The Arkansas River current in Chaffee County continued its deadly rage Monday with its second rafting fatality in two days and its fourth in a week.
A 43-year-old man from Castle Rock died Monday afternoon after his raft flipped going over class III Graveyard Rapid in Brown’s Canyon, the Sheriff’s Department said.
The man has not yet been identified.
Sunday 71-year-old kayaker Volker Beer of Tucson, Ariz., was found in the Arkansas River near Buena Vista.
Both men died at Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center in Salida.
The death marked the fifth river-related fatality for Chaffee County, after just five last year for the entire stretch of the river from its headwaters near Leadville to the Kansas state line. The river typically runs cold and fast in the spring, dropping 10,000 feet in elevation before it reaches the plains.
On May 22, a 57-year-old woman from Littleton fell off a horse into the river in Chaffee County and drowned. Last week two 61-year-olds, one from Virginia and one from Woodland Park, died after they were pulled from the river.
“This is more than I can ever remember,” said Sheriff Tim Walker. “The river is a lot higher and faster than I can ever remember it, and there’s still a lot of snowpack still up above it.”
With good rainfall in the mountains, as well, Walker said it could be weeks before the river calms down, during a time of year that the fast-flowing waters are a magnet to thrill-seeking tourists.
At least 12 people have drowned ub Colorado’s swollen waterways since April, and scores of others have been plucked out by rescuers. According to the Colorado Department of Health and the Environment, an average of 46 people die from drowning in Colorado and 38 others are hospitalized each year, which is slightly below the national average.
Rescuers in Eagle County suspended a search Monday for a 56-year-old Nebraska woman who was thrown off a horse into Beaver Creek near Vail on Friday.
State and local governments have closed off some dangerous waters and urged extreme caution in man other locales, “but a lot of it falls on personal responsibility,” Walker said. “It’s very obvious that the river is a lot higher and a lot faster, and it’s up to people to use good judgment about their own safety.”
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
