Local whitewater enthusiasts wondering what to expect from Colorado rivers as we reach the unofficial launch of summer this Memorial Day weekend are faced with a classic good news/bad news scenario.
The bad news? Our formerly overabundant snowpack is melting faster than a Fudgsicle on the Fourth of July.
The good? For folks hoping to catch the rivers at their peak this week, it’s on like Donkey Kong.
“In a normal year, the peak wouldn’t happen until the first part of June, but I think we’re really close to a peak right now,” said Mike Gillespie, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Lakewood. “If these temperatures continue for a day or two, I think we’ll see a peak here pretty quick. We may have already seen it down in the southern portion of the state.”
According to Gillespie, there just may be something to that Fudgsicle theory. The series of dust storms that swept dirt from the Colorado Plateau in Utah and Arizona this spring coated the snow-covered Colorado Rockies with up to a dozen layers of brown and red grit. Rather than reflecting the sun’s intensity as white snow usually does, the brown snow is absorbing it, causing it to melt faster.
“Some (snow measurement) sites in the San Juans have already melted out as high as 11,600 feet,” Gillespie said. “It’s not unprecedented, but it’s extremely rare to have an above-average snowpack that melts out that quickly.”
A brief glance at almost any hydrograph in the state bears out the acceleration observation. Flows on many of the state’s wild rivers are currently as much as twice as high as long-term historical averages for this date. SNOTEL Snowpack Summary graphs produced by the Natural Resources Conservation Service offer further corroboration, with statistics that rivaled 2008’s record snowpack as recently as the last week in April now plummeting to the below-average levels of 2007.
Snow remaining in the Upper Colorado River Basin, for example, is currently capable of producing only 61 percent of the water the river typically sees and only 38 percent of the 2008 flow. The upshot is that much of that water has been or may still be stored in reservoirs for release later in the season.
“We’re fortunate that we started with much more water at the peak snowpack, so it’s really a timing issue rather than volume. Everything has shifted forward,” Gillespie said. “If you have the advantage of upstream reservoir storage, you may not even notice a difference in the volume.”
Outfitters on popular rafting and kayaking rivers such as the Arkansas are banking on that upstream storage to see them through a summer that feels like it arrived early in the high country.
“It’s kind of funny this year. The Ark popped up real quickly, but everyone around here feels real comfortable about where the water is,” said Duke Bradford, owner of Arkansas Valley Adventures and chairman of the Colorado River Outfitters Association (CROA). “We’ve got water guaranteed until August 15 (through an agreement with the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area), so we’re expecting a good year.”
As for the best time for boaters to plan this season’s big rafting trip? Well, that depends on what you’re looking for.
“The beauty of Colorado is the diversity of the season,” CROA spokesman Drew Kramer said. “There’s always a place to find mellow water and there’s always a place to find big water.”
For those who consider bigger better, however, Greg Kelchner of Vail-based Timberline Tours believes there’s no time like the present.
“If you’re really itching to experience the top of the runoff at good levels, this is the time to do it,” he said.
