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Wild Again

The Dolores River: "River of Sorrows" makes a comeback

By Michael Engelhard

"Everybody we meet along the way is in a celebratory mood. The 2005 river season on the Dolores will long be remembered as an event: the comeback of a dying river. "

The raft behind me seems to be in trouble. Underestimating the force of the current, Andre - the trip's only novice boatman - has grazed one of several house rocks that flank our first rapid. Upon impact, one of his sticks pops from its lock and is lost to the whims of the river. Since I feel more maneuverable in my kayak, I decide to eddy out on river right, to retrieve the oar that keeps disappearing into the turmoil. This is my first run ever in a hardshell river kayak, and I forget to "moon the current" as I cut into the slack water near shore. The Dolores grabs my boat's upstream edge, flipping me in an instant. "Hip snap!" I remember too late, as my world turns cold and dark. Sputtering, I come up for air, to face the ridicule of my so-called friends who bob high and dry in their eddied-out rafts. Still not a bad deal, I can't help thinking, my teeth a-chattering. I'm finally doing it. I'm running the Dolores.

WITH 171 MILES OF slickrock-and-ponderosa canyons, and several class IV rapids, the Dolores River between Bradfield, Colo., and Dewey Bridge, Utah, is one of the longest navigable river stretches in the continental U.S. Except when it isn't. For the last five summers, due to droughts in the Southwest and a dam diverting most of the river's lifeblood for irrigation, the Dolores has been too wet to plow but too dry to be run by river rats. The trickle below McPhee Dam shrank to a measly 12 cubic feet per second (or less), not even enough to float a duck. A friend who had tried boating the river section by section dryly commented on the frustrations of "whitewater walking" the spectacular gorge upstream of its junction with the San Miguel, 108 miles from the official put-in at the Bradfield Recreation Site. The river's most notorious rapid - Snaggletooth - had last challenged river runners in the fall of 1999, after a rogue rainstorm brought on emergency releases from the reservoir.

This spring, the spell finally broke. Unexpected snowfalls in the southern Rockies combined with soaring May temperatures caused the river to swell. The reservoir-managing Bureau of Reclamation was scheduled to release 2,000 - 3,000 cfs later that month, and where the waters of the Dolores mix with those of the Colorado, it should surge to almost 5,000 cfs. Like the sudden rejuvenation of this desert stream, my chance to be part of it had come out of the blue. Wandering the aisles of Moab's only supermarket in search of blueberry bagels, I bumped into Mac, an old friend from Wyoming. His cart was piled high with provisions, the nature of which led me to believe he was out shopping for a river trip. Sure enough, Mac and a group of semi-employed and in-between-jobs buddies were taking advantage of the long overdue window of opportunity.

"Simply everybody's going to be out there."

"How many are going? Do you have room for one more?" I inquired, not quite believing my good fortune.

"Of course," Mac said. "We got plenty of food."

"And beer?"

"And beer!"

"Don't say it, unless you really mean it!"

"I do. I'm sure it's okay with the others. You got about two hours to get your stuff ready."

Abandoning my quest for bagels, I rushed home, threw some clothes in a drybag and pulled my landlord's kayak and paddling gear from underneath the detritus in his room. He was guiding a dory trip through Grand Canyon and would certainly not miss this little boat for a while.

Our plan was to run the lower part of the Dolores - from Slick Rock to Dewey Bridge on the Colorado - then to take out and drive back to Bradfield, so we could run the upper leg to Slick Rock as soon as the reservoir was releasing. It meant experiencing this river piecemeal and backwards; but such are the vagaries of river running in a land of little rain and much management. Interior's Bureau of Reclamation allocates the precious liquid to bean and alfalfa fields in Colorado's Montezuma Valley. Runoff from snowfields above Telluride also slakes the thirst of towns like Cortez and Dove Creek, and of the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation.

After a night at the put-in, bedded down on picnic tables provided by the BLM, we were off to an early start. Within a few turns of the river, stony silence engulfed us, quickly unraveling all sense of time. A downsized version of a long lost place, Little Glen Canyon with its convolutions of red sandstone, with graceful cottonwoods and slivers of beach more than compensated for the lack of whitewater over the next 30-odd miles.

