Originally posted December 13, 2016
Janet and I kayaked Boquillas Canyon on the Rio Grande. It was a 3 day 2 night 33 mile totally spectacular trip. This stretch of the river is all class 1 except for a class 2 rapid near the end of the trip. The river seemed perfect at 750-800cfs. We hit maybe 3 rocks each the whole trip. We camped the first night in the canyon on a sandbar next to the towering canyon walls. There are no pre-assigned camping spots but lots of places available. You can camp anywhere on the left side of the river (the US side), but not on the right side of the river (Mexico). We were the only people on the river except a couple fishermen in jet boats we saw after setting up camp on night 2. At that point we were 2 miles outside the NP where power boats are allowed. After watching a storm move in, we moved our camp to higher ground. We spent night 2 in the tent in the most helllacious lightning storm ever (who would of thought the most exciting part of this trip would be a night in the tent?) I put a stick at the water edge before dark and it only came up 2″ buy morning. On day 3 we saw one of the jet boats tied up to a tree upside-down in the river. Shortly later we saw the boaters coming to retrieve their boat. They said they flipped it in the storm (I think they may have been drunk last night). We put in to the river at Rio Grande campground (easy put in), and the takeout was at Heath Canyon Ranch (easy takeout). “Fred”, the owner of the ranch, charges $5 a night to park your car, and $5 a head to takeout on his place — but the 180 mile round trip shuttle takes 4 hours. We had a car with a trailbike on the back, so we shuttled ourselves, but “Fred” will shuttle you for $150. This was the coolest kayak trip that we have ever done – simply beautiful. It’s definitely at the top of our “to do again” list. We are so grateful to RMCC to exposing us to some wonderful kayaking spots(and also exposing themselves- to Amtrack, you know how you are), so we thought we’d share this information with you in case anyone in the club would like to go in the future. It’s about 1000 miles from northern Colorado — but a lot of great stops on the way (Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe NP, McDonald Observatory, Marfa TX to see “the lights” — all great stops for us).
Tracy and Janet
PS We also did a second trip in Big Bend from Solis to Rio Grande Village. This one was 19 miles, 2 days 1 night through 2 smaller canyons and lots more open desert. Also beautiful in its own way. The reward on this trip if you work hard the 1st day and paddle about 16 miles, you can camp within a few hundred yards of a hot spring on the river. So relaxing. Then only about an hour to the takeout the 2nd day.