The Last Last Last Day

To All, 

Its May 17th, and the worst Colorado ski season in memory has finally ended.  Most people I know gave up on skiing weeks or even months ago, but shouldn't have. The last few weeks have actually been really nice, and the fact that people stopped showing up made it even nicer. Nothing like short to non-existent lift lines to make a good day even better.  

Closing days at ski areas are always a bittersweet affair, for enjoying something you love for one last time creates some mixed feelings.  There aren't many activities we do that come with a finite end date, so enjoying those last few blasts down the hill makes me sad and happy at the same time. Ski area closings usually happen progressively, not all at once. Locally, Arrowhead and Bachelor Gulch close first, then Beaver Creek, followed by Vail and Steamboat. Breckenridge and Copper come next, and A Basin is usually the last to close.  This year they all closed early, which reinforced the perception that the skiing was terrible, though the last few weeks of skiing were actually pretty good.  I went to Steamboat's final day, and they got thirteen inches of snow that last week. If you looked up at Mount Werner from town, the ski area looked bare. But the reality was that the upper mountain was terrific, and the skiing was great. Since there was no snow on the lower part of the mountain, getting off the hill involved taking the gondola down the hill which felt a little strange.  It was worth it though. Although we didn't get any huge dumps of snow, there were other pretty good days and I was able to time my trips there to be there when they happened.  

 On the Thursday before Steamboat closed, I ran up there to ski on my birthday.  It has snowed the day before, and I was looking forward to getting into some of it. On the way up to the top of the mountain riding the Wild Blue gondola, things didn't look too promising at the bottom of the hill. But then halfway up, things changed. The world became white again, the transition from spring to winter was almost instantaneous. The skiing was great that day, and I was able to ski amongst the aspen trees for one of the only times all year. But it was a very windy day, and as the wind blew harder the Sunshine Express lift was closed for safety. At the end of the day it was necessary to download to the bottom on the Wild Blue gondola, since there was no snow down there. There was a bit of a line to get on, and I ended up sharing the gondola with two women, and a family foursome. The Wild Blue opened last year, and is one of the longest gondolas in the world, going from the bottom of Mount Werner to the top. As soon as it began its descent, it began to rock back and forth in the wind.  After some quick banter, everyone settled in for the ride.  Due to the wind,  the speed of the gondola was slowed waaay down, to maybe walking speed. As the gondola swayed back and forth, I thought about a detailed news report I had just watched that week. It was the fortieth anniversary of a tragic accident in Vail in which a cable broke, and a couple gondolas plummeted to the ground resulting in several fatalities.

  During an awkward silence, my inner wiseass awakened, perhaps feeling some birthday entitlement. I told my gondola partners about the Vail incident, and one of the women looked at me with lowered eyebrows and "thanked me for sharing".  There were a couple of chuckles, and then more silence as the gondola continued its ever so slow crawl down the hill, while swinging back and forth. After another silence, I added to no one in particular that the Vail gondolas fell 125 feet, and that they were travelling 60 mph when they hit the ground.  This time, just more lowered eyebrows from the woman, and a couple of nervous titters. After a half hour of the world's slowest gondola ride, we were almost to the bottom. The gondola was still pretty high, but the wind had finally eased up a little. The father of the family looked towards the bottom of the hill we were finally approaching, and said with some relief "Well looks like we finally made it!" My inner wiseass wasn't done however.  I heard myself say, "That's what one of the Vail survivors said just before the cable broke".  We were close enough to the bottom that everyone laughed, even Ms. Lowered Eyebrows.

In March I got to ski Aspen, and was initially disappointed by the conditions.  March should have the best snow of the year, but I wasn't used to seeing so much bare ground everywhere when it should have been ass deep powder. But then I thought about it and tried to put it in a different light.  What if it were May instead of March? If I were skiing those same conditions in May, I'd be ecstatic.  The problem wasn't the snow that I found myself on, it was the expectations I had for what March skiing should be like. So I managed my expectations, which I could control, and found myself enjoying the actual snow conditions under my feet, which I couldn't. By pretending it was May instead of March, I suddenly found myself enjoying a spectacular day of May skiing on Aspen mountain.  Since it was warm enough to feel like May, it wasn't that hard to do. It was wonderful May skiing, just in March. 

Like Steamboat, when Beaver Creek closed the following week the upper mountain skied well but the lower part was barely covered. I skied there a couple of weeks before they closing , and it was pretty good from top to bottom. But when I went back a few days later, I was shocked to see how much the snow had disappeared in such a short time. March is usually the snowiest month in Colorado, but this year it was the hottest and driest on record, and that really did a number on the snowpack. But the last day turned out pretty great.  I found a groomed run that everyone seemed to have missed, and just kept doing laps on it until everyone else discovered it, too. I didn't want the day to end, so I began thinking of doing the hike up to the Bald Spot, which is through a gate above the Cinch lift.  It had been years since I'd skied it, and it wasn't even sure if there was enough snow up there to do so. I knew that there was usually an end of season party in the pasture on the way to the Bald Spot, and hoped that I'd find someone else who might want to hike there as well. When I got to the pasture there were already about a hundred people there, some loud thumpy dance music blaring through some big speakers.  Meanwhile, some guys were building a ramp to jump off of, using their snowboards as a shovels. The pasture was sloped, and when the jump was finished some of them began walking up the hill. Then, one at a time they began skiing and riding down the hill to fly off the ramp they made. The first few didn't have much speed, but as the track became packed down they went faster and the jumps and tricks became better.  I couldn't find anyone going to the Bald Spot, and so, I walked up the hill and did a run and jump myself. No tricks on my part, just a boring jump off the ramp and clean landing.  Then a member of Ski Patrol showed up on a snowmobile, and I thought that would be the end of the party. But he was just there to announce that the mountain was closing for the season, and that Patrol was leaving, so we were on our own. He asked us all to be careful, and to please clean up after ourselves, and with that he turned the snow machine downhill and left.  

