The last time Colorado’s river basins swelled with above-average spring snowpacks in 2019, 12 people died in Colorado’s rivers and creeks.
rivers
Posted inOutdoors
Want to float one of the West’s most popular rivers? You have roughly a 2% chance of getting a permit.
Nearly 60,000 people applied to raft the West’s four most popular rivers in 2022. The boating community says the federal government’s process to administer permits is broken.
Posted inOutdoors
The rock-hurling spat that could upend Colorado’s river access rules
The Colorado Supreme Court will wade into a technical aspect in angler Roger Hill’s lawsuit arguing Colorado rivers are public property if they were used for commercial activity – like floating timber – at statehood.
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
SunLit Excerpt: In “Canyonlands Carnage,” river mishaps raise suspicion
Chuck gaped at the back of Clarence’s helmeted head. “What in God’s name are you saying?” “I mean, consider the odds,” Clarence yelled back at him. “You really think—?” Clarence nodded, his plastic helmet bobbing. “I do. The power—the force—of this first rapid made me realize I needed to say something.” Chuck grimaced and rowed […]
Posted inOpinion
Opinion: A beautiful synchronicity, in peril
Sixty years ago, I lived just a few hundred feet from the banks of Cherry Creek, which was lined with groves of majestic cottonwood trees. And every year, as summer approached, we kids enjoyed the “snow.” It wasn’t the wet snow of winter, but that of near-summer: a profusion of cottonwood seeds, attached to “cotton” […]
Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider
Colorado’s attorney general wades into murky river dispute that could upend access to rivers, streams
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser wants the Colorado Supreme Court to wade into a murky river-access fight. Weiser this week filed a lengthy brief asking the state’s high court to intervene before a lower court takes up a case involving a fisherman who says he has a right to wade on a stretch of the […]
Posted inClimate
The Colorado River Basin’s water forecast looked good in January. Now everything has changed.
Data collected from Colorado River Basin sensors recorded near- or record-low snowfall in the last three weeks of January
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Water
Ridgway grants “rights” to its river, joining several Colorado towns in push for new water protections
The Ridgway town council has voted to give “rights of nature” to the Uncompahgre River that flows on the edge of its downtown, joining Nederland and a long list of international locations saying they want to be better stewards of their wild spaces. The council followed the lead of Mayor John Clark in approving the […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors
Amid drought, Colorado rafters flock to oases while they still can
By Brittany Peterson and Thomas Peipert, The Associated Press FORT COLLINS — Across Colorado, parched rivers are at some of their lowest levels on record. But on one still spared by the drought, boisterous children and guides bob along as water splashes into their blue inflatable rafts. The summer activity on the Cache La Poudre […]
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 […]