Yampa
By Christina King
Day 1, Thursday, May 25, 2006 Anderson Hole (14,100 cfs):
Deer Lodge park is warm, quiet and restful when we
arrive. The first thing we see getting out of our vehicle is a
"dinosaur" floating down river.
All
along the Yampa from Steamboat Springs to Deer Lodge Park the river is out of its banks.
The Yampa is flowing nicely at 14,100 cfs. Irene regales
us with an Internet story about a large Alaskan man-eater Grizzly. Ava,
I and the NPS ranger (biologist) are highly skeptical. You can
read about this urban myth at snopes.com
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/bearhunt.asp Irene had the
first part of the myth and snopes tells us the "rest of the story".
Lesson learned- don't believe most of what you read on the internet as truth
(especially if it sounds outlandish). After completing the shuttle, we
float quickly to our first camp at Anderson Hole.
No
rapids today. This is really a nice camp, sandy beach with several side
canyons full of fossils, polished limestone?, nice rock formations and
beautiful river/canyon views. There is also a cabin and old corral.
The only drawback is that we only float 5 miles today.
We
enjoy a late game of Dominoes after a delicious dinner of pork loin, potato
casserole and devils food chocolate cake prepared by Jeff and Karen Hodge.
Day 2, Friday, May 26, 2006 Mathers Hole (11,100 cfs):
We
woke early after a clear night and launched after a wonderful breakfast
prepared by Patti and Anne. We ran Little Joe where Irene flipped her
little cat.
Irene swam the entire rapid, got picked up but we had to chase and herd that little cat boat quite a ways before shoving it into shore. Irene was cold and tired from her swim and their sleeping bags got wet.
Fortunately
we had a long lunch stop at Big Joe and were able to dry almost all their
wet stuff while others hiked up Starvation Canyon. It sure was hot that day.
I spotted an eagle nest at the Grand Overhang area.
We stop at Harding to check out the trail up to the rim overlook (don't have time to make that hike) and walk down to the overhang area at Harding #4. The view from the Harding #4 camp overlook/cave area is really beautiful. The path is behind the camp.
We bypass all the good camps and squeeze into our
assigned camp at Mather's Hole. Okay but not great. Nice shade
though. Anne and Patti make a stop at Signature cave across the river
from Harding before coming down to camp and enjoy the view and signatures of
early river runners (Bus Hatch, others).
We
eat Middle Park meat company ribs supplied by Bill and Irene until we bust.
Keith eats a record 12 ribs! We are stuffed. High winds made
rowing hard today and will continue the rest of our trip. We find out after
we get off the river that during this same time all of Colorado and eastern
Utah had high winds with gusts in Craig recorded at 52 mph. Thank
goodness we have good flows!
NPS only assigned us one of out five camps we requested originally. It's a very strange trip, with long and short mile days. We tried to shift several times with NPS (several weeks before we left home, at the put-in) but failed. We make do.
Notes about camps: Teepee (small) and Big Joe (small and carry up to kitchen area), Harding #3 (fast current and rocky) are not great camps. Good camps in this section include Harding #1, #2, #4 (the best). Ponderosa is a good camp but has steep path up to the camp.
Big Joe camp
Day 3, Saturday, May 27, 2006 Laddie #1 (11,000 cfs):
We have a very short day today- only 6 miles.
Yesterday we had 24 miles. See what I mean about a goofy camp
assignment? Lots of outfitters and private boaters on the river.
Very few good camps are open. Dave and Rosalyn filled us up with
another huge breakfast. We decided to spend a chunk of time at Mantle
Ranch and hike up to the anasazi ruins.
If
you look closely you can see the resident Mantle cave owl has scattered
rabbit legs on the overhang floor. Karen brought a new interesting book about
Mantle Ranch by Queeda Mantle-Walker ISBN #
0871083507. I haven't found the book anywhere but our local
Woodland Park library. Usually you can request it at your local
library and they will buy books like this based on requests. This book is a
must read if you enjoy historical autobiographies about families who lived
along the Yampa. Karen gave us a daily summary of the book every night
and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Interesting tidbit: many Yampa
areas were named after the original Mantle Ranch owner's wild horses (ex.
Laddie Park).