Then the party went into another gear.  This was a stage of the party I'd never stuck around long enough to see. People started disappearing into the woods, and emerging with dead branches. They began stacking them up just below the ramp, and when the pile was big enough someone set it on fire. At that point people began trudging up the hill again, and this time when they flew off the ramp they were going over the fire as well.  Most of them made it with room to spare, but one guy on a snowboard cut it a little close, possibly due to alcohol consumption.  Anyway, if he had he caught fire there would have been plenty of frozen water to put him out with at 11,500 feet. 

With the Beav closed my attention turned to Copper Mountain.  This is a mountain that I've really come to love and respect since I started skiing it again back in 2020.  It has a combination of high altitude and extensive snowmaking that makes a great place to ski during early and late season.  And the scenery is sublime, with some of the best views in Colorado and thats saying something. Sometimes I think that it might the last place people will be able to ski at in thirty years, given the warming and drying trends we've seen over the last twenty. Copper also previously announced an early closing date, but got creative and managed to squeeze out a few more weeks. Since the base areas seemed to be the weak point for most of the local ski hills, Copper took the snow from the tubing hill and moved it over to the base of the Superbee lift. Then they shaved the snow from the side of their halfpipe, and put it near Center Village to keep those lifts running. It was a brilliant move and it worked.

Their last weekend was a real lesson in how to run a ski resort.  This is when those bittersweet feelings first began to emerge, since A Basin was also planning to close on that coming Sunday. First, on the last Friday Copper was open they kept the lifts running until seven pm, something I've never seen a ski area do in my fifty years of skiing. In addition, for their last weekend they opened up the close-in parking lots and made them free, so there was no bus ride from the more distant parking lot needed.  On top of that, at 330pm they temporarily closed the upper lift so that they could send a squadron of snowcats up to groom Copperopolis, a wide blue run.  When they restarted the lift at 5pm, we were welcomed to the sight of a wide, perfect swath of corduroy. There was a beautiful sunset that evening, and many of us on the slope took our sweet time getting down the hill. For me, since it would be my last run of the year,  I was in no hurry for it to be over. It was sad to be packing up my ski gear for the last time, but I was consoled by the fact that it was such a great day to end the season on. I had begun skiing at eleven am, and skied until almost eight pm, and was pretty worn out but in a good way. 

Then on Monday came the announcement that A Basin was going to add another week.  This was great news, for I couldn't wait to get back on my skis. Even better, they got 20" of snow in the previous week days. So on Thursday night, I drove up there and dirtbagged it in the back of my 4Runner. On Friday morning I rolled out of my sleeping bag and into the lift line, and got to be one of the first people back on top of the mountain, with an endless expanse of fresh snow awaiting me.  The sun was out and I was as happy as I could ever remember being.  What followed was seven straight hours of non-stop laps down the mountainside.  It did get a little crowded, especially for the upper lift, but I realized that the lower one was being ignored, so I did run after run on that and was loving every turn I carved. When the final run was on tap, it occurred to me that sometimes at A Basin they can be a little slack as to when they stop loading the lift, and will go a wee bit past four pm.  So instead of taking my sweet time for my last run of the year, I pointed my skis straight downhill and went as fast as I could on very tired legs. That effort was rewarded though, for when I tore into the lift line at 404pm they let me back on.  I got to do one more Last Run, and this time I went as slowly as possible. It was a great way to finish a lousy year. 

But then, a miracle. On Monday I found out that A Basin was extending their season for one more weekend! On Thursday night I drove up there again, and once more spent the night in the back of my truck. After a burrito and some hot coffee, I was back near the front of the lift line and riding up the hill again.  This time fewer people seemed to have gotten the memo that they were back open, and the lift lines were very short all day. Although there wasn't any fresh snow that week, what snow they had held up well and it skied great.  The sky was a brilliant blue all day without a single cloud, and the snow softened up beautifully.  There was no lift line for the upper lift, so I did laps off that all day.

The small pond that forms near the summit each spring at A Basin was back, and its just not springtime at A Basin without a little pond skimming.  The first time I tried it many years ago I made it, but every time I've tried to do it since I've fallen short.  Its pretty humiliating to find yourself sinking into a frozen body of water in front of a hooting crowd of people, but for some reason I kept trying. On Friday that pond was a little smaller than normal, and a majority of the skiers and riders I saw doing it seemed to make it across. One person failed when another tried to do it at the same time, and when he reduced his speed to avoid the other skier he ended up in the drink. Another guy I watched from the chairlift didn't keep his tips up, and did a complete face plant into the icy water. So I waited until my last run to try it again, and secured my phone in my back so that if I went swimming too I could keep it dry. I waited until no one else was going, and began my run down to the pond.  One thing that I've learned from my many failures at pond skimming is that you need to go as fast as possible.  As I rocketed down the hill and approached the water, I noticed a guy waist deep in the middle of the water.  I yelled out a loud "Oh Shit!" and when the guy in the pond saw me heading his way, he began furiously paddling his way to the side.  This was my one shot, and I wasn't going to slow down or wait til next year to try again, so I was going for it whether he was in the way or not.  I hit the water with speed, kept my tips up, and shot across the water splashing the interloper in the process. (It turns out he was a Fail, and had gone back out into the water groping for his lost ski).

Mission accomplished, I was finally ready to call it a ski season.  And although its been a winter to remember for all the wrong reasons, at least it ended with three of the best days I've ever had on skis.  

Jack Bombardier

PS - I love Tik Tok. That seems to make me a minority amongst my fellow 65 year olds, but sorry I think Tik Tok is great.  The only other person I know who enjoys it is the young woman I met a few years ago while she walked from the headwaters of the Colorado River to the point where it disappears into the Sea of Cortez (her handle is "Nomad Diaries" if you would like to share her trip. This summer she paddled the length of the Green River). 

  Anyway a few weeks ago I started posting videos on Tik Tok myself.  I get to see lots of interesting things each day, whether it be scenery, wildlife or just interesting places in Colorado. Most of the videos are pretty short, so if you've got time to waste you can check them out at" Jack Bombardier" on Tik Tok. They're as plain as can be with no bells and whistles.  They are just little glimpses into mountain (and riparian) life

A Short Window To Fish?

