Whitewater river guide Bret Wojciak has long been a fan of the West's dramatic, cathedral-like canyons and the wild rivers that flow through many of them. In the last five years or so, he has found another reason to cherish these deep gorges: They force people to disconnect from their computers, tablets and cellphones, at least for a few days. The results can be remarkable, Wojciak told me on a recent Don Hatch River Expeditions rafting and kayaking trip down the Green River on the Colorado-Utah border. For three days, my family and a dozen other fortunate souls paddled rafts through Dinosaur National Monument in the 1,500-foot-deep, rainbow-striped Gates of Lodore canyon, bounced over moderate Class III rapids, hiked up trails to see native petroglyphs and dined on delicious campfire meals. Always a bit of an outlier, I tagged along in a hard-shell kayak and had the freedom to run rapids and surf waves on my own.