Animas
10. Farmington Whitewater Park
May 3, 2010
Trip Report
| Reporter | Marcel Bieg |
Hello All,
This comment is to update the information of our Farmington Play Park. Due to some repair work that sorrta messed up somethings and a few high water years the Park has changed a little. It needs some work to correct the problem but the top feture is still excelent at most levels. So here is the scoop-
Two Fetures-
Top feature- doable at 250 CFS up to 2400 CFS, the best level is from 500 CFS to 1700 CFS. At 500 the feature is basically a hole on surfers right and a flat glassy wave on surfers left. At 500 to about 1300 CFS play boats can spin, blunt, pull holixes and the ocassional Donkey flip if the paddler is dialed. Above 1300 the hole starts to glass out and steepen up although it always breaks on Surfers right, from about 1300 to 1700 the wave is a fun glassy spinner especially for surf specific boats, one can still blunt but you really have to be on your game. Above 1700 to about 2400 it is still surfable but the eddy starts to flush and it is more of a challenge to get on. Above 2400 the wave is still there but must be caught on the fly and the lower feature becomes huge nasty hole!
Lower Feature- This feature used to be the better of the two, but a number of years ago some work was done on it and feature was basically ruined. Now it is either to shallow to be fun or it is to big and sticky to do much except for scare people out of whitewater sports. If this feature is fixed in the future the Farm town park will stand up to other great parks like Salida, Durango,and BV, but as of now we are stuck with one good feature and one sucky one!
Farmington usually has payable water year round and we now have a solid crew of local boaters which center around the Outdoor Leadership Progam at San Juan College. The Farmington Aquatics Center has Open Boating on Thursday nights from 6:30-8:00 the months of September through November and February to the end of April. In late summer when the water in the park is Low and like 85 degrees, Surf and body boarders mass at the park so it is a fun scene. Also if you want to work on your seal launches Farmington Lake has some great cliffs and warm water for this! I will try and post some new photos ASAP.
If you are coming through town, give me a call and perhaps we can squeeze in a surf sessiona and brew at 3 Rivers Brewery Down town!
Marcel Bieg
Coordinator, Outdoor Leadership, Recreation and Education Program
San Juan College
4601 College Blvd
Farmington NM, 87402
Phone: (505)566-3113
Fax: (505)566-3790
E-mail: biegm@sanjuancollege.edu
Web Site: sanjuancollege.edu/outdoor