Another superb spring day in southern Colorado. The weather has been typical Colorado...cold, rainy, warm, sunny...if you don't like it wait 5 minutes. It'll change. The past few days have been actually really nice. High's the past 2 days in the 70's which means the snow is melting faster and the rivers are a rising.
After a quick call, the plan was set - West Fork of the San Juan. I packed up the ride and picked up Joel Cameron, a good friend and regular session attendee and we headed east to Wolf Creek pass. At the pass we turned north and headed up a dirt road to the West Fork of the San Juan River put in. The West Fork is a beautiful narrow, gorged out run choked with boulders. Because of the warm days, we were guaranteed good flows and my guess was that it was still going to come up while we hiked then paddled...I wasn't wrong about that one.
Like a lot of CO runs, we got our yakpaks out and carried 3 miles upstream on a good trail. This part of CO is unbelievably beautiful. Remote, untouched, densely wooded.
Looking down into the canyon and hearing the sound of whitewater is such an awesome feeling. Seeing those boulder gardens really lifted our spirits and we got an instant energy boost.
It's hard to tell exactly where to put on this run. You could hike for many more miles than we did and I bet still get great kayaking. We decided to call it quits after 3 or so miles.
We arrived at the put in and a nice class V rapid. One thing about these remote runs...wood. It's all over the place. It's hard to read and run because every slot could have wood in it. Because this run doesn't get see paddlers often, no ones cleans it out. 
We did have a blast though reading and running through the easy class IV/V rapids although maintaining an edge due to the abundance of wood. Joel ended up surfing a log which resulted in a premature exit from his kayak. I helped him get out of the log only to watch his gear flush downstream and disappear into a boulder garden. Springing to action, I ditched my yak and we gave chase down the creek only to lose site of it. After searching through 2 really nice boulder drops, we were able to locate it pinned under water in the middle of the first drop. With no way to access it and having only my throw bag, our options were getting limited. We finally decided on the Draconian method...finding large rocks and throwing them at the bow and stern in hopes of dislodging it. Incredibly...it worked. His boat flushed out and cruised downstream through the next drop and into an eddy where Joel lept into the river, clipped my throw rope to it, and ushered it ashore.
Unfortunately, the bow and stern were totaled - caved in and cracked. We sussed out the damage, got back in our yaks and headed down stream making good progress through the remaining rapids. At the take out, we celebrated anther good run although there was some carnage and lost gear...but all in all a good day. I'd like to get back up there. Possibly hike another 2-3 miles making the run around 6 miles long. With the scenery so spectacular and the whitewater really good, this run should see a lot more descents than it does. I guess the hiking weeds folks out.
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