May 20 – 22nd 65 miles
By Mat Bozek
The water levels had been too low the past couple of years, but the big snowpack up on the Flat Tops this past winter meant a very good water year. The gauges had been holding pretty steadily at around 3200 cfs. In Parson’s guide book he has a graph showing the 74 year average flows by month (as of 2004 publication) – Mid-May was 3150, so we were right at that average. The highest I have ever done the river at was about 2500 to 2600 cfs, so I was expecting it to be somewhat bouncier and faster this trip.