Sometimes all your summer plans for running multi-day river trips fall through. You didn’t pull a permit, or your usual assemblage of fellow river runners can’t coordinate schedules, or the water drops out on a planned river trip. In those cases, it’s easy to let family visits, house projects, and baseball games push your paddling to the bottom of the priority list. (Not that those aren’t all worthy pursuits as well.)
Time to embrace the easy overnight river trip. While not nearly as satisfying as a full weeklong float, an overnighter can be utterly restorative, giving all participants an opportunity to reset their minds to river time, if only for 30 hours or so. No better way to seize the weekend.
Here are a few tips—and encouragement—for pulling together an overnight river trip with a minimum of fuss. (Note: This post contain some affiliate links—we might earn a small commission if you buy something. Not all links are affiliates: We link to the best gear we know of, regardless of whether we earn a commission or not.)
Table of Contents
1. Choose an easy-access river
One of the most tedious parts of a multi-day river trip is figuring out the vehicle shuttle. For an overnighter, choose a river that has easy access points and a relatively simple shuttle. Even a 20-mile float—which is plenty long for an overnighter—typically entails less than an hour of shuttle time. Some of our favorite overnighters are:
- Browns Canyon on the Arkansas River, especially during the week or late in the season (my very favorite spot to camp is just above Zoom Flume on river right).
- Yellowstone River in Montana below Livingston: You’ll camp on cobble bars (in Montana, landowners don’t control access to islands) so bring a thick sleeping pad, but the fishing is great and access points are plentiful.
- Gunnison River in Colorado—Escalante-Dominguez Canyon section near Delta (so beautiful, with great hiking)
- Colorado River—Ruby-Horsethief Canyon: You have to reserve a campsite in advance, but unless it’s a holiday weekend, you can typically find something.
2. Keep the group small and familiar
As with the group that you do “Friendsgiving” with, your familiar river pals are the ones to reach out to for a short-notice overnighter. You know who has what gear, how long it will take them to actually arrive at the put-in, who tends to forget things, who makes the best guacamole, etc. Last-minute overnighters are not the time to test new river relationships. You want to know who the reliable coffee providers are.
3. Just bring the dogs
If it occurs to you on Thursday night that you should float something on Saturday night, the biggest impediment will likely be what to do with your dogs. (Cats, of course, will be perfectly fine for an evening, and will relish a few moments alone.) If you can, find a river that allows dogs so you can just bring them along. (Gunnison Gorge in Colorado is one—I can’t say that this is an easy-shuttle river, but it’s a stellar overnighter, and your dog is welcome.) To pave the way for future impromptu overnighters that won’t accommodate dogs, establish relationships with a local kennel, a niece who loves dogs, or other willing dog-watchers. Securing a reliable solution to the dog problem is one of the essential paths to seizing the river trip overnighter.
Canyon
4. Keep the food simple
The beauty of organizing meals for an overnighter is you don’t need to worry about bringing fragile food, food thawing before its time, or even running out of food. Any food calamity can be overcome when you’re on the water for 24 hours or less. Case in point: On one overnighter, we had our entire dinner knocked over by our swirling, rambunctious dogs (see the item above about bringing dogs—it’s a great idea!). But luckily we had a mesh kitchen floor in place (these are super useful and help keep your river camp clean), so we could salvage a bit of it. But in general, for an overnighter, consider operating on a pot-luck basis, so you have the main dish, salad, and appetizer covered. Tell everyone to bring what they want for lunch on Saturday and pool your resources. For breakfast, scramble some eggs and put them, plus the leftovers from the night before, in tortillas. Put the most responsible adult in charge of the coffee. (For more river meal planning tips, see “Time-Tested Guidelines for Raft Trip Meal Planning.”)
5. Bring the essentials
Forgetting critical gear is always a possibility even on a longer trip (see Audrey Crockett’s account of essential things she’s forgotten over time), but on a short trip, it’s more likely. Anytime you’re on the river, you should bring:
- First-aid kit
- Sunscreen, bug spray
- Boat pumps
- Raft gear: You need all the raft gear, whether it’s an overnighter or a multi-day trip (frames, oars, rowing seat, drop bags, dry box, cooler, water jugs, patching materials, day dry bags). Also, if you decided at the last minute to run your oar boat as a paddle raft, remember to bring the thwarts and some paddles.