 

To All,

Its been a bumpy ride this spring watching the Lower Upper Colorado rise and fall like a rollercoaster.  There have been some days when its been fishable, but they've been far and few between. After running at 400 cfs for awhile, (which is too low for me to get through Pinball cleanly), its inched back up to 500cfs. Living here beside the river for over twenty years, I thought I had a good feel for what the river would be doing next, but this spring has left me scratching my head. Its been more of a river to wade than float this year. 

However there is relief in sight. More water is scheduled to start being released later this week, just in time for Memorial Day weekend. I think that we may be entering a short window when the Colorado River might actually be worth fishing. That window may not stay open for long though.  We won't be seeing much of a runoff if any this year, and if things stay as warm as they have been, it won't take long for the water to warm up.  If that happens, we may be looking at voluntary fishing restrictions, and that could potentially last through summer. 

Even if that does happen, things should be sorted out by the fall, when the flows and fishing usually peak. But if you want to fish the Lower Upper Colorado River sooner than September, the next few weeks might be the best time to do it. Get out there while the getting is good!

Spring Sprang Sprung

To All,

It's Mother's Day 2026, in the middle of what has certainly been an interesting springtime in Colorado ("interesting" in a Chinese curse sort of way). After a winter in which we got only half our normal amount of snow, we're now seeing less than half the normal amount of water in our rivers. The Lower Upper Colorado River, flowing about twenty feet away from me as I write this, is currently at 468 cfs and dropping. That doesn't sound too bad, but for  context the mean average for May 10th is 2,200 cfs.  

Yesterday I drove along the Arkansas River to Salida, and things are the same down there. Flows are around 300 cfs, but it should be in runoff mode right now and much higher. The primary reservoir source for the Ark is Twin Lakes, but that's pretty low right now too. It doesn't appear as though it will fill either this year, which isn't good news for the normally bustling rafting businesses on the Arkansas.  There is a management agreement in place which is supposed to "guarantee" 700 cfs during the summer to keep those many rafts afloat, but if there's no water to supply it then that agreement might have well been written on water.  

  Driving through the heart of the state yesterday, I saw a lot of irrigation systems that didn't seem to be doing much. If there isn't water for the fields in May, what will July and August look like? The folks in Fruita that my wife has been buying hay from twice a year don't have any to sell this year.  She thought that she had lined some up to come from someone in Laramie she found on Craigslist, and paid them a $700 deposit using Venmo to pay for their diesel. But when they didn't show up yesterday, and she did a little more research, she realized that was a scam.  They've taken money from others using the same tactic. Now we're scrambling to find some food for our livestock, and we're not the only ones.  It wasn't very nice getting ripped off on top of everything else. I can't understand how some people sleep at night, I assume it must take a lot of alcohol or pharmaceuticals.

At this point the low flows aren't posing an issue for the fish, yet.  The cold water coming out of the bottom of dams is keeping the water temps from getting too high, but that probably won't last.  Its already risen to 65F about a month early. In every low water year we've had, water temps have spiked and in some years there have been voluntary fishing closures to protect the fish.  Unless we get a drastic shift in our weather, that will happen again this year.  

Then there are the fluctuations the river has been going through.  Typically, once the ice melts off the river in late March, the water stays low and clear until the snowpack begins to melt.  It usually peaks in June, and then drops back down to some stable flow.  With several reservoirs upriver on the Colorado or its tributaries, that peak flow gets smoothed out, but that water which is held back in May and June gets released in July and August.  Its the management regime which is what created the fine trout fishery we enjoy today. But this year that steady rise hasn't happened, or rather its already happened a few times, followed by a big drop.  The normal hydrograph profile that should look like Volkswagen Beetle looks more like the roller coaster at Elitches.  

In the twenty plus years I've lived beside river, I've never seen the flows bounce around like this before.  I'm hoping that the low water not being released now will be coming down the river later this summer when it will be more critical.  

The one bright spot this spring was the skiing, oddly enough.  It may have been one of the worse snowpacks ever recorded, but there were some good days to be on the hill if you were able to time your visit right.  And though the season ended earlier than usual, conditions were pretty good at most ski resorts when they did pull the plug.  Steamboat got thirteen inches towards the end of its last week.  The upper mountain skied well, but there wasn't a snowflake to be found down below. Getting off the mountain at the end of the day involved taking a gondola downhill, an odd sensation. On Beaver Creek's final day, most of the mountain was pretty well covered though it was getting thin at the bottom. It could have stayed open longer, but it would have involved a downhill lift ride a la Steamboat. Closing Day came two weeks earlier than planned, which doesn't seem like a big difference. But the Beav usually closes not because of the conditions on the ground, but due to Forest Service permits and elk migration. It often has excellent snow on Closing Day. 

 Then there is Copper Mountain.  Copper did a better job of extending its season than any other ski area I'm familiar with. First, they managed to stay open almost as long as originally intended when the season started.  There initially was an early closing planned, but they did a great job of moving snow around at the bottom of the mountain to keep access to the lifts open. The snow from the tubing hill ended up near the bottom of the Superbee lift. They scraped snow off the side of their huge half pipe to keep things white at the Center Village.  On the Friday of their last weekend, they kept the lifts running until seven pm. This is something I've never seen a ski area ever do.  They also waived paid parking for the last weekend, so you could walk to a lift without having to take a bus.  The other unusual thing Copper did was to groom the run Copperopolis at four pm, and so when the lift that served that run reopened at five it yielded access to huge swath of fresh corduroy.  A Basin got into things by extending its season an extra week as well.  Twenty inches of snow fell during its last week, so when the lifts reopened on Friday morning for its last weekend, I was one of the first people in line.  It was a wonderful last day to ski, with lots of fresh snow and sunshine. The end of the season may have come too early, but at least it was a positive way to go out.  

