DINOSAUR NATIONAL MONUMENT — It was just luck that we launched our rafts on the Yampa River the day before one of the highest recorded river flows in its history. It was just luck that we slammed through class IV Warm Springs Rapid at 25,000 cubic feet per second on the last undammed river in the Colorado River system.

High water can be cold, fast, dangerous and fun.

I rode those rapids twice in two weeks — once for the Colorado Historical Society and once with Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Service. The trips with Adrift Adventures in Jensen, Utah, had been planned months in advance, long before we knew the Colorado Rockies would have a mammoth snowpack 247 percent of normal. Six of us floated with guides on the first trip and 21 with guides on the second trip, paddling through Warm Springs with adrenaline-soaked anticipation.

Forty-degree water on a cloudy day leaves no room for mistakes because if you fall out of a raft, you’ve only got about 4½ minutes before hypothermia sets in. At that point, you can’t easily move your arms and legs - they’ve gone numb.

Then there’s foot entrapment. If you’re out of a boat trying to get to shore and catch your foot between river rocks, the weight and speed of a river will prevent you from standing up to breathe. In high flows with a stuck foot, you can drown in three feet of water. And the rapids in high water? Some wash out, but others get bigger, much bigger. We were headed for one of the legendary Big Drops.

Those concerns weighed on me after the May 26 news release from the Bureau of Land Management’s Utah office: “Above average amounts of precipitation and unpredictable snowmelts are creating some of the highest river flows and most unpredictable flash floods in decades. The BLM recommends that public land visitors reconsider any plans to undertake these outdoor activities if your group does not maintain the expertise to respond to these types of conditions.”

My two groups would all be novices, including an 80-year-old and a 70-year-old who’d never been on a river before. As Colorado Historical Society passenger Hugh Bingham noted in his journal, “We’re apprehensive, but the guides are stoked.”

I raise money for nonprofit organizations by putting together clients and rivers, and I go along as an historian/interpreter/storyteller, donating my services. They charge extra for me and that becomes a cash contribution to the nonprofits.

So did we consider canceling the trips? Not really. Instead, we increased the number of rafts and the number of guides when we knew we’d hit the peak of high water with our June 8 launch. We carried full wetsuits.

At Deer Lodge, we couldn’t find the put-in because it was underwater. The Yampa River where it entered the canyons had become a wide lake and a mosquito heaven. Before we could find the river’s current we paddled through a grove of cottonwood trees normally high and dry.

In a few days’ time we’d hit Warm Springs Rapid, normally a Class IV with a huge hole in the center. What would the hydraulics be at 25,000 cfs? No one knew because they changed daily. In that constricted canyon so much water volume creates new wave patterns — lateral waves bouncing off boulders, pushing rafts exactly where they don’t want to go into the hole named Maytag that can clutch a 26-foot raft, stand it straight up, and spill all the occupants. I know because we saw the aftermath of such a flip.

But while I worried about our guests, real river rats were in whitewater ecstasy.

Because of the warnings, some private groups canceled, yet others jumped on the open permits. High water brings out true whitewater aficionados — eco-crazies who lie awake at night dreaming of big water and rowing west into tumbling waves and foaming holes. When the water is high, they break out old boats and lucky charms — the river hat they found drifting in an eddy on the Colorado, the REI mug left at the scout for Big Joe Rapid, the extra paddle found below Snaggletooth on the Dolores. While we squirmed into our too-tight wetsuits, here came the Amazon rowers with firm biceps, dreadlocks, nose rings, nylon shorts, sports bras, and deep tans to die for.

At our camp in Harding Hole, the guides couldn’t park the boats where they wanted because of the speed of the water. One raft landed on a sharp limestone rock and with constant wave agitation by morning we had a blown-out tube. Colorado Historical Society passenger Bingham wrote about our camp that night:

“The river roars without stop. Accustomed to camping as close to lapping waters as we can, we find ourselves surprised and frightened by its force, and pitch our tents on higher — much higher — ground. What is that sound? Midnight I awake, and get it: It’s the sound of the Pacific surf crashing — but without the intervals between waves.”

We had large roller waves like ocean swells, rare on a river. Whole trees on the banks vibrated in the froth and driftwood logs rolled and tumbled. Our Adrift guides kept us away from dangerous undercut walls - and then we got to Warm Springs.

It was calm and placid on top — there was no way to know the white maelstrom below. The guides climbed a cliff to scout. We sat quietly in the rafts, tightening our lifejackets. Then it was time to shove off. To stay out of the gaping hole in the center we ran river right but had to perform a complicated ferry angle to stay off the boulders at river’s edge because the Yampa was folding in on itself.

Bingham wrote, “We go over the lip, come round the corner, and hit the first giant wave, spin sideways and tip hard starboard. A 55-gallon drum’s worth of water pours up my nose and into my mouth, and my blue seat cushion flops over my head - so I don’t see our guide go over the side. He later says he found himself instantly underwater, popped up, grabbed the rope and hoisted himself back in, all in the space of four or five seconds.”

I was in the next raft. Though I didn’t view the guide exiting, in between sheets of cold water smacking my face, I thought it was odd to see a raft with no one at the oars. Later I asked trip leader Tappan Brown how big the hole was. His eyes widened and he said, “I could have parked a school bus in there, easily.”

And that was the Yampa River’s flow before it met the Green River in Echo Park and added another 7,000 cfs for a total of 32,000 cfs through the rollicking roller coaster of Split Mountain with 10-foot swells and rapids affectionately named Moonshine, SOB, Schoolboy and Inglesby. Rocky Mountain PBS passenger Bill Daniel exclaimed, “Plenty of thrills! Plenty of fun! Plenty of good friends! Great trip!”

It’s hard to be off the river now. Adrenaline adds spice to life and compresses time. I miss that whitewater roar and I agree with author Ed Abbey who pleaded, “One more river ... may there always be one more ...”



Andrew Gulliford is a professor of Southwest Studies and history at Fort Lewis College. He can be reached at [email protected].