Rio Chama 2011: off and on the river

[Henry's blog post on the trip is now up. It's much more detailed, especially regarding the boats, rapids, etc., than mine.]

After covering some of the more mundane aspects of our 2011 Rio Chama trip in my last post, I'll treat you to some more sublime images this time. As well as give you a chronology of our floating, hiking, and relaxing activities.

The weather at the campground where we set off, just below El Vado Lake, might have given us pause. We were rained, sleeted, and even snowed on a little, off and on, as we gathered ourselves and our stuff together for the trip.

But we'd been led to believe by weather.gov that things would be improving over the weekend. And we're trusting souls. Fortunately, the weather squints were right. Friday was still chilly, although with not as much precipitation as Thursday. And Saturday and Sunday got progressively warmer and sunnier.

Our first campsite was about 8 miles down the river (out of a trip of 30-31). We have come to the conclusion that there are no poor sites along the Chama, and were quite pleased with this site. So pleased, in fact, that we decided to make our two-night encampment there.

Yay! After wearing ourselves out packing and getting underway, we wouldn't have to pack up camp the next morning but could sleep in, have a luxurious breakfast, do some hiking, and spend
plenty of time watching clouds and otherwise relaxing...

The small pictures above and below were also taken at this lovely spot. The amazing tree on the left was right next to our tent, and besides looking like a piece of sculpture, provided handy storage for all kinds of kitchen and personal items.

The sunset picture above on the right was taken on Saturday evening. Can you see how we were somewhat puzzled as to whether we'd been raptured up as predicted? If you're in the middle of countryside like this, how would you know if you weren't in heaven?

Henry and some of the guys took a hike Saturday morning/afternoon, and I went a little ways with them, but felt the call of book, sleeping pad, and camp chair pretty quickly and headed back to relax.

Staying an extra day in camp also allowed more wildlife flora and fauna watching. Here are some examples of what we saw... [note: I'm not too sure of either of the flower id's; if anyone can provide corrections, please do so]

Velvety Nerisyrenia

Creeping Oregon Grape

Canada geese (no question about this id)

Sunday morning we did pack up camp, and got on our way down the river.

After trying for several hours to upload a video I made of one of the most scenic of the rapids (Aragon Canyon, at mile 10) [both directly into the blog and, when that seemed to be taking 'way too long (try 2 hours!) on YouTube (where, after 45 minutes of loading it said there was failure due to an "unknown error")] I'm afraid you'll have to be content with this somewhat blurry image I made from one of the frames...

[Since I know nothing about video, I'm not too surprised that I had these difficulties. I should have known there would be trouble when I couldn't view the videos I was taking on the camera. Perhaps I should read the manual again? And even buy some editing software to replace the free program I've used, albeit clumsily, before?]

Anyway, we had several more of these very nice class II's on Sunday, and no one had any trouble with running them, as opposed to video-ing them. Even the behemoth cataraft, affectionately known as the Bismarck, only got minorly stuck on rocks a couple of times.

For Sunday night's camping spot, we really hit the jackpot. One of the reasons for staying at our first site two nights, other than laziness, was that by Sunday night, we knew the primo spots further downstream would be open. Since almost everyone just makes the trip a two-nighter and takes out on Sunday. We even felt that we could legally take the best large group site, in spite of our only having 9 folks in our party instead of the required 10.

So we set up camp at Chama Wall, around mile 16.5, and had this for our front yard view:

Not too shabby, eh?

The only disadvantage to the site was the fact that sunrise didn't come to our campsite until rather late the next morning, and it was little chilly. But the view was worth a few shivers....

In addition to the great neighborhood, the campsites were very nice and had all kinds of other amenities, like an incredibly huge fallen tree providing all kinds of photo opps...


...a nearby hike up a slot canyon that combined jungle-gym-like clambering fun with wonderful rock scenery...

thanks to Scott for taking this picture of me

Henry, Jon, and Donald went on up the canyon further than the rest of us wanted to. But what we saw even on the abbreviated version was pretty nice...

Although, you might ask, why Zoltan, Scott, and I didn't soldier on with the others up the canyon. Part of the reason was the increasingly rough nature of the trail. But the main reason, for me, at least, was the wildlife. In particular, I have seen my first RATTLESNAKE outside of a zoo. 'Way outside, in fact. Actually, right next to my foot! Yikes! Fortunately he just slithered away from us instead of toward us, but that glimpse was enough for me. (Henry has photos of the snake on his blog. For some reason, I didn't think about taking any...)

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Our final day on the river, Monday, provided the most excitement, with the class III's out of the canyon that are the most challenging. We only had one mishap, however, at Gauging Station Rapid. No serious injuries, though, and the only lost gear from an overturned canoe was one paddle. Easily replaced with one of the extras we always bring for such contingencies. Fortunately/unfortunately, there's no video of the spill.

What is fortunate about this difficult rapid, though, is that it's just a couple of miles before the takeout, where cold beer was waiting.

As much fun as we had on the trip, after 4 days, it was nice to think about amenities like cold beer, warm showers, and beds with sheets. And some of us, at least, are already thinking about our next float down this wonderful river.