So now at roughly the midpoint of springtime, the coming summer looks like it will be a challenging one on many levels.  What gives me some hope for the Colorado River is that although the reservoirs upstream are only half full, there are several of them.  The "Lower Upper" sits in the sweet spot below the supply, but above the demand.  There is enough water to keep us going this summer, so long as its released when its most needed and not too much of it flows east instead.  

There is supposed to be something called a "Super El Nino" forming in the Pacific Ocean, which may or may not result in a wetter weather pattern this summer, fall and winter.  The snowpack numbers for the last twenty five years have shown a steady decline, but every few years there's an outlier year where the snowpack looks great. We are due for a year like that, so I'll be doing a snow dance in October!

Jack Bombardier

Winter Without Winter

                         Winter Without Winter

Its the first day of 2026, and I keep looking up into the sky hoping to see some snowflakes.  Sometime this afternoon its supposed to snow or rain a bit, depending on the temperature. There are thick dark clouds above, but so far they've yielded nothing.  Unless you've just emerged from a coma, you're undoubtedly aware that this has been a very warm and dry winter in the Rockies.  For most of it, a large high pressure system has been sitting over Colorado driving all of the moisture and colder weather north. For a Winter Guy like me who spends his summers dreaming of ice skating on the Colorado River, or carving through deep powder snow through aspen glades, its been a disappointing start to the season. 

The numbers from across the state are sobering. The snowpack is about 50% of average depending on what watershed you look at, though it feels like even less.  Most of the ski areas in the central mountains only have 20% of their possible terrain open.  Without man-made snow it would be worse than that.  Hovering over those realities are the thought of what next summer's water supply will look like. Here along the "Lower Upper" Colorado River, we should be in better shape than most, given the number of reservoirs we have upstream. Of course that will only be helpful if there's water in the reservoirs to release. Lake Powell might need to get propped up with water from the big federal reservoirs on the San Juan, Gunnison and Green rivers, which will not be great for people who recreate on them. After last year's underwhelming runoff, this is exactly what we didn't need this winter. 

Most years, the river in my backyard begins to freeze just after Thanksgiving, and by Christmas the ice is thick enough to skate on. That scenario began right on time this year, for it was cold on the Sunday night after Thanksgiving and I had to break river ice to get my boat out the day after.  Over the next few nights the ice slowly built up, but then the following week it got warm and it all melted away.  I ended up putting my boat back into the river, something that I'd never done before. On Christmas Day, I did a short float in my dory from my backyard down to Horse Creek.  It was a warm, beautiful day but my boat kissed a lot of rocks along the way.  It felt more like November or April than it did Christmas.  

Last night it was New Year's Eve, and for many years we've had the neighbors over for a bonfire, ice skating, and to shoot off industrial grade fireworks.  This was the first time we didn't do that in many years.  The ice is too thin for skating, and the ground too dry for fireworks. Maybe we'll do it in a week or two conditions permitting, but it was the most boring New Year's we've had in awhile.

Last week I did a propane delivery to Sylvan Lake State Park, and noticed that the lake was not only frozen over but safe enough so that there were a couple of ice fisherman on it.  I walked out onto it a little ways, and was surprised to see that the ice was pretty nice.  The day before I had been up near Sweetwater Lake, and there was still open water there. I got to thinking that maybe I'd have to come back with my skates.  

On Saturday night there was finally some snow in the forecast, with Steamboat predicted to get the most.  I began watching the live snow cam on top of the mountain, and was happy to see it coming down pretty heavily. Finally!  I decided to go there on Sunday, and maybe get into some real snow.  But then the next morning it occurred to me that it was still the Christmas holiday week, and that Sunday might be blacked out on my Ikon base pass.  I looked into it and saw that it was.  We finally had some snow and I couldn't get out into it. So instead, I grabbed my favorite dog and headed to Sylvan Lake.  When I stopped in at the visitor's center, I asked how much snow they'd gotten up at the lake and they said a few inches.  You should have been here yesterday, I was told.  The ice was in great shape before it snowed.  I was disappointed, but drove up there anyway.  When I got there, the lake was shining under a brilliant white blanket of fresh snow.  There were two ice fishermen, and a handful of people playing around in the snow near the lake's edge.  It seemed like more than two inches on the ground, but I walked down to the lake anyway with my dog Ronnie, an undersized black lab with an oversized heart.  

 

Out onto the lake's surface, I rubbed away the fine powder snow with my toe and found the ice underneath to be perfect.  It didn't seem all that deep either, so I went back to my truck and got my skates.  Once they were on, I found that I could move easily across the lake, the boots of my skates were just high enough to clear the powder, so it didn't slow me down at all.  And it was just deep enough that it gave Ronnie decent traction, as long as she didn't try to change direction or stop too quickly. I started making big strides to the far end of the lake, with Ronnie running happily alongside. It was a beautiful day, with  a cobalt blue sky and no wind other than what I was creating with my own forward motion.  After going out and back, I started doing laps around the lake just going round and round with my happy dog running at my snowy heels.  It might not have been quite the same thing as skiing a fine powder run, but the chemicals flooding my brain were the same. 

Ronnie started falling behind a bit, and I realized that she was getting a bit tired. So we went back to the truck for a little break, and I began to wish that I'd brought a snow shovel to clear off a spot.  Since I go up there regularly to deliver propane the rangers know me, and I was able to borrow a snow shovel from one of them.  I parked back down near the lake and let Ronnie have a nap, and set to work moving some snow. I laid out an area about a hundred feet long by fifty wide, and got after it.  It took me about two hours of labor to complete, and by the time I was done I was in just a long sleeve T shirt.   A little kid came over when I was about halfway through and helped, but I'm not sure how much snow he actually pushed.  He was with his family ice fishing, and it it was nice to get a little moral support at least.  By the time I was done, my feet were cold and I was too tired to actually break out my stick and puck and use the clean ice surface I had created. Hopefully others have this week. I let Ronnie out and we did some more laps around the lake, and when she began lagging behind again I knew it was time to go home.  It wasn't the day I was expecting to have when I woke up that morning, but it wasn't a bad way to spend it. 

