Tour d’Ark Follow Along

This Thursday morning, I will begin 5 days of whitewater kayaking with several friends down the Arkansas River in Colorado starting on the Granite section and ending in Canon City almost 100 miles later. The trip was dreamt up by Scott Winkleman as a perfect way to see all of the whitewater sections of the Arkansas River that we all usually kayak as day trips, but instead as one long, mulit-day, kayak-self-support adventure. We will be meeting friends along the way to share different stretches with us and hopefully provide some dinners, but we will carry all of our camping gear in our kayaks throughout the trip. It is sure to be an unforgettable journey, and you can follow along from the comfort of your living room by checking on the live updates on this map from my SPOT GPS this Thursday through Monday.
Happy July 4th!

Gates of Lodore Follow Along

On Saturday, June 19, I will embark with my friends on a 4 day whitewater trip down the Green River through the Gates of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument! This is a wonderful trip through desert country in northwest Colorado that is sure to be a good time! As I've done in the past, I will update our remote location using my SPOT GPS messenger beacon, but I'm going to try using the real-time tracking with 10 minute location updates on this trip.  Check back here on the map Saturday through Tuesday to monitor our progress as we wind our way down through the remote desert canyons on the Green River!





Or you can check our location on the SPOT webpage.

Boulder Creek Kayak Action

Boulder Creek finally started flowing last week and I had a few really fun runs on it that were captured on camera by friends on the banks.

On Friday, I ran Lower Boulder Canyon for the first time ever at a manageable level of 300cfs. Most of the run was straightforward, but the Elephant Buttress was a bit tricky and it wound up flipping me about 3/4 of the way through the rapid. I rolled up after bouncing along some rocks and finished the run with a smile on my face!

The following day, the water started really pumping on all the rivers and creeks in Colorado as a result of the continuous warm weather, and Boulder Creek shot up to over 800cfs! I was on the Poudre River all weekend (4.5-5ft), but when I got back into town on Monday, I went out for a town run at 700cfs with a few friends. There were lots of playful waves throughout the run and we were lucky to have a friend of a friend (David) take some beautiful photographs of us in a play wave near the library. We finished up with margaritas at the Playa Azul take out which officially confirmed for me that summer has arrived!

Be sure to check out the photos in this Boulder Creek photo album.

Memorial Weekend Kayaking

What better way to kick off meteorological summer than a long weekend of kayaking? A bunch of us headed out to Glenwood Springs over Memorial weekend 2010 to catch the run off on the Roaring Fork and Colorado Rivers and we had an incredible time!


The excitement started early in the trip when the van decided to stop working 1/4 mile into Eisenhower Tunnel during one of the busiest travel days of the year! Like the Secret Service protecting the President, the tunnel crew swept into action within 30 seconds by closing the tunnel and dragging the van out with a tow strap! We were shocked by the immediate response and even happier when the van started up again after 5 minutes of rest. Whether it was vapor lock or overheating, we were happy to be on our way again.

On Saturday, we had a great high water (5000cfs) run on the Cemetary stretch of the Roaring Fork River that included some fun wave trains, and then we headed up stream towards Aspen to run the Slaughterhouse section (1000cfs) of the Roaring Fork. It was Scott's, Robert's, and my first time down the run, but it felt pretty comfortable with Mark leading the way. After that, we picked up Dede and Karen and continued down the Upper Woody stretch which was really exciting at that level.


On Sunday, we turned our attention to the Colorado River which was pumping through Glenwood Canyon at 8900cfs! Scott, Robert and I put in at Shoshone and were blown away by the big water feel of the run at that level. We then picked up Dede, Karen, and Jen and continued down through the Grizzly stretch all the way to the Glenwood wave where we got some surfing in. The girls were able to capture some video action of us going through Shoshone, but of course it doesn't really do justice to the feeling that we had in the chaotic water!



Monday started out a bit slow and we found ourselves back at the Glenwood wave for some more surf action. Once again, there was some video captured and I spliced together a fun little movie of our surf sessions.



Afterwards, we hopped back on I-70 towards Denver with a stop off to run the Upper Eagle. Robert and Mark got in a quick shot down Dowd Chutes where Scott and I joined them for an incredibly quick run down to Avon at 2500cfs. 


I have a handful of photos from the weekend in this photo album.


All in all, it was a fantastic weekend of kayaking and hanging out with friends!