Aspen-area rafting companies, kayakers gearing up for a wild runoff

Click to Enlarge Browse Aspen Times Photos Hilary Garner, left, and Justin Worth, right, load rafts onto a trailer Tuesday afternoon in Snowmass Village, in preperation for a big summer on the river. (Jordan Curet/The Aspen Times)

Charles Agar
The Aspen Times
Aspen, CO Colorado
April 30, 2008

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ASPEN — Heavy winter snow still hangs in the hills above Aspen, and local river runners are anticipating the highest spring runoff in a decade.

Rafting companies predict a banner year, but the likely water deluge also is cause for concern to some whitewater kayakers.

The Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon, for example, was running at a “low-medium” level of less than 3,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) Tuesday, but as snowpack melts, the river could run as high as 20,000 cfs, nearly seven times its current size, according to Chris Vogt, owner of Glenwood Canyon Kayak.

“This is going to be big one. We’re going to have statistics this year, I just hope it’s not from our area,” Vogt said.

Vogt worries that newer paddlers haven’t seen “things go wrong” and don’t know how to handle the kind of long river swims and rescues that can happen in big runoff years.

“There’s going to be times that beginners and intermediates can’t go out,” Vogt said.

Kirk Baker, a local kayaker and longtime owner of the Aspen Kayak School, has taught many Aspen-area paddlers who’ve taken up the sport as it’s boomed in the last 10 years. He agreed that few locals have seen rivers at such high levels.

The technical Slaughterhouse section of the Roaring Fork near Aspen is running at about 200 cfs, but can run 10 times that level — something locals haven’t seen in more than a decade, Baker said.

Some stretches of area rivers will be washed out by high runoff and become much easier, Baker said, while other stretches will become “pushy” with the high volumes and very hard to navigate.

“And the harder places are really wild,” Baker said. “Hopefully it just stays cold like it’s been and it comes off really gently and it stays good all summer long.”

Baker suggests kayakers “come up with the water” — start paddling earlier in the season as the levels rise, and start out on easier runs.

Kayakers and rafters should never go out alone and should always stay aware of changing river conditions, Baker said. Paddlers who can’t execute an Eskimo roll to rescue themselves should prepare for long, cold swims in fast-moving water if they have to eject from their boats.

The drop-out rate for new kayakers is high, Baker said, mostly because they overreach their abilities and paddle rivers above their level. The result is often a traumatic experience Baker likened to “water boarding,” which can scare them out of the sport.

Baker said the worst advice from a paddling partner is something like, “You’ll be all right.”

“It’s going to be a wonderful year, just be aware and start out easy,” Baker said.

Rafting the runoff
Kayakers are wary, but one local rafting company is predicting the runoff will be a boon to business in a long whitewater season.

“Imagine if [the Aspen Skiing Co.] knew on Aug. 1 that they were going to have the best year ever,” said Bob Harris, owner of Blazing Adventures in Snowmass Village.

“We’re going to have a good long runoff,” Harris said, adding that river flows will be high all over Colorado, and the Roaring Fork Valley is showing some of the thickest snowpack in the state.

Warm days and cold nights, however, have meant the “the tap gets turned on, then it gets turned off,” Harris said. That means the water won’t really rush until there is sustained hot weather for more than a week, Harris said.

Ultra-high river levels also will mean some sections will close, Harris warned.

The Shoshone section of the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon, for example, is off-limits to commercial rafts when the river level is above 6,000 cfs.

And when the Roaring Fork level gets high, Harris said rafting companies allow only experienced rafters older than age 16 (sometimes 18) to join trips down the technical Slaughterhouse section.

But in no way will high flows hurt the local rafting industry, as groups will just shift to different sections of river when the flood is on, doing the upper Roaring Fork (from Woody Creek to Wingo Junction), for example, instead of Slaughterhouse.

“We’re always going to have something to run no matter how high the water gets,” Harris said.

While a normal runoff season runs from the first week of June to July 4, he expects this season to start in mid-May and run through mid-July.

Harris will run a swift-water clinic for locals who have their own boats, and said it will be a chance to teach important safety techniques for navigating rivers at flood.

Blazing Adventures crews do preliminary runs of rapids in order to clear obstructions or any potentially-deadly strainers, but Harris said high-water years are often safer than normal years; in high water, fewer rocks are visible and debris can move freely and not get caught up.

“We expect that business is going to go up quite a bit,” Harris said.

cagar@aspentimes.com