That evening we had the coldest night of the year, and when I woke up on Monday the river ice had formed again, locking my boat back in.  After work that night I went out to check on it, and though the ice had melted a little during the afternoon, I knew if I didn't get it out then the boat would be stuck where it was until March.  So I tugged on my neoprene waders, and set to work.  It was a very bright evening under two-thirds of a full moon, and I started by stomping my way along the bank breaking the ice with my feet to sever its anchor to the riverbank.  Then I used a pickaxe to free the boat, and got in.  Initially I was only going to clear enough of a path to back my trailer in, but all of the broken ice just hung there, and I knew that if those chunks refroze it would make for a rough surface for skating. The more ice I chopped away, the more random pieces lingered around, and I realized that it was going to have to be all or nothing. So for the next two hours, I turned that Hog Island dory into an icebreaker, repeatedly ramming the ice, then using the oars to push the loosened ice chunks out in the current.  It was actually pretty hard work, and by the time it was done it felt like I'd be rowing my big cataraft all day in a windstorm.  But all of the ice was gone, and it could start to refreeze that night with a clean slate. And what a beautiful night to be out on the river!  Even with the moonlight for competition the stars and planets shown brightly, and though the temperature was in the teens the physical effort I was expending kept me warm.  I was tempted to float the mile downriver to my shop takeout, but then I remembered that it was locked in by ice, too. My arms and shoulders also reminded me that they'd supported me through sixty-four years of doing crazy stuff like shoveling snow off ponds and clearing ice from frozen rivers, and wouldn't the hot tub also be a nice place to watch the moon from? So that's how I enjoyed the rest of the evening instead.  

By the next morning, a new sheet of ice had reformed on the river, this time without my boat stuck in it. Three days later, and I'm still waiting for it to thicken up enough for me to get out on.  The last couple of nights its gotten below freezing but not by much.  The weather for next week looks like more of the same, unseasonably warm for January.  In this winter without winter, I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will freeze again. 

If it doesn't, I'm glad to know that I got to spend my life playing in water in both its frozen and unfrozen state. It does make me wonder if the little kids I see ripping down ski runs, or playing hockey outside will still get to experience that by the time they're my age.  I really hope so for their sake, and if reincarnation is an actual thing, for my own as well. 

  Jack Bombardier

 

 

The Wild Goose Chase

               Rocky Mountain Goose Rescue

Its mid-December and instead of ice skating on the Colorado River, yesterday I put my boat back into it.  The river ice formed right on time after Thanksgiving, and over the next few days it grew. I was looking forward to it getting thick enough to get out onto it. But this month has proven to be unusually warm, and it looks like it will stay that way for another couple of weeks. This isn't entirely unprecedented, for about fifteen years ago something similar happened. The river froze around Thanksgiving and the ice formed, but then got warm and all the river ice melted. It was so mild that my wife Terena and I did a float on Christmas Day. But soon after that, it got extremely cold and began snowing, and we ended up with a normal winter.  The hope is that something like that happens again, because if we have another subpar snowpack reservoirs aren't going to be very full next summer. 

When I pulled my dory out of the water, the ice was thick enough to have begun to lock it in.  I usually put my boat in the river in the spring as soon as the ice melts around the first of April, and leave it there until Thanksgiving. For about seven months a year my boat is out on the river to row whenever I feel like it, but this is the first time I've ever put it back. Although I miss not rowing the boat in the winter, being able to ice skate is more than ample compensation. 

Yesterday I ended up doing a short unplanned float with my wife Terena.  I was already thinking about getting the dory out from under it's tarp since the river ice was gone, and skating now a few weeks away.  But then something happened which forced me to do it. That unplanned event was a Rocky Mountain Goose Rescue. On Friday we got a new goose, which brought our current goose population to eleven. (Why anyone needs eleven geese is a question only my birdbrained wife can answer). We locked our new goose up in her own enclosure, with plans to pair her in with another inmate, an outcast male who gets abused by a more dominant male. The plan was to give the abusee a mate, in a sort of arranged goose marriage.  But on Saturday morning, one of our employees who was unaware of the upcoming goose nuptials let our new goose out, and she wasted no time heading upriver. By the time I heard about her early unplanned release and went to look for her, she was as far upstream as she could be and still be seen.  She was already upstream at the eddy I regularly row my boat to, and showed no signs of stopping. 

At least I knew what direction she went.

 

I had to do a short day of work, and when I got home was hoping that the escapee might have had second thoughts and returned.  But the new goose hadn't been seen all day, and we were left with a decision as to whether to try and find it or not.  Terena was leaving on a trip the next day, so it was now or never. I went back to my shop, untarped my Hog Island dory, and drove back home to pick up my wife.  We wadered up and drove along the River Road looking for the reluctant goose bride.  Luckily she's a Sebastopol, and as such wears a bright white feathered coat that looks like a wedding dress.  Think Bjork at the Oscars. She would be easy to spot from a distance, especially with the lack of snow along the river to blend in with.  We went up as far as Rancho Starvo, where one of our neighbors has a primitive boat ramp.  The river is so low right now that putting in further above wasn't an option, since I'd never get it through the rocky section below the Red Dirt Bridge.  

With some difficulty I was able to get the boat in the water, and had to immediately row hard to avoid some rocks just below the put in.  We made our way down the river scanning for a big pile of white feathers, although now that we were underway we could relax a little an enjoy our surroundings.  It was a beautiful evening, not yet dark but with the hills above glowing with golden hour light, and reflecting that shimmering color on the water.  Being in the boat isn't my wife's favorite thing to do but it is mine, so whatever it takes to get her out there in it is worth it for me. 

 

She had last been on the river a few months earlier on a similar mission, only this time to catch some ducks. Until this year, we had never had ducks before.  Her bird-braininess had started innocently enough years ago with some chickens.  That led to some quail, and then some pheasants, which we bought to shoot as part of gun dog training.  But the pheasants we got all laid eggs the day after we brought them home, and then the day after that, and so on to the point that they were just too productive to shoot.  Somewhere along the line we got more quail, and then the geese, domestic turkeys and finally guinea hens.  

