Our group made it into the Poudre Gorge around 10pm Thursday evening. Following a debacle involving a sketchy campground host (who was either senile or running a scam, my money's on the latter), cars arriving at different times, no cell service, and a delayed food car, we may have set up camp and started cooking by midnight.
We camped right by the Narrows of the river (some class IV/V+ mank), and we seemed to be right at the top of the old burn line. Unlike the Royal Gorge area, it was very clear that a fire had impacted the area. Forest Service personnel have apparently been dumping hay from helicopters and taking on several other rehabilitation projects in an attempt to minimize further damage to the area.
Friday morning, we woke up with the plan to get on the Upper Rustic section of the river (class III/IV). Looking back at the American Whitewater page, the section was below "runnable" flow by about 130cfs. We had a slow morning and a tough time finding a non-private stretch of river to use as a put-in, but eventually, we slid into a rocky, strainer-filled river. The water was dark, and there were clouds overhead, but most of my attention was on getting through the maze of partially-submerged rocks.
At some point, we realized our group of 12 was just too big to navigate such a scrappy river, and we broke into two groups. Not long after, I experienced yet another bout of poor judgement that resulted in a swim. I was sandwiched between two great paddlers with a bunch of other people about my skill level, and instead of reading the river for myself, I decided to happily follow the group of people in front of me. The one problem: I saw where they were currently floating on the river, but I had been catching an eddy instead of watching how they got down the river. I blithely followed them river-right of a boulder, into a narrow, shallow passage that I did not successfully navigate. (Everyone else had gone for the much wider and deeper slot on river left.) I flipped leaning back, and while I managed to protect my face, my knuckles took a bunch of scrapes.
Mind you, this accident was maybe a half mile into the run. I decided to pull off since my judgement and abilities were clearly not as good as they should be (and my hand was hurting pretty badly), the leaders shortly encouraged other folks off the river, and after a bit of a scout, nobody wanted to finish the run. We practiced some more rope team to get the boats up to the road and headed off to Ft. Collins for some choice beverages.
It was not to be. The rain that started while we were roping boats washed a ton of mud and some really large boulders into the road between our campsite and town. We returned to camp and ended up hiking and playing cards until dinner. (It was still a pretty nice, albeit wet, afternoon.)
On our last day in Colorado, we went down to an easier 3-mile section of the Poudre. Crews had come through with bulldozers and cleared the road, but we wanted to be close to town and finished early in case the next line of forecasted storms closed the roads again. After the previous week's bumps and scrapes, I was not half as confident in my paddling abilities. Though the river was class II and horribly rocky at our level, I was gripping my paddle for dear life the whole run. (Tightening up is a pretty rookie mistake; if you don't keep your waist and hips relaxed, you aren't able to accommodate the bumps the water throws at you.)
Thankfully, we made it down this stretch with no major problems. We did break one of the cheap club paddles when it was used to brace a paddler, but the Lower Mishiwaka section was otherwise uneventful.
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