Chautauqua Creek

Peter and I ran this stretch on 12/26/2009 after a very nice X-Mas present of snow/rain to bring everything up. We parked for the take out on river right on S Gale Rd in the fishing access dirt parking lot, and headed up to the putin. The Putnam Rd put-in was all iced over and didn't look like there was nearly enough water, but perhaps with more water (and spring/fall) it would be do-able. We accessed Lyons rd via the Southeast (river right) side and parked at the end of the pavement, walking down the road to access the river. There is no bridge crossing Lyons rd anymore, and we walked over 30 ft of private property to access the river there. We had a decent level and enjoyed the run very much.

I would give it a III-IV rating as the RiverMain page says, mostly because of wood. There weren't any rapids that were individually IV but there were many cases of wood, including one portage around a river-wide strainer/log-jam at the end of the 'braided section' between the two canyons.

I took a picture of the river at the take-out bridge to show the level, so if you can spot some rocks there to compare, that might help. I don't remember what other creeks were running at though. Browncs@colorado.edu