 We thought that our backyard would be perfect for geese, and for awhile it was.  But then as if in some avian Agatha Christie novel, one by one they began to disappear. Game camera footage showed that the reason were foxes and raccoons, not wanderlust. So we built a big enclosure consisting of chainlink fencing with an adjacent shed we call the Goose Megaplex.  Even that wasn't enough to keep out the predators, so we added electrified wire around that. On the first winter we had the geese, they decided that the best place to be was a half-mile downriver, so we had to walk across the ice shelf in waders carrying nets to catch them and bring them home.  It was the first time we had played Rocky Mountain Goose Rescue, but it wouldn't be the last. They never wandered away too far after that, though they have the freedom to go wherever they choose during the day. They always come back home at night to the safety of the Goose Megaplex.  

  This summer some kids who raised some ducks for a school project needed a home for them once the ducks grew big and less cute. Since Terena has been involved with 4H, someone decided to call the Crazy Bird Lady on the Colorado River Road. Since she couldn't say No, the ducks ended up at our place. They lived there for about a month, the newest residents of the Goose Megaplex. They were there for about a month, until some crafty and murderous ermine devised a way in.  He promptly killed four of the ducks, and maimed the fifth.  The next morning, the lone survivor made a beeline to the river and was never seen again. If he's still alive, he's probably in Mexico by now. It was a pretty awful thing to happen, for the ermine didn't even eat them, he just seemed to kill them just because he could. But then something odd happened.  The day after the ermine's killing spree, three domestic ducks showed up in our backyard.  Where they came from we had no idea.  In the evening, when it was time to round up the geese to put them safely away, these newcomers just sauntered right into their new home like they'd been living there their whole life.  

We found out later that the ducks had belonged to a neighbor who lives near the river about a mile away. Her duck dormitory had also been visited by some predator, and they had escaped in terror. Three of them migrated downriver to our place, but five had chosen to move up the river instead, where they spent a very pleasant summer living their best duck life.  Every time I did a float I'd see them, often with their butts in the air as they scooped the plentiful grasses off the river bottom. It was a dry summer and the warm water caused algea and grass to bloom, so they had lots of food. Other guides who knew about our waterfowl addiction kept letting me know, I Saw Your Ducks In The River! I had to let them know that they weren't our ducks, and no we didn't need them back.  But as summer turned to fall, the five ducks became four, then three, then two.  My wife was concerned that they would all eventually die, since they were pampered domestic ducks and not prepared to live in the wild, especially with winter approaching. Terena contacted the neighbor who had owned the ducks before they rewilded themselves, but she had no interest in having them back.  So we decided to act.  One afternoon we got my big cataraft, and loaded a pair of dog crates.  I knew roughly where to find the remaining two ducks, since they were usually around the Jack Flats area or just below.  Since that might be my favorite place on the planet too, I could see why they would choose to settle there.  

They weren't at Jack Flats when we got there, but soon we saw them on river left not far below. We were able to get pretty close to them, as I and others had been feeding them treats all summer.  When the big nets came down over their heads they seemed pretty surprised and pissed off, but by the time we floated into my backyard they had calmed down in their crates.  When we let them out and they saw their old friends, it was quite a reunion.  

 Last night, as Terena and I made our way down past Walt and Jan's house beside the river, I remembered another goose rescue we had done twenty years before, back when my wife's brain was addled by horses instead of birds.  One spring, three baby goslings showed up in our backyard, and I knew their parents were nesting a upriver on a small island.  As adorable as the goslings were, they couldn't stay at our house without getting killed by dogs.  Baby geese are extremely cute, but they don't stay that way for long. Each day they get incrementally less so, and by the time they're a month old they just look like normal adult geese, crapping all over the yard. I used to have to shoo the Canada Geese out of our backyard to keep them from doing that, and that was one of the reasons my wife used justify getting the domestic geese in the first place. She said that if we got our own geese, it would keep the Canada Geese from pooping in the yard.  She was right about that, but our yard is now carpeted in domestic goose poop, which seems to stick to the bottom of my shoe just as well as the wild goose shit did. 

  On that day twenty years ago, we took our two person inflatable kayak, (which oddly enough is called a "ducky"), launched it from just below Walt's house, and paddled our way down the island in the river where the parent geese were. Terena got out of the ducky, cradling the goslings against her chest as she made her way towards them. The geese didn't seem to appreciate our gesture, and moved rapidly away.  She chased after them calling, Wait! Wait! I have your children! Eventually the terrified geese peeled off the bank and into some slower water, and Terena was able to put her tiny cargo into the water after them. The babies shrieked with delight as they clumsily went back to the bigger geese, who also honked loudly.  Goose chaos ensued. 

That was our first Rocky Mountain Goose Rescue, but it wouldn't be our last. Now we were back at it again, and in the same backwater behind the island where we released the goslings twenty years before, we saw our Runaway Bride.  She was sitting contentedly at the top of an eddy that I've had many clients catch fish out of.  Terena got the net ready, but as soon as the goose saw us, she gave us a look that said Oh Hell No!, swam into the current, and began moving furiously away. The wild goose chase was on. 

 I started rowing faster but barely kept pace.  That goose was enjoying her freedom and wanted nothing to do with getting locked back in a cage again. For a creature that had spent its whole life up until that point in confinement, she was doing an expert job of reading the water and keeping herself in the thalweg, or the point in the river where the most current is. She kept getting further away from me, as I kept hitting rocks that are normally well below the surface.  A couple of times she even forgot that she couldn't fly, and tried unsuccessfully to take to the air. Soon we were almost to the railroad bridge just above my house, and the goose moved to the left side of the river where our yard is.  I stayed over on the right side, hoping that she would stay near our place or even go up into it.  Meanwhile our captive geese in the Goose Megaplex were watching all of this action and honked loudly like the worlds worst horn section, pure cacophony. But stopping at our house wasn't her plan, she just kept going along our bank without even slowing down and got way out ahead of us.  I had been hoping that she would stop there, so that I could just leave my boat in the river at its normal mooring.  Going past my yard meant a longer float, all the way down to my shop takeout a mile away, and that was assuming we could catch her.  

