Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider

When people die in Colorado’s outdoors, sometimes friends are the ones to find them

A week after Vaughn Fetzer was reported missing on Blanca Peak, the fourth highest mountain in Colorado, friends found his body in an unstable area. Rescuers spent several days in freezing temperatures searching near vertical cliffs and scree fields but suspended the mission after a search team member was injured by falling rock in a […]

Posted inClimate, News, Newsletters, Outdoors, Outsider, Politics and Government, Water

Should river towns be forced to build costly parks to get recreational water rights?

American Whitewater floated a plan last year to expand protections for recreational river flows in Colorado. Maybe, the nonprofit protector of rivers thought, communities should not need to build whitewater parks to secure rights for recreational flows.  “It definitely, you know, got some ears perked,” said Hattie Johnson, American Whitewater’s southern Rockies stewardship director. Colorado […]

Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors

Two popular Colorado waterways are shut down amid raging currents, large number of rescues

While the Western Slope faces dangerous drought conditions, the urban stream and river corridors along the Front Range are flowing high and fast, so much so that officials are closing parts of the Poudre River and Clear Creek to limit people on the water.  In Fort Collins, the Poudre Fire Authority has rescued more than […]

Posted inColoradans, COVID, Environment, Health, News, Outdoors

Front Range kayakers, rafters blast Jefferson County’s extended coronavirus closure of Clear Creek

Jefferson County, like the rest of Colorado, reopened restaurants and loosened restrictions on people’s movement this week. But Clear Creek, one of its most popular draws, will remain closed. Sheriff Jeff Shrader extended a ban on all swimming, tubing and kayaking in the creek that bisects the 580,000-resident county. That troubles the Front Range kayaking […]

Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, COVID, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government

Rafting season is ready to launch, but coronavirus worries are running high in Colorado

By Dean Krakel, Fresh Water News With warming temperatures in Colorado’s mountains and spring runoff in full swing, the whitewater boating season should be off to a roaring start. But Colorado’s stringent COVID-19 travel and recreation restrictions are forcing commercial rafting companies to create social distance on unruly rivers and face the potential for smaller […]

Posted inBusiness, Culture, News, Outdoors

Dragon boat racing, with its unlikely rise and massive Denver festival, is adapting to include everyone

Despite recent back surgery and a left leg lost in a military accident, Jataya Taylor can’t stop smiling.  She’s one of the regulars on a recent evening at Sloan’s Lake as her team trains for the upcoming dragon-boat race. Taylor sits in a newly retrofitted blue stadium seat with a special leg strap to keep […]

Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors

“You fall in and you are not getting out”: Rio Grande in southern Colorado closed because of high runoff

DEL NORTE – Water is flowing so high and fast that recreational access to the Rio Grande river has been shut down indefinitely from near the headwaters around Creede through Del Norte, down to Alamosa and beyond. The river hit flood stage in Del Norte Wednesday afternoon, a condition that is forecast to persist at […]