From Paddler Magazine...
Whiteknuckling It Down the Animas's Wildest Whitewater
by Maureen Keilty (reprinted with permission)
Tension builds as our van begins its one-thousand foot descent from Molas Pass into Silverton. Zipped into layers of neoprene and polypro topped by waterproof jackets, we clutch our crash helmets and life jackets. We are on our way to raft the Upper Animas River, one of the West's most challenging whitewater runs, a flow once deemed "The Killer River" by a Durango outfitter just forty miles downstream.
Remember, this is not Disneyland," hollers one of our guides, Ron Schermacher, as we pile out of the van. "It's better," he says, this voice of experience, "cuz there's no lines and the ride lasts a real, real long time." Our laughter bursts loud and forced, as if its strength will keep us afloat for two days of relentless class IV and V water.
Nine named rapids and their countless comrades await us; any one of them could swallow a boat. Spilling from a raft anywhere along this 28-mile stretch of recently thawed snow and ice could mean a swim of a lifetime. And this river's power is certified; abandoned railroad track, twisted by an enraged Animas, lay in several spots along its shore.
Downstream really means downhill on the Animas where the gradient, or average drop is 85, and in some places 150 feet per mile. Most intimidating, however, is knowing that nowhere do roads penetrate the Animas River Canyon, formed from a squad of sky-scraping peaks, threaded by the century-old Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
But we are prepared. Just last night "Grandfather River" himself taught us to t-grip the paddle while responding in unison to his commands: "forward," "back," "right paddle," "stop." He showed us how to secure our feet under the raft's tube in order to stay upright amidst a wallop of whitewater. He warned us of such river hazards as "strainers," (debris piles midstream) slipper rocks and how to rescue a fellow passenger awash in the "drink." The t-shirt he wore, emblazoned with "Paddle or Die!" above a skull and crossbow oars underscored his every word.
Thirty-six year old Schermacher, among the first to raft the Upper Animas in 1983, the man who knows the river's every rock and ripple led the hour-long Class V River Safety Lecture. (See sidebar) The younger guides in Mountain Waters Rafting call him "Aqua Dude" and "Old Man River." He coached them through their first whitewater passages. His raft is still the one they want to follow through froth and fury.
Thirty-six year old Schermacher, among the first to raft the Upper Animas in 1983, the man who knows the river's every rock and ripple led the hour-long Class V River Safety Lecture. (See sidebar) The younger guides in Mountain Waters Rafting call him "Aqua Dude" and "Old Man River." He coached them through their first whitewater passages. His raft is still the one they want to follow through froth and fury.
Among river put-ins, the Silverton launch site is probably the nation's highest at 9,200 feet. Fir flanked slopes converge here in this one-time volcanic caldera. Snowy peaks scallop the horizon in all directions. The tracks of the D&SNGRR edge one side of this gravel clearing in the road, the Animas clips past, rather amicably on the other.
"Loosen up, then tighten up, everybody." Calls Juan to the three MWR trainees and the four of us uninitiated passengers. Built like a bear and fully bearded, the six-year MWR veteran yoga stretches his arms, torso, and legs, then checks our PFD (personal floatation device) to make sure, as he says it, we "can't slip out during a tumbler." The life-preserving girdle adds a Juan-like dimension to our shadows.
Kayaking waterfalls are among the adrenaline highs Juan Cullum pursues when he's not plying the Animas. The Durango native caught in a post-college pause never heeded his grandfather's warnings that "La Yorona (a river ghost lady) is gonna' get you." He's the guide who leads trainees on cliff-jumping thrills. Inevitably, his compadre, Ron, stands on shore with a throw-rope in hand.
"Yessss! It's at two and a half feet!" shouts MWR guide Dan Goddard giving a thumbs-up, arms-up approval. Our "TL" or Trip Leader, Dan just returned from a short jog upstream to check the foot scale, a gauge that measures the river's height. He reports that despite winter's skimpy snowfall, today's "near optimal" reading promises "lotsa bumping and grinding - just enough water to make the runs real interesting." I dare not ask what he means.
Foot scale, the measurement technique meaningful only to boaters who repeatedly run the same river is commonly used on rivers like the Upper Animas. On less variable rivers automatic devices measure and record the water flow in C.F.S. or cubic feet per second. Some thirty creeks intermittently spill their snowmelt into the Animas Gorge. The first of these, Mineral Creek joins the Animas at our put-in, nearly doubling its flow.
As one of the few free-flowing rivers on Colorado's western slope, the Animas begins its uninterrupted journey in the snow-draped peaks above Silverton. Along its craggy, alpine shores the skeletal remnants of 1870s mining camps - Eureka, Animas Forks, Howardsville still stand.
For two decades Silverton's mining communities remained isolated, dependent on mule trains to carry ore and supplies up over the rugged Continental Divide. By 1891, "Silver, by the ton" motivated the Denver & Rio Grand Railroad to lay tracks from Durango to Silverton. Today, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge, a refurbished coal-fired steam train follows the same scenic corridor through the Animas Valley and the San Juan Mountains carrying tourists, and today - our camping gear.
