Two canoeists ply the drop-pool Verde River—a 60-mile journey through a vast, quiet desert of camping solitude, classic Southwest vistas, and alas, a trio of roundish, buck-naked old men. No one said it’d be perfect

Hollywood has long portrayed the Arizona desert as cactus and rattlesnake country, a land fit only for the toughest, meanest, and most resourceful hombres. The saying goes that everything here either bites and stings or sticks and pricks. So why would any human venture into territory so bleak, barren, and sun-blasted?
Leave it to Edward Abbey, the late, great, self-proclaimed desert rat to come up with a cogent response: “It is austerity and emptiness—qualities which make the desert repellent to most—which makes it appealing to some of us.” Now if only there were a river running through this uncompromising country, a cactus-lined oasis where a guy could kick back and paddle his canoe.
Good news: There is. About halfway between Flagstaff and Phoenix, the Verde (Green in Spanish) tumbles southward over 1,000 feet through three national forests and Arizona’s largest wilderness area, offering miles of virtual non-stop technical whitewater amidst stark, lonely hills, towering cliffs, and the harsh Sonoran Desert.

Craving a break from my snow-deluged home 9,000 feet up in central Colorado’s mountains, I decided to see for myself just how fast and green the wild Verde runs in late winter. A few weeks later, my friend Bob Donner, a lean-and-mean whitewater canoeist and retired physics professor from central Wisconsin, and I are camped under a grove of gnarled mesquite trees. Just a mile or so into our 60-mile journey, I’m already wondering if it’s all worth it, considering: yesterday’s 250-mile round-trip shuttle that dragged on forever; the long, jarring drives on rutted dirt access roads only to discover an achingly low river level at the put-in; and now, after thinking I had left winter temporarily behind, I’m freezing my scrawny butt off because the temperature out here in this star-spangled desert sky has plummeted to a bone-numbing 18 degrees.
At the hint of first light, Bob and I start grunting and growling about the cold, our frozen breaths dissolving into the close walls of our separate tents. Of course, the moment our paddle blades bite the rippling water, the long road trip, the 12 hours entombed in our tents, the frosty neoprene-encased toes and stiff-as-wood hands are instantly forgotten. Even better, the sun is just cresting the low juniper and sagebrush-studded mountains ahead, and its promise of warmth is like a benediction on our shivering bodies.
Actually, we’re feeling blessed to be on this river at all. Running a desert stream is always a crapshoot, with spring runoff making for an exceedingly brief and unpredictable paddling season. And no one knows exactly when and how that surge will occur. Two years ago at this time, record rains in the Southwest turned the Verde and neighboring rivers into raging, muddy, dangerous torrents. By contrast, at yesterday’s put-in at Beasley Flat, a few miles southeast of the town of Camp Verde, the river was running a meager 156 cfs, just enough, but barely, to make our journey worthwhile.
As we bounce through our first set of spicy rapids, ricochet unscathed off a minefield of boulders, and emerge triumphantly into the cold emerald pool below, all yearning for an altered, warmer reality has vanished. We are deliriously in the moment. The Verde, we are delighted to observe, is a classic pool-drop river: plenty of playful Class I-III rapids full of chutes, drops, and rocks, predictably followed by deep, calm pools that are perfect for catching your breath.
Just a mile or so from camp we come upon our first unrunnable rapid. Verde Falls, a five-foot vertical ledge drop, is just too boney to negotiate with our loaded canoes, and we’re forced to make the 100-yard portage. In the desert, however, slow is beautiful, and our plodding pace is rewarded by a closer look at the geology of these red-hued, shallow canyon walls. The bedrock, we notice, has changed from limestone to hard basalt, and the smooth, flat, naked rock ledges hugging the falls lend an almost-surreal appearance to the scene. It’s in this stretch that we also site our first soaring bald eagle, no surprise as this is critical nesting habitat for the once-endangered bird. So critical in fact, that the Forest Service asks boaters not to stop, camp, or make loud or otherwise obnoxious noises in the Verde Falls-to-Sycamore Canyon stretch from December 1 to June 15.
Because it’s so fast and technical, dropping an average of 20 feet per mile, in high-water conditions the Verde is usually run in conventional 14-foot self-bailing rafts or whitewater kayaks. But at more benign water levels, like the kind Bob and I are encountering, paddling small solo canoes is more adventurous and rewarding. The one-person, 11-foot-long red Dagger I’m paddling is a traditional whitewater playboat—easy to maneuver, quick to turn, and packed to the gills with food, overnight gear, and a five-gallon jug of water. Bob, meanwhile, has opted for a 12-foot inflatable SOAR canoe—a bit more laborious to handle but much more forgiving in the bigger waves, especially with its self-bailing feature.
Yet no matter how stable the craft, the Verde is no place for novices, even at low water. Again and again we are reminded of this as we encounter huge, willow-choked gravel bars through which the quick-moving current passes like a sieve. Finding the best “slot” to run through these treacherous strainers of entangled roots and branches is far from easy, and the judicious scouting of all rapids with no clear run-out quickly becomes a part of our on-river routine. It helps that I still vividly remember scenes from my first Verde trip about a decade ago: three tree-wrapped, abandoned canoes and one cheerless canoe party towing a cracked and twisted boat in need of major repair.
By Day 3 and about 16 miles into our voyage, Bob and I are ready for some less-demanding water moves—boatless, floating, hot-water-nirvana to be precise. From my previous jaunt I also recall something decidedly more pleasant than wrapped boats and cold-water inundations: the Verde Hot Springs, positioned a half mile or so above the Childs Access Point and down the right channel of the long and narrow island we’re approaching. I’m practically drooling in anticipation of ecstatic sighs, melting muscles, and a jelly brain—maybe even a frolicking, uninhibited young lass or two if we’re really lucky.
