Denver – The Sledgehammer, Widowmaker and Boateater are some of Mother Nature’s top roller coasters in Colorado, and Christian Campton can’t wait for the ride.
Every summer, Campton’s Kodi Rafting takes tourists, oar in hand and life vests buckled, on white-knuckle rides through twisting and sometimes bone- chilling rapids on the Arkansas, Blue and Colorado, among the state’s most scenic rivers.
Preseason reservations were up, and Campton is hoping storms will extend the season this year. “I am thinking it’s going to be fantastic for us,” he said.
Colorado’s rafting industry is predicting a good spring and summer because winter storms left behind a healthy snowpack. Rafters in states from Utah to Washington are saying the same thing, despite pockets of drought and the ever-present threat of wildfires.
Although January, February and March were sunny and springlike in parts of Montana, Denny Gignoux of Montana Rafting Co. and Glacier Guides says reservations are about even with last year so far.
“We’ll still have a great rafting season,” said Gignoux, whose company is based in West Glacier near the entrance to Glacier National Park.
“I think we’re very lucky. We’re right on the Continental Divide, so when any weather systems come through, they dump water on us,” he said.
Like much of the nation’s tourism industry, Western raft companies were hit hard when travel dried up after the 2001 terrorist attacks. It got worse in Colorado the next summer during a severe drought and bad wildfire season. User days – the equivalent of one paying guest on a river for any part of a day – dropped to 319,502 in 2002 from 523,597 in 2001, according to a study compiled for the Colorado River Outfitters Association.
The industry began to recover in 2003 thanks in part to a near-record March blizzard, but saw a bit of a dip last year, said the association’s Paul Witt.
“Travel is coming back,” he said. “There’s no reason not to expect a good year.”
Drought remains a major concern across much of the region, including parts of Washington. Brad Sarver, who owns Blue Sky Outfitters Inc. in Seattle, said reservations are about 40 percent ahead of last year, which was a record.
He credited an aggressive marketing campaign for the increase and noted that some of his trips are on rivers where the water flow is controlled by dam releases.
In Colorado, melting snow contributes about 80 percent of the water in rivers, streams, lakes and reservoirs, which means rafters depend on it for their livelihood. In all, eight major Colorado river systems provide water to 10 Western states.
The snowpack percentage is measured against a 30-year average.
Recent figures showed the statewide snowpack at 105 percent of that average, while four river basins – the Gunnison, the Upper Rio Grande, the San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan and the Arkansas – measured above 100 percent. The Upper Colorado was at 89 percent, and the Yampa-White River Basin was just 70 percent.
River rafting companies can choose from 13 river systems in Colorado, with the Arkansas, the Colorado, the Animas and the Poudre among the most popular, according to the association.
