The nonprofit, educational group with the funny name, “Yampatika,” offers environmental interpretation through year-round programs for adults and children in northwestern Colorado.
One of the group’s adventures this spring is a four-day, three-night rafting sojourn that explores the Yampa River and the canyons that waterway has carved. The trip will be Memorial Day weekend, May 27-30
The Yampa River is one of Colorado’s last wild rivers. The Yampa is what rivers looked like before there were diversions and dams. This longest free-flowing tributary to the Colorado River passes ancient petroglyphs, historic ranches and high mountain deserts.
On Day One, participants will float from Steamboat Springs through ranchlands and diverse riparian areas before spending the night at Carpenter Ranch in one of the world’s largest stands of cottonwood forests.
The next day, the float continues from Carpenter Ranch to Craig. Be on the lookout for nesting bald eagles, great blue herons, sandhill cranes, waterfowl, elk, deer, antelope, beaver, mink and river otters. There’s a dramatic change in habitat – from lush subalpine spruce, aspen and oak, into the pinyon and juniper high mountain desert. On this night, your sleeping bag gets a workout.
The third day is a float trip through Juniper Canyon, the signature of the Yampa. Thousand-foot walls flank the river, and you feel isolated in the Old West. Pockets of cottonwoods and occasional beaches seem to appear in undiscovered territory. The river escapes the canyon as you head into the mountain desert and your campsite near Maybell.
Whitewater is probable on the fourth day. Cross Mountain Canyon, known by experienced rafters and kayakers simply as “Cross,” brings epic river excitement. Tight and technical rapids are not for the faint of heart.
Tracing the Yampa River excursion costs $525 per person; you must be 18 or older, and supply your own camping and personal gear. All meals are included from trip start to finish.
Yampatika’s lineup of additional summer programs includes native-plant seminars in which participants learn to recognize the good, the bad and the yucky weeds encountered in the wild. Good native weeds are those that offer medicinal uses and healing properties.
Hand-in-hand with native plant seminars are outings in which wild, edible plants are gathered, culminating in a natural “feast.”
During a lantern tour of the Yampa River botanic park, visitors will learn what happens to plants at night and and the habits of nocturnal animals.
A one-day course on map reading using a global-positioning system will improve your navigational skills for treasure hunt later that day.
Yampatika also offers birding expeditions, nature photography classes, wild-mushroom seminars, geology tours of the Yampa valley and Rabbit Ears Pass, snorkeling on the Green River, archaeological hikes to Windy Ridge quarry, wild-
horse hunts and llama treks.
And, that’s just summer. Fall and winter programs are being formed.
Yampatika has access to more than a million acres of public land between Mount Zirkel and the Flattop Wilderness Area that surround Steamboat Springs.
Lillian Ross is a freelance writer who lives in Howard.
The details
Steamboat Springs is about 165 miles northwest of Denver via Interstate 70 to the Empire/U.S. 40 turnoff. Take U.S. 40 over Berthoud Pass and continue through the Fraser Valley, over Rabbit Ears Pass into Steamboat Springs.
For more information about Yampatika, or to make reservations for Tracing the Yampa River, call 970-871-9151 or visit www.yampatika.org.
