You can float the Green two ways, one short, one long. The short version -- the trip we took-- goes from the town of Green River to a place called Mineral Bottom, 70 miles downstream, where a precipitous series of switchbacks offers about the only way for trucks to get the canoes and crews out of the river gorges before entering a series of isolated canyons. The long version is to go from Green River to the confluence of the Colorado and Green rivers, 120 miles south. The stretch from Mineral Bottom to the confluence goes through Canyonlands National Park. From the confluence, jet boats haul your canoe and gear back upriver to Moab. Once well into the national park, it's almost impossible to climb out of the river canyons: Once in, you stay all the way to the Colorado. Pumping water There are few if any sources of fresh potable water on the trip, so you have to make your own using river water. And, because of regulations of the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, you have to haul all your trash out -- and you must also carry portable sanitation equipment because no human waste can be left near the river. (The porta-potty patrol is a volunteer situation, one of those deals where it really is a rotten job but somebody has to do it.) At last, time to quit Canoeing down a fast-moving river all day is like hitting yourself in the head with a sledgehammer: After seven or eight hours, it feels really great when you stop. The first struggle past -- finding a place to camp -- and once off the river, tents up, fire built, sore bodies coated with an inch or two of bug glop, the wonderful canyon country scenery of Southern Utah comes into its own. Re-packing The floating battles of direction and technique are for the moment forgotten as the odors of the evening meal rise into the sunset. (It could be roasted track shoe; the canoe crews are so tired and exhilarated, they would eat anything put in front of them. Fortunately, the food is excellent. The first night, there's even ice for the martinis.) The stars come out, as only they can in the Southwestern deserts, close enough to touch, bright enough to burn. As the campfire slowly dims and the mosquitoes finally give up, one by one the paddlers and the steerers head for their sacks. Some sleep out, some take tents. The chill of the desert seeps in and fatigue claims them all at last.