Raking The River
Yesterday I
spent a couple of hours out on the Colorado River in my boat raking the
weeds out of it. Its often said that there's nothing new under the sun,
but I'm pretty sure that I was the only person in the world doing that.
The reason for pulling them out was to prepare the river for its next
seasonal recreational phase, ice skating. The river is a source of
enjoyment all year round, from fishing and floating and swimming in it
while its in a liquid form, to playing hockey on it when its frozen.
Raking
the weeds out of the river isn't something I have to do every Nov ember,
but only becomes necessary during years when the river has been low.
2025 has been one of those years. After a decent snowpack last winter,
the amount of water that actually melted off and found its way into
reservoirs upriver was disapointingly low. This is a trend that's been
happening for several years now. As the climate becomes warmer and
drier, melting snow that used to be deposited into our hydrological bank
account now evaporates instead, or becomes absorbed by drier soil.
There
are several reservoirs upriver which collect all of that snowmelt in
the spring, then release it later in the summer. In what used to be
"normal" years, the Upper Colorado River would see peak runoffs of about
5,000 cfs. In good years like last year, it hit 8,000 cfs. The year
before that, 6,000 cfs. This year it peaked at around 1,500 cfs, which
that had some negative side effects. If one was hoping for some
whitewater fun, the Colorado was not your river this year. With the
river running that low in June, water temperatures rose to seventy
degrees which caused aquatic vegetation to bloom. With the water that
warm, fishing had to be done before noon or ideally, not at all. It also
led to some odd scenarios, like the Eagle River running higher than the
Colorado for a couple months. But the dams which taketh the water away can also
giveth. All of that water which was held back in the spring got released
in August, which raised and cooled the river. The reservoirs which
store that water are the reason the Upper Colorado River is the
wonderful fishery that it is today. In the absence of any dams and
reservoirs to hold back the water, in a dry year like this this summer
the flows might have been around 200 cfs, with water temperature in the
eighties. That is not prime trout habitat. Having the river flows so
controlled is mainly a function of a portion of its annual flow being
sent east under the continental divide, to water farms and fill taps.
But the upside to this management regime is to help create a terrific
place for trout to live.
One
reason that the Upper Colorado River between Kremmling and Dotsero is
one of the greatest in America is that it sits in the sweet spot between
supply and demand. When water calls come on from Shoshone or the Grand
Valley or San Diego or anywhere else downriver, that flow has to come
right past my backyard. Maybe one day, if all the dire climate
predictions come to pass, the Colorado River will might run dry.
However if it does, it'll be the last river in the southwest to do so.
Later
this summer, that precious water finally got released. Once the level
rose, the weeds and algae became hidden. The river may have been too low
and warm to fish in the summer, but September and October were perfect.
There were few better places to fish in Colorado than the "Lower Upper"
Colorado River this fall. But now the river has been drawn down to 500
cfs, and all of those weeds have come to the top, or rather the surface
has come down to the weeds. Those weeds will ruin my ice for skating, so
they have to go. So that's why anyone looking out on the river the
other day would have seen a crazy person in a boat hauling weeds out of
it with a rake.
It
was a lot of work, but it will be worth it later this winter when I'm
flying around on the ice like my twelve year old self, pretending to be
Bobby Orr.
Jack Bombardier
