Wordless Wednesday: grab the high ground

Floating with an old friend

No, I'm not referring to Henry.

I've been on the Rio Chama enough times now that it seems like an old friend, so it was fun to see it again a few weeks ago.

And the river and its surroundings are just as beautiful as ever...

However, since I have shown so many pictures of the place before, I'm trying with this post to show different scenes along the trip. Although it's hard not to include another picture of the gorgeous Chama Wall. (Where we've camped before, but didn't have enough people this time to qualify for its large camp area.)

But here's a new view, at least as far as this blog is concerned. It's the famous "George Washington with a pigeon on top" formation...isn't that what the right edge of this ridge looks like?

There are still all those multitudes of gorgeous trees...

...and, especially this time of year, lots of waterfowl...

Of course, even though for the most part the river seemed very familiar, all rivers do evolve. Sometimes even more dramatically than in the usual "you never step into the same one twice" manner.

One of the major canyon rapids, Aragon, has morphed from a fun class-II-minus into something more interesting. 

The guys that went last year first experienced this upgrade. Sometime between summer 2011 and summer 2012 a large rock fell into the water about in the middle of the rapid, creating a challenging hole that can either be sought out (by adrenaline paddlers) or studiously avoided (by people with sense).

No matter which category of boater you fall into, an advance scout of the rapid is recommended, and here are Scott, Tom, and Henry performing this due diligence:

The well-known "Christmas tree" rock formation still marks the beginning of the rapid. (I named the big dead tree caught on the front of the rock the "yule log"):

And here's what the affected part of the rapid looks like with the new addition (the hole is marked by the glob of white water near the wall):

Fortunately, in spite [not a typo] of Henry's best efforts, we safely skirted the hole. But it made for an exciting ride.

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Even though the stretch of the Chama that we have floated so often is only a little over 30 miles long, and we've done it so often, there are always new things to see and experience along the way. One of these (new for me, at least) was the hot springs pools just a mile or two after the put-in.

It's actually a complex of pools and marshes on one side of the river, an unsurprisingly popular lunch rest stop. But since we launched on Thursday, we had it to ourselves.

Here's the largest pool, both without and with feet enjoying the warm, bubbly water:

the pool's water temperature is probably 80 degrees warmer than the river's

Nature's hot tub

Our second day on the river we explored another new side attraction. And I'll tell you about that in my next post.

But even if there were none of these interesting side excursions, the river by itself would still be worth the trip...

eat your heart out, King Midas...at sunset the river turns to liquid gold

Ship shape and Bristol fashion

We weren't exactly heading out to the open sea when we put in at El Vado Ranch on the Rio Chama, but it's important to have a reliable craft (not to mention one that's yar) on a river, too.

Here's Henry on the fully-packed, ready-to-launch cataraft:

Doesn't she look yar and ready for fun?!

Putting her together, as you might imagine, is a fairly non-trivial task, but, then, that's part of the fun of owning complex gear. Here are two shots showing Henry and Tom manfully absorbed in this process...

after tube inflation, before frame attachment

attaching the frame, with nearly a million straps...in the right order

Alert readers might notice a slight change in the seating configuration for this trip, compared to those I've taken previously. I have a real seat this time! Cannibalized from another raft (yes, we own multiple rafts...it's a disease) but really quite swank.

I could even turn it around easily to take pictures looking back upstream, which lets you see twice as much scenery. (BTW, I heartily recommend, as a general travel tip, to stop at least occasionally  and take a look behind you when you're hiking, walking, paddling, floating, etc....the views are sometimes even better than when you're heading forward. The swivel seat made this really easy and was therefore a big improvement.)

that's my seat on the right...complete with cup-holders!

Here's Henry underway after our launch. He looks so cheerful because we have yet to come up against the monster winds that plagued our first day of floating and fair wore him out at the oars. I told him just to pretend he was in the galley with Ben Hur.

