Rafters, anglers worry about dry rivers

KREMMLING, Colo. — In the state known as the “mother of rivers,” the third-warmest and driest period in more than a century is wreaking havoc on waterways that provide the economic lifeline for rural communities and high-alpine habitat for Colorado’s signature fish, the greenback cut-throat trout.

The extremes of temperature and precipitation — too much of one, too little of the other — have grounded rafting companies in places that usually offer white-knuckle rides. With water barely lapping over jagged rocks, some outfitters have moved operations to rivers fed by reservoirs higher up in the parched Rockies.

“Boats can get piled up and people can get hurt if they flip, and guides were having to use their backs to pull the rafts off of rocks,” said Alan Blado, owner of Liquid Descent Rafting, which is based about 40 miles west of downtown Denver. “We didn’t want them to get injured.”

Blado hung on there until his usual run, Clear Creek, was just too low. He relocated his school buses and bright blue rafts to the small Rocky Mountain town of Kremmling and now is trying to salvage the late season by persuading clients to drive the extra 72 miles to float a wide blue-green stretch of the Upper Colorado.

“With Clear Creek being cut short, everybody pretty much takes a pay cut,” Blado said.

This state boasts more headwaters than almost any in the country. Heart-stopping rapids, smooth tributaries and deep holes on the Colorado, Arkansas and the Animas rivers, among others, draw outdoors enthusiasts from around the world.

Last year, thanks to the winter’s heavy snows, outfitters served a record number of visitors. Conditions this year are far different and far more in line with the pattern of recent decades. Since the late 1990s, three intense droughts have buffeted the state’s $193-million rafting industry.

Summer 2018 followed a rough winter in which some areas received 30 percent of what once was typical snowpack. A warm spring thawed drifts early, causing rivers to peak in May, weeks before the busy summer season. Severe to exceptional drought now covers two-thirds of Colorado, and some of the worst wildfires in state history have broken out.

“Not just in Colorado, but U.S. wide and globally, we’re seeing this disturbing warming trend that is amplifying over the last few decades going back to late 1960s,” said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “It brings a lot more evaporation and makes semiarid areas like Colorado prone to quick-hitting droughts.”

Beyond diminished livelihoods, for fishing guides as well as outfitters, the restoration work on world-class fisheries is being threatened. With water levels at 25 percent of the historical average on some waterways, wildlife managers instituted voluntary closures to fishing from 2 p.m. to midnight on several sections. Near Kremmling, stream temperatures approached the 70s in June.

“When water temperatures are above 65 degrees and fish are stressed ... they don’t have

the ability to recover if they are caught and released,” said Jon Ewert, an aquatic biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “We’re trying to put the word out to please don’t fish in the afternoon. We have dozens of signs up along rivers.”

The southwest part of the state has been particularly hard hit. The 416 fire, as it is called, scorched 54,000 acres and forced an unusual 10-day closure of the San Juan National Forest and other popular attractions around Durango in mid-June. Outfitters say widespread news coverage of the blaze proved as damaging to their business on the nearby Animas River, a boaters’ favorite, as its record-low water levels.

A unique agreement among state and county agencies, rafting outfitters and the nonprofit organization Trout Unlimited kept water in the Arkansas River. The pact provides for the early movement of water stored in high-alpine reservoirs to collection points on the plains if the river runs too low for boating.

“Outfitters here, believe it or not, are having a great season,” said Bob Hamel, executive director of the Arkansas River Outfitters Association. “The market pushed rafters to our river.”

Yet even with that 12-year-old pact, officials struggled to keep levels up. Their extra allotment of more than 4.2 billion gallons of water was all released by early August.

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