It is still early in the year, we are reminded the morning after my involuntary swim. The crisp high-desert air and flaring canyon walls drive us to huddle in a slowly broadening wedge of sunlight on the beach. Hesitant to face the cold water just yet, we go for a hike instead. After much trial-and-error, we piece together a route through the rock bands bulging above camp, until, at last, we top out on the canyon's lip. Sunlit rimrock crowns still draped in shadows while the La Sals - a snowcapped mirage - hover in the distance.

We leave around noon, after a well-deserved lunch. Entranced by the stream's lazy meanders we frequently rest at the oars, craning our necks to take in the work of 200 million years of erosion. Abnormally, the river's sequence of rock layers does not change much between McPhee Reservoir and its mouth. A slant in the Colorado Plateau compensates for the downcutting, causing sensations of d�?©ja vu.

At some point, trying to locate the next campsite, we pull our rafts up on shore to reconnoiter an overhang. As a result of the low water levels of the past, this ledge camp has not been used in years. A tangle of underbrush blocks our way. Mac forges ahead, then stops as if hitting a wall. "Oh, no! Not again!" He hurries past me back to the river's edge, where he frantically starts rinsing and rubbing his pale legs and arms. When I reach the place where he bolted, I spot the source of dismay: a low bush, sporting stalks with three glossy leaves, burgundy-colored at this time of year and handsomely etched with green veins. It takes only an instant to identify the obnoxious weed, this bane of desert hikers. Poison ivy. With one of our crew cursing under his breath, we untie and shove off, looking for more hospitable beaches downstream. Some are already taken, since this is the river's most popular stretch. Everybody we meet along the way is in a celebratory mood. The 2005 river season on the Dolores will long be remembered as an event: the comeback of a dying river. Congregating with friends, traveling at a pace suited to humans, it is easy to join in the revelry.

Approaching Coyote Wash, we find the adjacent camps occupied by boaters eager to explore this side canyon. We camp upstream instead, on a bench furry with needle grass, and break out the river bocce set - baseballs individualized with a Magic Marker. Our game takes us through the kitchen area, into alcoves and onto rock ledges barely wide enough to stand on and only ends as twilight falls and we lose "the pig" in a cactus patch. The next morning, Steph rouses two scorpions from underneath her ground cloth, both still sluggish with the night's chill.

At Muleshoe Bend, an entrenched meander split by a neck of land, I take out the kayak to hump it across the saddle to the other side. The ten-minute portage cuts off two miles on the river, and I feel I am giving my legs a workout for a change. It takes the rafts about forty minutes to show up at the bend. This time it's my turn to gloat.

The day after, we land at Bedrock Bridge, from where we walk to the store for bread and other essentials. Some leather-clad bikers lounging on the porch stare at the parade that trudges up Highway 90 wearing neoprene booties, flowery shorts, flip flops and life jackets. Mac's battered straw Stetson has a hatband made from pull-tabs. "The old style," he likes to expound. "You can't find 'em anymore." I did not even bother to step out of my spray skirt, and its pull loop dangles between my legs. Inside the cavernous store our eyes gradually adjust to the dimness. If it were not for the modern merchandise on the shelves, this could be some kind of wormhole. The oldest continually operating business in Colorado has been the scene of photo shoots and commercials. The proprietor - bearded, with nickel rim glasses and pinstriped overalls - is proud to share some of the store's history. Among the treasures he retrieved from the attic was a can of hemorrhoid salve from Wyatt Earp's time. "It lost its effectiveness, though," he declares with a wink.

