Colorado River near Moab – The high water mark, so to speak, has been set. More accurately, the long water mark.
That mark – determined by GPS and awaiting official verification by Guinness World Records – was established at 183.67 miles over the 24-hour span from 11:30 a.m. Sunday to 11:30 a.m. Monday. More significant, it was set in a whitewater raft.
“(Professional adventure racer) Ian Adamson from Boulder had talked to me about joining him to do the 24-hour kayaking world-record attempt, but I was never able,” said Billy Mattison, a fellow adventure racer and co-owner of Timberline Tours whitewater rafting guides in Vail. “So I said to some of the guys, ‘Why don’t we try to do it in a raft?’ No one has ever done it before, so we thought we’d set the standard.”
Teaming up with Chris “Mongo” Reeder, Todd Toledo, Mike Reid and Brent Redden of the Vail Valley’s Behind the 8-Ball national champion raft racing team, Mattison and company rigged a 16-foot pontoon-style “cataraft” with a five-seat oar frame equipped with a sweep oar for steering. They set out from the Grizzly Creek boat launch on the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon and rowed through the night, portaging two hazardous low-head dams near Palisade and finishing their 24-hour journey at the Rocky Rapids boat ramp roughly 20 miles upstream of Moab. They averaged 7.7 mph.
The trip was done as a self-support, carrying enough food, water and supplies in the 300-plus pound vessel to travel the full 200-mile distance to Moab, and beyond if necessary. Their initial goal was to match Adamson’s original 214-mile kayak record along a similar stretch of the Colorado.
“I thought it was awesome,” said Mark Joffe, a board member of the International Rafting Federation and the U.S. Rafting Association who observed the feat in order to verify the record. “I think it’s a great way to promote the sport of rafting and to show that these guys are incredible athletes, dedicated to their sport like any Olympian.”
Timing their launch to coincide with the full moon nearest to the predicted peak river flow, the rafters put on the river below another dam at the Shoshone Power Plant and rowed through primarily Class II whitewater, save for the Class IV Westwater Canyon stretch on the Colorado-Utah border, which they managed to hit just after sunrise with a water level of 12,000 cubic feet per second (cfs).
“It was my idea, but Mongo really picked up the ball and ran with it,” Mattison said. “He crunched the numbers and got on Google Earth and looked at all the distances and times and pretty much nailed it on the head. We were kind of hoping to get to Moab, but I think we’re pretty happy with what we did under the circumstances. Despite the great snowpack this winter, the rivers just never really got all that high.”
While the whitewater didn’t prove much of a challenge for the team of expert river-runners, the darkness and sleep deprivation took their toll as they meandered through Grand Junction, Fruita and Loma just after sundown, then struggled to stay awake through Ruby and Horsethief canyons along the state line. More than anything, though, the rafters discovered a new appreciation for the Colorado River, one of the few places in the nation where such a feat can be accomplished.
“Paddling at night was brutal. Even with the full moon, you can’t see anything and everything sounds the same, whether it’s a Class II rapid or a dam,” Reeder said. “But we’re just lucky to have a river with enough gradient and enough water in it to do something like this. I couldn’t believe all the stuff right in my backyard that is perfect for four-to-five day raft trips. I was blown away.”
