Copyright San Jose Mercury News; used by permission

By ZEKE WIGGLESWORTH
Mercury News Travel Editor

MOAB, UTAH -- The old married couple are going at it with practiced vigor, trying their best to run into every chunk of tamarisk along the 70 miles or so between Green River and Mineral Bottom. Their discussions of how best to move their 16-foot canoe down the river are, as well as being impassioned, loud enough to echo off the sandstone cliffs towering above the river.

The young married couple approach things silently, doing their on-the-job training with rigid determination and restraint. You never hear a word, but you can feel the angst floating across the green-brown ripples like a fog bank.

The two brothers, being brothers, snap and snarl like sled dogs who haven't been fed in a week. The elder, the one Mom always liked best, is intent on going down the river sideways. The younger, diagnosed early in life as a hopeless control freak, insists on having the canoe point directly downstream. Their conferences on direction and technique startle cliff swallows and spook cows several miles away.

In the last canoe, the two strangers, having met only the day before, are bouncy, bright and seemingly in total control. If there are gnashings going on, they are civilized and kempt. Perhaps not knowing each other is creating restrained and civilized interaction, an attempt on both parts not to rock the boat.

So you'll have no doubts, a river float vacation is under way here, an excursion down the wide and turbid Green River, one of the Desert West's major waterways. The canoeists range from experienced to total greenhorn. Their ability to deal with the great Utah outdoors also varies, but has nothing to do with canoe skills.

As the core of an experiment in interpersonal relationships and group dynamics, the eight canoeists here described, ranging from the 30s to the 60s, are excellent subjects. One glance around confirms what soon becomes obvious: We are dealing here with eight Type A personalities.