Back on the river, we cross the expanse of Paradox Valley, wilting in the afternoon heat. Having been cradled by canyon walls for days in a row I feel exposed under the boundless blue sky. At mile 108 the San Miguel River joins from the east, nearly doubling the river's chocolate flow. Although Highway 141 parallels our course for the next thirty miles, it remains largely out of sight, skirting the canyon's shoulder. More visible are the remains of a hanging flume, part of an unfinished hydraulic project begun in the 1890s. After the pacification of the Ute Indians, prospectors and cattlemen flocked to the newly ceded Colorado territories, and in 1896, the discovery of carnotite (a uranium compound) triggered the first of several mining booms in the Dolores River country. Irrigation and the processing of ore required large quantities of water, a need that has afflicted the river to this very day. Not too different from our high-tech, petroleum-based gear, the heavily anchored support beams marring the cliff face are reminders of the demands people make of this place.

Farther along we encounter another form of recreational use of this "resource." Gunshots augment the sound of an approaching engine, caroming off striated cliff faces high above. The bullets zip by overhead, buzzing like hornets. I expect a hissing exhalation from one of the rafts any moment, but then realize that we are not the targets. Some farm boy is just taking his truck for a spin, breaking in his new .44 Magnum.

The days grow hotter, causing the water to rise - several inches each night, as sticks we plant by the river's edge inform us. At Gateway, a half-submerged barbed wire fence juts into the stream, posing a hazard to our inflatable crafts. But despite (or because of) many signs of human impact, we encounter nary a soul on the river downstream of Bedrock. Perhaps as a consequence, a slow re-wilding seems to take place. A number of camps marked on the river map no longer exist; tamarisk, scrub oak, reed, willow and box elder have claimed them. Wildlife also fares well along the long-neglected riparian corridor. We glide by beavers and muskrats, snug in their dens in the riverbank. Bull and garter snakes abound, and an ancient cottonwood tree at Mile 140 hosts half a dozen heron nests guarded by twice as many of the reptilian birds. We spot several bald eagles and at some point are greeted by peregrines screaming from the top of a slickrock aerie. Near Bedrock, two elk cows and a bull attempt to cross the river in front of me. Spooked by my unshaved appearance they turn back, crashing through the gallery forest.

Stateline Rapid straddles the Colorado-Utah boundary, an invisible line attempting to divide what is indivisible. I decide to ride this one out in Craig D's raft, my kayak strapped to the back. The mile-long commotion looked intimidating when we scouted it, and remarks on our river map ("Do not attempt the left channel ... Boats have been completely destroyed in this channel!") as well fail to inspire confidence.

Close to its rendezvous with the Colorado, the Dolores slackens again as the land relaxes its grip. The valley opens to ranchland and river bottoms shaded by cottonwoods. The junction comes as a surprise. The Grand Old River must be pumping close to 12,000 cfs. Boat traffic picks up, and the takeout is somewhat anticlimactic, as it almost always is. We pass underneath the gossamer construction of the old Dewey Suspension Bridge and its concrete-and-steel twin, landing at the boat ramp on river left. Trucks and several boat trailers bake in the sun. A Dumpster fills the air with rankness. Andr�?© puts on his last semi-clean shirt and forces a comb through his hair, trying to look presentable enough to hitch a ride back to Salt Lake. A couple emerging from a mobile home in the parking lot asks us how long we've been out. "Not long enough," I mumble.

Though most of us had originally wanted to drive straight to Bradfield, to catch the dam release and float the upper section, the Wyoming mob splits in Moab. Some have to go back to jobs in "the real world," while others follow the lure of cool slot canyons or that of even cooler pints at the Microbrewery.

A week later, however, I join my landlord returned from the Grand Canyon and some of his friends. They are all kayakers, with the exception of Barney on the baggage raft. Since Pete wants to use his own boat now, I borrow an inflatable kayak from an outfitter for whom I work once in a while. Their planned run is even more ambitious than my previous one: from the Bradfield put-in to the Moab bridge where Highway 191 intercepts the Colorado. (One could easily continue from there, to float Monument and Cataract canyons all the way to Glen Canyon Reservoir, turning this truly into one of the longest possible river trips stateside.)