We end up at stopping at Laddie #1 since a group was stopped (eating a late lunch) at our assigned camp Laddie #2. The wind howled and snapped the 1 foot thick Box Elder branches at our camp while we huddled against a huge cliff/boulder wall protected from the worst of the gusts. I think today is the 52 mph gust day. We unpack nothing waiting to see if anyone shows up at Laddie #1 hoping we can stay here. Laddie #2 offers no wind protection and the boats have no eddy (strong current at the high riverbank camp). Nobody can put up tents until after dinner because of the high winds. We enjoy Karen's summary of her Mantle book this afternoon.
We find a beautiful horse in camp (later find out his name is Waddie) who
nuzzles anyone who will pay attention to him. This is the second time
Waddie has escaped from Mantle Ranch to spend the summer at Laddie.
Anne our resident club vet certifies that Waddie is very healthy with
trimmed hooves and seems perfectly content to hang out here all summer
again. Finally, the wind dies down a bit (slow roar) and Keith/Ava fix
us a wonderful spicy chicken dinner with birthday cakes for Pete and Ava who
both had birthday's this past week. Our camp squirrel really wants a
bite of the birthday cake!
Day 4, Sunday, May 28, 2006 Cove (11,000+4,700 cfs= 15,700):
Today is our big Warm Springs Rapid day. We run it
in two groups. Bill straps on Irene's little cat but I forget to take
a photo of it. Thank goodness Patti remembered to take the photo. Quite un-wieldy but he runs the rapid fine.
Pete and Keith decide to run right, then cut far left. Both do fine but Keith's run goes through some big waves but slices through perfectly left of the big Warm Springs hole. The rest of us run right, some bouncing off the right shore. Our assigned camp (Cove) makes it unrealistic to stop at Jones Holes and hike.
Tiger Wall- lovely as usual
We've
had a 22 mile day with stops at Echo Park for a hike up to Whispering Cave and
the petroglyphs along the road/stream. We were assigned to Cove and
wish we could have gotten our Jones #4 requested camp. The wind
continues and the temperature dips quite a bit. We put more fleece on before
eating dinner. The setting sun changes the lighting in camp to a
glowing golden then blue/pink/purple color. The picture below captures the gorgeous colors
on the canyon walls.
Note about camps: Box Elder #1 (un-campable in my opinion), Box #2 okay, Box #3 (the best!). Warm Springs- better run the rapid successfully or on the right side-otherwise you will miss the eddy and camp completely. Jones #4 looks great, again we are assigned to Cove. Cove is okay, no bug problem on Memorial weekend. Compromise would have been good too, but didn't get that one either. Island Park and Big Island could be okay but are far down river.
Day 5, Monday- Memorial Day, May 29, 2006 Takeout (14,520 cfs):
Awoke
to a nice morning with a no-wind float to Rainbow Park. Lots of groups
converging and taking out today. We stop at Rainbow to re-group and
set up to run Moonshine rapid. I run lead with Dave, Keith and Anne behind me.
I look once and see Dave is through fine. My next over the shoulder glance
reveals that Keith is upside
down. It happened so quickly that no one actually saw the flip.
I snuck away from the bigger waves on the far right (which everyone else
ran). I think Keith flipped in a surging wave on the right side but
I'm not sure. Keith
scrambled up on the bottom of his boat almost instantly. Ava was actively
swimming but the waves kept taking her out of Keith's extended reach every time they
tried to connect. Keith finally got her in and transferred her quickly to Dave's boat.
Dave (with Rosalyn hanging onto a bow line) and I got Keith's boat to shore after
a few minutes. Ava was shivering! We got the wet clothes off, flipped
Keith's boat back over (only lost a hat and an un-tied in camera- forgot to
tie it in). All this took time but we continued down river and got to
the takeout around 1 pm. It turns out all of the groups staggered in at
intervals so we
didn't get in each others way. We loaded up quickly and just as we
were finishing up, Glen accidentally cut his finger severely while pushing
his frame around in the bed of his truck. Keith and Irene bandaged it
quickly and we took him to the Vernal hospital (quite a nice and modern
facility). They numbed, cleaned and stitched it up, recommending that
he get home quickly before the numbness wore off. It hurt a lot that
next day and continues to mend. It's amazing how quickly an accident
can happen with even the simplest of actions. Every time we load/unload
our frames, I pinch a knuckle. Makes you think hard about how quickly an
accident can happen. Overall it was a good trip (despite the wind,
flips and cut finger) because we were with such good river people.
Resource Links to the Yampa: