so we didn’t go on this trip. However; if you have not been, I’d recommend checking it out!

This 10-mile hike gains about 1,400 ft of elevation and the end of the hike up Elephant Hill makes you realize why it’s called Elephant Hill… there are so many hills! There are also 4wd vehicles on this road so be mindful as they pass through. Expect very little shade for this hike.

We arrived at the parking lot at 2:41 pm where we were able to toss our trash. There were also restrooms here and a ranger who checked our permit. 

Unfortunately, I lost my auto-inflating pump at the trailhead when I set my pack down (whoever found it, I hope you enjoy it)! I highly recommend this to inflate your packrafts. The size is a bit cumbersome but it’s lightweight and overall so convenient for a trip like this.

The Wrap-Up: Packrafting in Canyonlands National Park

Altogether, I think this was one of the best backpacking trails in Utah – it was more than your typical backpacking trip and offers a new level of adventure with the packrafts! If you’ve never tried packrafting, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a fun and different way to explore new places outdoors that you cannot experience easily by foot travel.

What makes this adventure truly unique is you get to explore all the different sections of Canyonlands National Park: Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze, Colorado River, Green River, and the confluence.

Questions? Drop a comment below!

Places to stay in Moab, Utah 

• Budget-Friendly: Aarchway Inn – For those searching for a budget-friendly option in the nearby town of Moab, this is a great option! 
• Mid-Range: The Best Western Plus Canyonlands Inn – This hotel is right in the heart of Moab, making it a great choice for those looking to explore the area. 
• Luxury: SpringHill Suites by Marriott Moab – For those searching for a more luxurious stay, Marriott always provides nice rooms.

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