The upper section of the Dolores feels like a different river altogether. No boater weaned on the Colorado's turbid floods, on bowknot bends and desert vegetation, can remain indifferent toward this "aqua incognita": clear, and cold enough to make my Duckie go limp, it prances down a fairly straight riverbed, bouncy for miles on end. Aspen buds show their sumptuous green. River otters play close to shore. Ponderosas set off park-like campsites, suffusing the air with hints of vanilla and butterscotch. Their shed needles soften the ground, providing mattresses for weary bodies.

Tributary canyons hold evidence of ancient occupation - wickiup shelters, tent rings, ruins and petroglyphs. Oak thickets frequently bar the way to these vestiges of a quickly fading past, but also save them from being vandalized. Past Antal's Nose (a rock schnozzle protruding from Mountain Sheep Point) I strain my eyes for Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings above the river. Just in time, a faint trail gives away their location, and we land and ascend to structures resembling cliff swallow nests in an alcove. Seeing our rafts tied up on shore, another party comes scrambling up the talus.

"Say, have you found them yet, those ruins?"

"Yeah, right here, almost in front of you," I reply.

"No, not these. I've seen a video about this place, and it showed multi-story ruins. Like, pueblos." His eyes glitter with the greed of the weekend conquistador.

"Don't know anything about that. I personally think these are pretty impressive."

Undeterred, the guy with the midwestern accent continues along the ledge, his companions in tow.

"They must be here somewhere," I hear him whine as he rounds a corner. I wonder if, just perhaps, he's got this place mixed up with Mesa Verde . . . .

Too soon, we leave the high country behind, following the river on its plunge to the Gulf of California. At Mile 26, Little Snag announces a gauntlet of whitewater that has been highlight and nightmare at once for generations of river runners. Snaggletooth Rapid (rated class V at 2,000 cfs and above) remains one of the legendary Big Drops of the West, equal to Lava Falls, or Hell's Half Mile before it was tamed.

Perched on a boulder halfway down the rapid, Barney stares at the boiling cauldron as if hypnotized. I know in his mind he is going over the run - the ideal line - over and over again. Trying to memorize markers and trouble spots. A series of hydraulics directs the main flow toward Snag Rock, a ghastly protuberance spouting water like an overflowing storm drain. Barely concealed beneath the spray's surface, this fang can gut rafts and has done so many times in the past. I am glad I bowed out of this under the pretext of not having a helmet and because my Duckie is only a loaner that I'd hate to ruin. (All the kayakers in our group decided to portage after short deliberation.)

Our seasoned baggage boatman seems reluctant, if not petrified, caught between the possibilities of losing face and of losing his raft. A few of us take up positions along the omnivorous beast, ready to assist the mother ship in case of a wrap. If Barney flips, he will be out of reach before we would even have a chance to swing the coiled ropes in our throw bags.

But the river gods are smiling on him - Barney has a clean run. He sets up perfectly, keeps her bow straight and slots the raft between doom and a big churning hole. Under much clapping and cheering he is flushed through and parks the boat at the rapid's bottom. Meanwhile, a few less courageous parties start dismantling their rafts, carrying gear, food, oar frames and boats on the nearby dirt road to the foot of the river's obstruction.

From here on our "yakkers" are mostly occupied with their eternal hunt for the perfect play wave. Upon arrival at Slick Rock, I decide to stay on until Bedrock once more. Who says you can't step into the same river twice? While its molecular substance escapes downstream, an essence remains. It may be a long time yet before I get another chance to experience Little Glen Canyon; and there is beer left in the raft's cooler, beer that needs drinking. Floating this stretch a second time reveals the cyclical nature of rivers. Adrift on their broad backs, they too often appear linear to the traveler, mere tangents between the source and the sea. We dissect them, straighten them out, and divert, ride or pollute their bounty to meet our needs. We complain about drought, about the powers controlling floodgates and dams. But what is the plight of a few river runners or even of farmers compared to that of the mule deer, the mountain lion, flannelmouth sucker or roundtail chub? For us, there will always be "one more river, one more time." For all the wild things, this river is home. The only home they will ever know.

Anthropologist, freelance writer and guide Michael Engelhard lives in Moab, Utah. He is the editor of two anthologies and author of Where the Rain Children Sleep.