  I spun the boat around 180 degrees and began backrowing like it was the Henley Regatta.  Eventually we were closing the gap, but now it was almost dark and if we didn't get her in the boat soon we were going to be using headlamps to find her.   Finally we were close enough that I was able to spin the bow back around, for the goose seemed to be tiring.  I know that I was feeling the effort. She drifted off to the left and got into some slightly slower water, and I knew that if I stayed in the current we'd soon get her.  Terena stood up in front and leaned forward, her long handled net at the ready.

 

But the goose wasn't tired, she was setting us up. Just as Terena was lining it up to net it off the left side of the boat, the goose did something totally unexpected. It suddenly made a hard U turn to the left, and dove deeply underwater, shooting straight back upstream towards us like a white torpedo.  Not only was this  unexpected, it was something that I didn't even know that a goose was capable of!  I cranked a hard backstroke with the left oar of the dory while forcibly pushing on the right, turning the boat as quickly as I could hoping to get the bow somewhere near her escape route.  Terena sprang over to the right side and dropped the net straight down into the river as far as it would go.  I couldn't see a thing, and assumed that she had missed it. She thought so too, until she began to feel the weight in the unseen net. Terena raised the long handle up hand over hand until the net emerged with a huge white ball of dripping feathers in it.  She pulled it out of the river and got the surprised and defeated goose into her arms. I couldn't believe that she pulled it off. I thought that we were going to be spending the rest of the night chasing this damn thing around.  

  Soon the goose was in the dog crate we had brought, and we rowed the rest of the way to my shop takeout in total darkness.  I didn't have a vehicle waiting there, so after we got in I had to jog the mile back to my house in my neoprene waders along the train tracks over a pair of bridges to get her car.  

 As of this writing, the two geese seem to be getting along OK.  The plan is to leave her and her goosegroom locked in their shiny new enclosure for the rest of the week, to hopefully become friends and bond. We'll let them both out next weekend, and if she runs away again then that'll be the end of it for me.  Rocky Mountain Goose Rescue is ceasing operations for the season, so she can go shack up with one of those Canada geese that love to fertilize our yard.  

Jack Bombardier 

 

 

 

Raking The River

                                        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

 

 

The Game Changer

                                                           The Game Changer

 

 

March the fifteenth represents a notable day on my calendar, for its the day that the USGS river gauge located on the Catamount Bridge goes back online.  It delivers real time information on what the river is doing from then until November fifteenth each year, and over the past several years that its been there its proven to be a real game changer for those who recreate along the Lower Upper Colorado River. 

  The gauge near Catamount was very welcome when it first went in several years ago.  Before then, trying to determine the actual flows on the river past my backyard involved adding the number for the gauge at Kremmling to the number for the gauge on the Piney River. Or, one could take the number from the gauge at Dotsero, then subtract the figure from Kremmling. You could also take those two numbers, and average them out.  Whatever method chosen, it was only a rough estimate the didn't factor in the various other streams and creeks that added to the Colorado's flow, or the irrigation headgates and pumps that pulled it out.

  The new gauge changed all that.  It was installed at the behest of the Upper Colorado River Wild and Scenic Stakeholder Group, an organization that I became a member of not long after. From a shortcut on one's phone or laptop, it became possible to check not only the river's flow, but its water and air temperature as well. This was huge, not only for the flows but for the water temps, which are very important to an angler.  A trout's metabolism is very much dependent on the temperature of the water they live in. At the low end of the temperature range in the spring, when the water rises to fifty degrees, the fish and the bugs they eat become active.  Time to go fishing. Later in the summer, when temperatures begin to approach (and sometime exceed) seventy, its time to stop fishing, and to use the metrics provided by the gauge to initiate ways to mitigate those warm temps, sometimes by provoking the release of water upstream from reservoirs to cool things off.

 

 

  For example, a couple of years after the Catamount gauge went in, we were having a dry summer.  That winter's snowpack had been subpar, and the following spring had seen very little rain.  As part of normal reservoir operations, flows had been held back during what would have been a meager runoff, and for a while that had made for great fishing during the period when the river in its unfettered state would have been high and dirty.  But by mid-summer, the bill was coming due and not only were water temperatures climbing, but algae blooms were beginning to blossom on the river bottom. Through this, I was checking the flow and temperature of the river every day watching nervously as temperatures climbed. 

 

  Then one day, I took a family out on a scenic float, and as usual we had a wonderful day on the river. The sky was bright and sunny, but it wasn't as much of a white water float as it might have been since the river was only about 550 cfs, instead of the thousand cfs it might have been. But there are no bad days on the water, and they had a good experience.  However after they left, I was down at my takeout cleaning the mud off my raft and while standing in the water noticed that it felt warm.  Not warm as in not cold, but warm as if I were in my hot tub. I went up to my shop, booted up the PC and clicked the bookmark to the Catamount gauge. I was shocked to see that the water temperature there was exceeding seventy degrees Fahrenheit!  At that point, I had only been a member of the Stakeholder group for a couple of years, but had the email addresses of all the other members.  So I wrote an email and copied everyone on the list, noting the warm temperatures on the river, and asking if there weren't some way to get some water released to aid the trout population in the river, and to forestall the growth I'd been seeing of the algae.

Critically, I also added a link to the Catamount gauge to help bolster that request. I had already been living on the river for ten years by then, and used to monitor river temperatures by means of hot tub thermometer attached by some orange twine to the bank in my backyard.  This was less than scientific. But by adding the link to the gauge upriver, I wasn't making some anecdotal argument, my plea was backed up by actual data the was both objective and shareable.