Pulling up to what was once a glamorous hotel site, supposedly the hangout of Chicago gangsters, I’m just about ready to rip off my life jacket and cold, clingy wetsuit.
“Not so fast, partner,” the ever-sensible Bob says. “We’ve got company—and it’s not Jennifer and Angelina. Oh, but they’re naked alright.”
I reel back and follow his gaze to the scene before me: three extremely paunchy, decidedly hairy, buck-naked, post-middle-age men are waddling toward the small outdoor pool, ready for total immersion. Suddenly Bob is muttering something about “infectious hot springs disease” and refusing to indulge. If it had been three naked women he’d have disrobed in a nanosecond, but now I, too, find myself standing around the pool like a wetsuited geek, life jacket and helmet still sadly in place.
“Oh, you gotta come in!” one of the cheerful, white-bearded men hollers, but we content ourselves with exploring the mostly burned-down, 1920s resort with its hippie-inspired, graffiti-painted walls—brightly colored mandalas, peace signs, sexy-winged angels—that enclose one of the two springs.
Back in the flow, Bob and I negotiate Child’s Play Rapid before entering the upstream boundary of the 252,500-acre Mazatzal Wilderness Area (pronounced Mah-zaht-zahl), the largest wilderness area in the Southwest that survives in one piece. It’s a place that beckons to be explored, even if only at the edges when passing through by canoe. Elevations in this wild landscape range from 2,100 to 7,903 feet, climaxing at Mazatzal Peak. And the variety of vegetation continually surprises, from “forests” of giant saguaro cactus, jumping cholla, ocotillo, palo verde, and other Sonoran desert scrub down at river level, to stands of ponderosa pine and even small pockets of douglas fir high up in the mountains.
Nearly every morning or late afternoon, Bob and I hoist daypacks and roam the arid, ochre-colored, rarely visited backcountry, so different from the vivid green riparian zone we leave behind. Narrow, vertical-walled side canyons, scrubby hillsides, and cacti-covered bluffs provide us with endless opportunities for wandering and discovery.
Tucked away in the rough desert terrain, and purposely not identified on any maps, are well-preserved pithouse ruins and ancient cliff dwellings. Their creators were the Sinagua (without water), who led a peaceful existence along the year-round flowing river for hundreds of years—growing crops, gathering wild foods, and hunting game—before mysteriously disappearing around 1400 A.D. By the time Coronado arrived in 1540, tribes of fierce Apaches dominated the region. Anglos began to settle the region in 1865, first trappers and prospectors, followed closely by cattle and sheepmen. Now, for the most part, the Verde we’re traversing is free from human inroads, just the way we like it.
In the week that follows the nights remain stubbornly chilly, but the days bring rapturous blue skies and perfect, 60- to 70-degree weather.
This isn’t Utah-style canyon country, but the river valley, while relatively open, is extremely rugged in places. Pastel pink and rose-hued mountains often rise steeply from the lush growth of reeds, cottonwoods, and sycamores at water’s edge, creating an effective barrier to human settlement and giving local wildlife some natural, well-needed protection. Pig-like javelina, mule and whitetail deer, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, and some animals you wouldn’t expect in a sun-scorched desert all roam through this lonely setting.
However, it’s not four-leggeds that paddlers are most likely to see, but birds. Nearly 300 varieties make their home in the Verde Valley, from minuscule hummingbirds to great blue herons, roadrunners to peregrine falcons. The naked-white cliffs and inaccessible ridges along the riverbanks are good places to scan for bald eagles as this is among the few places in Arizona where the threatened species nests.
All told, we spend eight early-to-bed nights camping along the Verde, and each campsite—whether perched on a sandy beach, nestled below a great wall of volcanic rock and limestone, or surrounded by giant saguaros—is picture perfect, dishing out the quintessential desert backdrop. And, to our utter satisfaction, each site is ours alone. Other than a Forest Service crew that boated past us one afternoon, plus our spheroid and contented hot-spring pals, we share the river with absolutely no one.
Though not quite as challenging as the Beasley Flat-to-Childs section, the 42-mile stretch between Childs and our take-out at Horseshoe Reservoir gives us plenty of frisky whitewater, laden with rocks, drops, techy chutes, and ever-present strainers. After winding through Mule Shoe Bend we negotiate three colorfully christened, Class II runs: Mell of a Hess, Red Creek, and Wet Ass Rapid. Fortunately, we’ve learned to read the Verde well and our still-boney butts (difficult to get plump on rationed gorp and macaroni) stay perfectly dry on this last one.
On our final day we prepare to end our trip quietly, but not before climbing a nearby hill to look back in praise at the little green river. From on high, the clear, clean Verde looks brilliant blue, reflective of the open sky. And it looks tiny: a skinny sapphire braid of liquid light flowing through the harshest of deserts. What an aberration, I can’t help but think. And what an anomaly, too, that we just spent nine unimaginably quiet, peaceful, secluded days just an hour from the rapacious mega-sprawl of Phoenix. If we heard anything at all during these stark moonlit nights, it was the cry of a distant coyote or the haunting hoots of a great horned owl.
As we unpack our boats and begin the painful process of re-entering civilization, I realize how weary, smelly, and grimy we’ve become. Without even trying we’ve turned into a couple of happy, grateful desert rats. I think we would have made Abbey proud.

Based out of Buena Vista, Colorado, Larry Rice has paddled a canoe on all seven continents.