The Denver Gazette

Despite drought, hopes are high among Colorado whitewater enthusiasts.

Whitewater enthusiasts are feeling good about Colorado snowpack

SETH BOSTER The Denver Gazette

From her home in Dolores, Rica Fulton has been looking around at a strange scene, as if from a dream.

“There hasn’t been dry ground since December, which is sort of unheard of around here,” she said. “A lot of the old-timers are saying this hasn’t happened since the ‘90s.”

Around southwest Colorado, fields and rivers have been the victim of a 20-year megadrought — especially the Dolores River, where the strain has been compounded by demands of water trapped by the McPhee Dam. Flows through the treasured, slickrock canyon haven’t been provided since 2019.

Fulton is among the Dolores River Boating Advocates, the nonprofit every year at the table with water managers hoping to discuss releases for the sake of recreation.

In recent years, “there hasn’t been a ton of opportunities to really have” discussions, Fulton said.

On the heels of this winter and spring, that might change. Fulton, like many others, eagerly anticipates unusually big snows to melt from the mountains and fuel reservoirs and waterways.

“I would be shocked if we didn’t have some level of a recreational release,” Fulton said. “People should be excited and keep their eyes out. If they’ve always wanted a chance to raft the Dolores River, it looks like this’ll be the year to do it.”

Approaching the rafting season, high hopes are shared by enthusiasts and outfitters across Colorado.

Heading into this past weekend with more storms in the high country forecast, they were buoyed by a statewide snowpack that rose above 130% of normal for this time of year. Mother Nature has been especially generous to the southwest. Recent readings showed a snowpack record — since data collection expanded in the late 1980s — for the San Juan, San Miguel, Animas and Dolores river basins. Ahead of the weekend, snowpack across the Upper Colorado River Basin was nearing a record high as well.

“It’s definitely looking like our best runoff in many years,” said Alex Mickel, the longtime owner of Durango-based Mild2Wild Rafting.

Dolores could be but one rare opportunity to claim, he said. He’s been booking trips for the similarly elusive Yampa River in northwest Colorado, where snowpack has piled above 140% of the median. He’s anticipating other legendary stretches to come alive elsewhere in the West: Utah’s Cataract Canyon and Arizona’s Salt River.

Nik White tempered his expectations. He’s an avid kayaker who advocates for access and conservation on the board of Colorado Whitewater.

“That (snowpack) percentage of normal is based on 20 years or 30 years,” White noted. “The challenge with that is obviously we’ve been in a 20-year drought, and that normal has been getting lower and lower each year.”

Another challenge is aridification, he explained. “The amount of water in the ground has gotten significantly lower in the past few years. ... Because the ground is so much more arid, we might see something like snowpack is 100%, but maybe only 60% of that water is making it to the river. So much of it is getting sucked back into the ground.”

Still, White foresaw a season to remember. He’s due for bucket-list trips on the South Fork of the Flathead in Montana and the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho.

“I’m looking at (the season) like it’s going to be fine, whereas in low water years it’s like, Oh my gosh, what are we going to see this year? Is there going to be anything?” White said. “This year, I’m not worried. There’s going be a ton of fun this year.”

And hopefully, there are more weeks of fun, said Dale Drake, owner of Clear Creek Outfitters.

The free-running creek, a go-to for Denverites, “is pretty significantly determined by the quality of snowpack,” Drake said. He counts on snowpack in the South Platte River drainage, which hovered slightly above average heading into the weekend.

As ever for this time of year, Drake hopes for more snow, for cool temperatures to hold that snow a little while longer, closer to the tourist rush. He’ll hope for winds to be tame; gusts can sublimate and evaporate the snowpack.

And as ever in the months ahead, Drake will hope for rains in the greater hope to push the season deeper into August. That has been a challenge amid drought.

“The August time frame is huge for us, because that’s when we have the highest volume of travelers,” Drake said.

Colorado’s busiest whitewater destination, the Arkansas River, has the benefit

of an old agreement that ideally sustains flows into August. If needed and if available through the Arkansas River Voluntary Flow Management program, regulators have released water to swell the river and economies of Chaffee and Fremont counties.

Arkansas River Outfitters Association reported visitors to those counties collectively spent an estimated $43 million in 2021. That was during a banner year for the statewide industry — a record 620,000 commercial trips tallied by Colorado River Outfitters Association.

In 2022, numbers were down, said the association’s executive director, David Costlow. To what extent is still being determined; he said he was still waiting on reports.

“Part of it was we got impacted by the economy a little last summer,” Costlow said. “Gas prices, travel expenses, inflationary pressures put pressures on pocketbooks.”

They could this summer as well, he recognized. Beyond that, “I think the biggest challenge is just finding enough employees, like other industries,” said Bob Hamel, who chairs Arkansas River Outfitters Association.

He expressed less concern about the river’s basin-wide snowpack sitting below the historic average heading into the weekend. He pointed to more optimistic readings in the upper basin that feeds the Arkansas sporting scene.

Back in Dolores, Fulton recognized McPhee was still recovering from dry years. She recognized the question: Would the reservoir fill enough to grant releases for boating?

“The past three years have been so harsh that you almost don’t believe it,” Fulton said. “You almost can’t believe it until you see it.”

She’s looking at all of the snow around and trying to believe.

“It’s really exciting,” she said. “I feel like years like this are becoming more and more scarce, so taking advantage and doing what we can on the rivers feels really important.”

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2023-03-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.denvergazette.com/article/282265259683776

The Gazette, Colorado Springs