Once the raft was pulled out and put away, and phone calls returned, I went back to check my email before going home.  My Inbox already had a response from a member of the Stakeholder who worked for the Colorado River District, who said that he had seen my email noting the warm water in the river.

In it, he said that the as a result of the readings from Catamount, they River District would be releasing some water from Wolford Mountain reservoir the following morning, from the lowest outlet of the dam to get the coldest water possible.  I was elated.  I had written an email only an hour earlier, not really expecting much, and suddenly had the knowledge that the river was going to be getting a little bit of help starting the next day.  It wouldn't completely fix the problem, but it would help.

  The next morning, I got to my shop and fired up the PC.  Checking my email, I noticed some other messages from the Stakeholder group.  One was from an employee of Denver Water, and another from someone with Northern Water, both entities from the Front Range who supply water to folks living from Fort Collins in the north to Denver in the south.  Now, its a pretty popular opinion for people on the western slope of Colorado to despise the Front Range water providers for "stealing" water that should be flowing west, instead of being pumped and piped east to where the majority of Colorado's population lives.  Its an opinion that I used to share.  But there are two factors to consider.  The first is that dams and the reservoirs they create are not inherently good or bad. What is important is how they're managed. Without dams, the trout fishery that we enjoy on the Upper Colorado River simply would not exist.  Yes there would be big flows in the spring, scouring the river and spreading sediment, but in late summer of some dry years, there might not be much water in the river at all, and temperatures would skyrocket. It would not be conducive to brown and rainbow trout, which after all are not native to this river.  The cutthroats that are would be higher up in the watersheds, enjoying those cooler waters.  The second thing to remember is that many of the employees of those water providers aren't sitting around all day plotting ways to steal that water from the western slope.  They also enjoy recreating on the western rivers themselves, they just happen to live on the other side of the Continental Divide, and their job is to see that the bulk of Colorado's residents have water to drink, and to shower and flush the toilet with. 

 So that next morning, I was happy to see that one of those emails was from an employee of Denver Water who had seen my email. This was a man with whom I'd enjoyed cold beer around a warm campfire at a Stakeholder Group campout a couple of weeks earlier. He wrote that he had seen my email from the previous evening, and as a result Denver Water would be releasing extra water from Williams Fork reservoir that very morning.  But the good news wasn't done yet.  There was another email from a member of the Stakeholder group who worked for Northern Water.  She said that after my email had been distributed around their office, it was decided that pumpback operations out of Windy Gap reservoir would be curtailed earlier than planned, with the result that more water would be sent down the Colorado River! 

  I found myself in a pleasant state of shock. I had written an email the previous evening, not expecting much to come of it, and here it was twelve hours later, and sweet relief in the form of cold water was already on its way to rescue the Colorado River!  I have no doubt that being able to add a link to that email made all the difference.  It wasn't just some crank of a fisherman yelling at the kids to get off his aquatic lawn, it was hard, objective real time data that couldn't be ignored or disputed. Cooperation, not conflict.  Bridges, not walls. The pen is mightier than the sword, indeed. 

  Then a few years ago, the gauge got even better.  More metrics were added to the Catamount gauge's output, including Turbidity, PH, Conductivity and some others.  From an angler's perspective, the new Turbidity reading became as important as flows or temperature.  Below State Bridge, the geology surrounding the Colorado River becomes much softer and more colorful. As a result, heavy summer rains can quickly turn the river opaque with sediment in colors ranging from red, brown or green, depending on where the point of discharge is.  If one is boating the river for the sheer pleasure of the experience, an off-color river is not a problem, and can even make the ride more beautiful. But to an angler, trying to fish off-color water is a no go.  I have  seen people catch fish in mud, but its rare. Most anglers will cancel their trip or fish somewhere else if the river is really dirty. Having that information in hand before driving all the way up to your put can make the difference between a great day or a bust.

  With some familiarity using the gauge metrics, one can look at what the gauge is displaying and imagine what's been going on along the river and its surroundings. On clear sunny days, the air temperature rises, plateaus, and drops again in the afternoon.  But on partly cloudy days, that afternoon line becomes jagged, as each time a cloud passes the temp drops, then zooms back up with the sun.  If a front passes and the clouds mean business, the temperature will drop and stay low.  If it rains locally, the flows will increase a little, and sometimes by a lot.  If the rain falls on a tributary or dry wash that runs through soft geology, then the turbidity number might spike.  By knowing where the sediment is coming in, anglers can adjust their plans by going either above the point of discharge to find clear water, or far enough below it to get their day of fishing in before the muddy water drifts down that far.  The river flows at about 2-3 mph, so one can estimate the time it will take to reach a point downstream if you know where it enters a river, and when.

All of this is possible thanks to an innocuous river gauge that one could drive past without even noticing.  The term "game changer" is very overused these days, but relative to the USGS gauge at Catamount, its probably an understatement.

In the past few years, these additional metrics have been added to the USGS gauges at Dotsero and Kremmling as well, which give river users a very comprehensive look at just what the river is doing at any given moment. I've been living along the Lower Upper Colorado River for over twenty years, and running a float fishing business for almost as long.  I used to field lots of calls from anglers and other outfitters wondering what shape the river was in, especially in the late summer once the monsoon rains began.  The Catamount gauge has made me somewhat irrelevant as they've learned to read the gauge, and I'm fine with that.  I've got better things to do than answer those calls.

  If you are an active river user who doesn't have all of this information at hand for your particular river, it would be worth finding out who is bankrolling that gauge.  The USGS does the work of installing and maintaining the gauges, and translating their output into a form that you can read on your phone. If your river is prone to off-color events, volatile flows, or mine discharges, it might be worth looking into having the gauge on that river retrofitted with these new metrics. 

  Jack Bombardier

  Confluence Casting

Here is the link to the Catamount gauge. (I usually select the link for, "Legacy real-time page" near the top to see the parameters I'm interested in displayed on one page)

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_00010=on&cb_00020=on&cb_00060=on&cb_63680=on&format=gif_default&site_no=09060799&legacy=1&period=&begin_date=2025-03-06&end_date=2025-03-13