Boulder

Excellent river at spring run-off. First lap on 6/9/2024 was at 5000cfs, second lap at 4500cfs. The river is FAST at these levels, a swim will be long even with a solid crew, basically no eddies. The start of the run is the meat, and you can see some of the bigger holes as you near the put-in, worth taking a look at. There is no warm-up, so be ready to rip it! Excellent level for rafts and kayaks. There is a low foot bridge near the end of the run that you should stop and look at on your way to the put-in, it's right along the road. I wouldn't take a raft down this at much above 5000cfs, as it was we had to hit the deck to get under the bridge. Kayaks could run it higher but would require a roll to get under the bridge at some point. Ran it last year at 3000cfs and that was also a blast.

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We ran this stretch on 6-8 and had a great time. There was a decent amount of wood and several of the islands had channel wide wood that could be very bad. We scouted river right at one island with a massive amount of wood pinned on the upstream side. This had bad wood on the left channel and one large log just under the surface on the left side of the right channel.

There are clean lines but be aware. At these flows I felt the whitewater was III+ but many CL III paddlers would find the very long long rapids to be quite a handful. Additionally many CL III paddlers will not have the river awareness to deal with and anticipate wood problems. A skilled crew could route an ambitious CL III paddler with a cool head down, but a beginner crew stepping it up might have a rough time here.

View from the bridge.