And here he is confronting another unpleasantness associated with river camping: putting everything back in the boat when it's time to break camp. How does it all fit?! Fortunately, Henry's super-power is packing and he really does an amazing job of it.

packing up after our first campsite

Of course our boat wasn't the only one on the river, although we had a smaller party this year than in the past. It was a very congenial group, though, and we had a great time.

Scott in his kayak...he's braver than I am!

mutual picture-taking: Gary and Geneva in his inflatable canoe

Tom in a canoe that looks oddly familiar (he borrowed it from us)

Another difference this year, for me, was that we took out on Sunday, when most of the other folks do, too. So after not seeing anyone not from our party for 3 days, the final day was something of a freeway. Here's the Big Eddy take-out:

It looks like a zoo but it wasn't really too bad. Some of the nice young folks even helped us put the amazingly heavy cataraft frame onto our trailer.

So it was a very successful trip. Next time I'll give you some more details about our adventures, and show you some more stunning New Mexico scenery.

Wordless Wednesday: where's the fire?

Water source

When we paddle/float on the Rio Chama in NW New Mexico, the water carrying us along doesn't come straight from the mountains. It's captured along the way in a series of dams, and the one right above our put-in point is El Vado Dam, which forms a lake of the same name.

You can see it in the distance if you know where to look, as you approach the river.

Strangely enough, as many times as we have run the river and used its water (and as intensely as Henry has studied the dam releases when he's planned our trips), we've never actually visited the dam and the lake. So we decided to remedy that oversight this time.

After checking into our convenient cabin at El Vado Ranch, un-hooking the trailer and doing some unpacking and re-packing, we headed up the road to the dam. Here's what it looks like from the road on the other side (supposedly a short-cut to Albuquerque, but it's a dirt road so I don't see how it would save any time):

Home to what we've heard is a delightful NM State Park, the lake is really quite lovely. Here's a view from on top of the dam...

...and a couple more scenic shots from the side. In spite of looking a little low, it still surprised me with its appealing setting. I'm used to desert reservoirs looking barer and less interesting...

The dam is part of the aforementioned system of reservoirs that [at least attempt to] manage water for thirsty northern New Mexico—it's part of both the San Juan-Chama and the Middle Rio Grande Projects (the Chama joins that more famous river just outside of Santa Fe). And we found that the dam has an interesting pedigree itself.

Built in the 1930's, its outlet capacity was enhanced in 1966 when the water from the San Juan basin starting being pumped over. We saw markers commemorating both its original construction and its remodeling, as well as a designation as a "historic civil engineering landmark."

Of course, for us, its primary purpose remains providing water so that we can see this wonderful countryside from the peerless vantage point of the river...which you can see here emerging from the dam:

This photo also provides a clever segue into the main attraction of out recent trip: another float down the incomparable Rio Chama. Photos and stories from that adventure are coming up next.

Echoes of vacations past

We managed to cram a lot of different activities into not quite two weeks in New Mexico and Colorado, and I took a LOT of pictures.

So I suppose I should get busy and get blogging!

It was appropriate that our first big photo-stop on the trip was New Mexico's Echo Amphitheater. Since, as the post title indicates, this trip was something of a repeat of past adventures.

We were headed for the Rio Chama for another rafting excursion. (You can read about our previous Chama trips here. More about this year's river trip, of course, will follow.) And the Amphitheater just happens to be conveniently on the way.

It's an amazing geological feature that, yes, provides really cool echo effects. In addition to the fabulous surrounding scenery...

cliffs on one side of the Amphitheater

cliffs close-up

Here is a more close-in shot of the big bowl itself...

...and again in this picture, which also highlights one of the lovely trees—most were coniferous, but, obviously, some are not—in front of the bowl...

It might not be easy to see from these photos just how big an amphitheater this is. So I include this photo with my traveling companions for some scale:

And impressive as the amphitheater is, it's only one highlight in this Ghost Ranch region of New Mexico. When you head back to the car after echo-ing you get a great panoramic view of this wonderful countryside:

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Next up, another short pre-river-trip excursion!

Wordless Wednesday: the difference between Colorado and Texas rivers