May 31, 2020
| Reporter | Kurt Casey |
The Williams Fork is a tributary of the Upper Colorado and located in Grand County. It is usually only runnable during peak run off from Mid May to Mid June. It is snowmelt fed by a series of large peaks exceeding 13,500 feet including Pettingell, Ptarmigan, Ute, Hagar, Old Baldy, etc
The put in is located just upstream of the entrance to Williams Fork Resevoir whose waters and tailwaters are a well know fishing location. To reach takeout follow county road 3 just over 4 miles from Highway 40 in Parshall to the campground at north end of reservoir at inlet whose elevation is 7811 feet.
To reach put in follow County road 3 for 12 miles to reach Horseshoe campground. There is a bridge over the river with access on either side. Here the elevation is 8430 feet above sea level.
Ran this section on May 30, 2020....The gauge was reading about 550 CFS. What is important to note is that the gauge is near the takeout and throughout the length of the run several weirs remove significant amounts of water so there is a lot more water at put in versus takeout. we estimated 800 CFS at put in.
The first 3 miles parallel the road and is continuous class 3. There are trees in the river which are easy to get around for kayaks and small rafts but could be tricky or dangerous for 14 foot rafts or larger. Around river mile 3 the river leaves the road and enters a nice class 3+ canyon for a few miles with largest drop being over a weir taking water from river. Around river mile 6 the canyon opens and the next 4 miles to takeout have less current, less water and are meandering (but moving swiftly) through private ranches. In this section we had to portage one river wide log jam, boofed a 4 foot weir with dangerous hydraulic, and had to pass under 3 cattle fences that cross the river that in kayaks were manageable but in rafts could be nasty.
Over all the 10 mile run was very continuous, very scenic with average gradient of 65 FPM most of which was concentrated in first half of river. The higher the flow the better for this seldom run Colorado River.