Finishing touches to the whitewater park on the Animas River in Durango are complete, and as boating season begins to ramp up, river runners are heralding the changes.
“We’re really excited about the job they did at the whitewater park,” said Alex Mickel, owner of Mild to Wild. “And it couldn’t have come at a better time with a low water year coming.”
Tweaks have been made to the Durango Whitewater Park, which flows alongside Santa Rita Park, since the 1980s.
In 2007, however, a Colorado water court granted the city of Durango water rights specifically for flows for recreation through the whitewater park, at the same time putting to rest fears of a trans-mountain diversion or dam upstream.
As part of obtaining the water rights, the city of Durango pledged to launch a full-scale project to enhance the whitewater park, which began in 2014.
Over the course of several years, city officials met with local river users, such as rafting companies, private boaters and kayakers, to collect input on how to improve rapids in the stretch of river.
The project was supposed to be completed in spring 2017, but work was suspended at that time when water levels rose unexpectedly.
But the delay was considered fortuitous. It allowed the city to observe how the whitewater park was altered by a separate project, just upstream, that diverted more flows into the city’s water intake for municipal use.
That $1 million project, spearheaded by the city of Durango’s utilities department, created several new features and rapids in the area now known among river runners as the “entrance” to the whitewater park.
From fall 2017 to spring 2018, Cathy Metz, Parks and Recreation director, said the finishing touches were completed to the tune of $65,000. The total cost of the whitewater park is estimated at $3.9 million.
Among the work conducted the past few months, the city improved several rapids – such as Corner Pocket, Ponderosa and Smelter – to make the rapids more navigable and safer at all flow levels, Metz said.
Also, the city worked to improve the left entrance into the whitewater park, which gave river runners some trouble last year. Now, the line is safer and can be run at low and high flows.
“It just became too powerful,” Metz said. “We wanted to slow the water down a little bit.”
While there is some additional grouting on boulders that the city would like to complete in the future, the whitewater park, for the most part, is in its final iteration, she said.
“We’re hoping it stays a good boating experience,” she said.
So far this year, the consensus among boaters is it is a good experience.
Mickel said Mild to Wild has already started trips down the Animas River, which is flowing around 600 to 700 cubic feet per second, relatively low but definitely runnable.
“What they did was excellent,” Mickel said. “Hats off to them.”
James Wilkes, co-owner of Mountain Waters Rafting, heaped similar praise on the city.
“The work they did was fantastic,” he said.
The consensus is that the Durango Whitewater Park is a fun and safe experience at high flows and at low flows. And that flexibility is likely to come into play this year with the lack of snowpack over the winter.
Although Southwest Colorado had a dismal winter for snowpack, both owners of the rafting companies said the Animas River, even in bad years, has been reliably runnable until at least July.
“The rafting scenario is not as dire as everyone’s saying,” Wilkes said.
In 2002, for instance, the year of intense drought that ultimately led to the Missionary Ridge Fire, Wilkes said the Animas was runnable through June.
“Barring a non-monsoon event, which almost never happens, we’re going to have rafting as normal, just on lower water,” he said.
The low flows, for rafting companies at least, aren’t all that bad. Most tourists prefer a tamer ride down the Animas River rather than the potentially dangerous float when the river is running at thousands of cubic feet per second.
“When you’re a family from Texas or Phoenix and you’re going to float down the river with kids, it’s better at low water,” Wilkes said. “Sure, us locals love to run the river when it’s high, but these trips are almost better for tourists.”
Guide fishing companies, too, aren’t all that concerned with the low water.
Rob Schmidt, manager for Duranglers, said fishing so far this year has been good on the Animas, despite low flows. The concern is if water temperatures rise in the summer, which can stress and ultimately kill fish.
“Water temperature is more of a problem for fish than actual flows,” he said. “We’ll avoid fishing in those areas if it gets too warm.”
Like any company that depends on the natural conditions of the environment, both rafting and fish-guiding companies have made concerted efforts to diversify what they offer when one option is closed.
Both Mild to Wild and Mountain Waters offer rafting trips on other rivers in the area, and even have jeep tours. Duranglers, too, will take fishers to other parts of the region, such as the Piedra or Hermosa, if the Animas isn’t fishing well.
Greg Smith, a senior hydrologist with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, said that runoff in the Animas River is expected to be at 30 percent of normal, with an expected volume of 115,000 acre-feet.
For reference, Smith said there have been only two lower water years since records began in 1898: in 2002 (83,000 acre-feet) and 1977 (106,000 acre-feet).
The peak flow in the Animas is usually around 4,600 cfs, but this year is expected to hit only 1,200 to 1,400 cfs.
As far as rain, Smith said that should be about average.
“But these things vary a lot,” he said.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