- Small-boat gear: If you’re self-supporting in canoes or inflatable kayaks, bring the equivalent essentials—imagine blowing an inflatable kayak tube, crashing the canoe, etc. and plan accordingly.
- River toilet (groover) or single-use portable waste bags: No matter how short your trip, you need to pack out your waste.
- Hand-washing gear, even if it’s hand sanitizer and a bucket of water rather than a full hand-washing setup.
6. Minimize kitchen gear
You need a certain amount of kitchen gear whether you’re on the river for one night or seven. But it’s a worthwhile exercise to go through the dry box and eliminate extra gear that you know you won’t use. What you really need:
- One big pot or skillet to cook the main meal: On a Yellowstone River trip in Montana, we had one portable grill to sear some steaks, a cold grain salad, and some cheese, salmon, and crackers for an appetizer—filling, but super simple.
- Skillet for eggs in the morning: If you can cook a one-skillet meal the night before, that cuts down on cookware.
- Coffee pot
- Campstove
- Dishwashing gear: Even if you’re on the river for only one night, you’ll need those dishes in the morning, and you don’t want to leave scuzzy dishes around to tempt enterprising critters.
- Table: We are typically happiest with two roll-up tables or one big counter-height table.
- Arsenal of staples: An overnighter is where a compact stash of essential seasonings and oils (salt, pepper, olive oil, chili pepper) is invaluable.
- One place setting for each person: If you’re accustomed to bringing tableware for 16, it’s hard to cut down when you have an overnighter with 6. But take some time to pare down.
- Kitchen tool box: Even if you’re only on the river for one night, you need at least one good (sharp) knife, a wine/beer bottle opener, can opener, ignition lighter, spatula, and serving utensil (slotted spoons save the day).
- One clean kitchen towel (or paper towels if you forgot a cloth one and you can stop at a Loaf and Jug just before the put-in).
- One or two extra coffee mugs, because some people …
- One extra water bottle, for the same reason
- Water jug with drinkable water
- Trash bag
- Guitar: No reason to do an overnighter if you don’t bring the guitar (don’t forget the guitar dry bag)
7. Optimize personal gear
Even if it’s just an overnighter, you want to be comfortable. It’s no fun to be cold, or excessively uncomfortable, even if it’s just for a night. Items I would always bring on a river trip, no matter how short (as long as you have at least one oar raft for support):
- Thick sleeping pad (I love Jack’s Welding Paco Pads, but other versions made of raft-quality material are available)
- Sleeping bag: Even if it’s hot, having a sleeping bag helps for extra padding, and you never know what the weather’s going to do
- Comfortable layers for the evening—anticipate cool weather even in the hottest desert situations as the temps drop at night
- Rain gear
- Sunscreen
- Ibuprofen, antihistamines, and any prescription meds
- Shoes for the river, and shoes for camp—might be river sandals in both instances, just think about whether your feet tend to get cold at night even in mid-summer
- Paddling gear for all sorts of weather: Assume it will rain, and bring a good paddling jacket, pants, neoprene tops/pants, and good paddle shoes—if you keep all this stuff in one big mesh duffle bag, you can just throw it in and know you’re covered for all sorts of situations.
- River chair (an overnighter is a great time to reach for a classic Crazy Creek—inexpensive and compact)
- Headlamp
- Dry bag
Things you can do without on an overnighter
Every river party needs to decide for themselves what they absolutely need on an overnight river trip, but we tend to skip extras like the glow-in-the-dark bocce set, multiple solar lights, tons of kitchen gear, tons of extra food, multiple tables and stoves, groover shelters, etc. Ask yourself one question: What’s the worst that could happen if we didn’t have this item for one night? You’ll be surprised at how much you can pare down.
Embrace the restorative power of an overnight river trip
Nothing resets my spirit like a night on the river. I’d rather have many nights on the river, but I’ll take one if that’s what time and circumstances allow. If you have a sliver of time available on an upcoming weekend, squeeze in a night on the river. The key to seizing these opportunities is having a tight packing list for essentials, a running list of easy-access rivers, and some willing friends.
