Authorities say they have found the body of a 62-year-old Aurora woman after a raft she was in flipped over on the Green River within Dinosaur National Monument.
Sandra “Sandy” Wolder apparently drowned after the raft she was in, guided by commercial company Adrift Adventures, hit a rock and overturned in an area called Upper Disaster Falls. Everyone aboard but Wolder made it to shore.
“The raft became pinned to a rock in the river due to the force of the current,” Dinosaur National Monument said in a news release. “The trip leader notified the monument about the incident by satellite phone.”
About 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, a body matching Wolder’s description was found trapped underwater in the roots of a large downed tree in the Green River. The team is currently working on retrieving the victim’s body and will be transporting it by raft to Echo Park.
Park Officials say Disaster Falls, where the woman went missing in Moffat County, is rated as Class III-IV rapids depending on river levels and is located in a remote section of the Canyon of Lodore, about 7 miles from the river launch at the Gates of Lodore.The Green River was flowing at about 8,600 cubic feet per second at the time of the incident. The raft is pinned to a rock in the river due to the force of the current.
A rising number of people, , were victims of deadly commercial rafting trips along the Arkansas River, Clear Creek, the Cache la Poudre River, the Roaring Fork River and the Animas River.