Yes, while we white-knuckle it through whitewater our sleeping bags and pile jackets take the dry route to our campsite via the D&SNGRR baggage car. I consider trading places with our gear until MWR owner Casey Lynch calls, "Let's load up and out!"
Dan Peha, my husband and photographer for this adventure, and I climb onto Casey's fourteen-foot cataraft. The other guests, Beth and Marion TK, titian blond sisters from Boulder and San Diego divide between the trainees in Ron and Juan's rafts. Our "TL" Dan, takes the lead cataraft while Ron's crew paddles the "sweep boat," the raft equipped with a comprehensive first aid kit, destined to rescue "swimmers."
We're in good hands, the best there is. All four boatmen are trained Emergency Medical Technicians as well as swift water Rescue Technicians. After river season, Ron and Juan teach SRT courses throughout the West. Everyone at MWR, trainees included, is certified in First Responder, a first-aid course adapted to wilderness settings. Most importantly, no other boaters know the Animas like these four do; their summers spent plying its wild waters total thirty-eight - a remarkably large chunk of experience packed into the Upper Animas' short raftable life-span - about eight weeks beginning in mid-May.
A low, dilapidated railroad bridge looms close before Casey pulls our raft to shore. While hoisting it to our shoulders, he comments, "last year at this time we carried our boats over ice bridges." For the first time I'm thankful for 1996's near-drought winter.
Casey performs a "Flintstone" start as Dan and I reposition ourselves on the nylon platform stretched taut between the cataraft's tubes. Standing mid-frame and knee-deep in the river, he holds the cataraft frame then runs into the flow before pulling himself into the driver's seat.
An accountant on his "dry days," Casey knows the river both physically and fiscally. He plays the water like a pool shark, eyeballing the boulders then calling them by number from an unseen clockface. Rocks with waves gnawing all around them keep sliding past us as Casey's monologue continues uninterrupted. Between his "Hold on!" or "Watch to your left!"s he describes the challenges of marketing the UA - a river with drastically changing water fluctuations, requiring physically fit boaters, and runnable only a short period each spring. "But, my guides would fire me," he admits, "if we ever quit running the Upper." He should know. MWR is the UA's longest operating commercial outfitter.
Mesmerized by our "cat's" pinball course, I look up to see the Grenadier and Needle ranges frame this whitewater spectacle few cameras have captured. In fact, Casey estimates only 3,000 boaters have paddled the UA since commercial boating began here in 1985.
We enter the mouth of the gorge, its near-vertical walls of black metamorphic striped by white cascades spilling from snow cirques above. Casey hollers, "There's no getting out now, folks!" Roaring rapids muffle the chorus of hoots and whistles our three crews let out. "That's Earnest, "Casey shouts to me, "the rapids begin in earnest here according to Doug Wheat's book." I'd memorized Wheat's description of the UA in his 'Floater's Guide to Colorado' and realized Ten Mile Slide - a class V in high water was also making itself known.
A snowslide from Mt. Garfield (13,074 feet) had left a quarter mile rock pile-up mid river. Dan, our "Scout Master" reports Slide Rapid requires a " a run on the left," adding, "it's a piece of cake." His confidence barely loosens my grip on the cat's frame.
We slip into the left "tongue" of slick water loading to a seemingly endless tumult. Our boat sidles past a parade of rocks like a cat negotiating a moonlit alley. Suddenly, a three-foot curtain of spray thrown by a submerged boulder appears to be our wet finale until Casey pivots the oars and we skim the furor. Again, muffled shouts signal we've completed this first rapid. Yet our boat continues its billiard ball course, bouncing off cushions of water and rock for several miles.
"Bulimia Beach for lunch," shouts Ron as he and his Cheshire-cat smiling crew paddle past us. We pull up to a narrow, aspen-fringed meadow sandwiched between the Needle and West Needle Mountains. Soon, a roll-up table materializes from one of the boats and is laden with meats, cheeses, apples, and candy. We graze and sunbathe while the boatmen banter about No Name, the river's most threatening rapid, next on our challenge agenda.
Just a few strokes downriver, the four guides perch on a boulder where for twenty minutes they point and plan their twenty second ride through No Name. Talk of its reversing hole and pool, its s-turn followed by an eight-foot waterfall, and Wayne's Rock drifts my way. And I listen, as I'll be paddling No Name with Juan's crew.
"Paddle only when and how I tell you," advised Juan, "and remember, hang on." Calmly, almost quietly Juan commands "Forward paddle." A V-slick slowly grabs our raft, then spins us wildly into a lateral wave that slaps me off the tube. I cling to the paddle, scramble to my battle station and perform a "right paddle" as Juan screams the command. It feels like I'm stirring foam as our boat frumps into a hole and we endure another "Maytag". The river's wrath - hundreds of gallons of it crash into our raft. Surely, we'll sink. But thanks to the raft's self-bailing design, and no doubt Juan's paddle wizardry. The river drains out. Into calm waters we cruise, a six-pac of howling Cheshire cats.
At Camp Needleton we gather our sleeping bags piled beside the train tracks and fan out among the pines. Within minutes, the boatmen transform the camp's simple A-frame into "Needleton Bar & Grill" serving imported beer and fresh guacamole. Dinner around a campfire follows featuring marinated steaks "grilled to perfection" and chocolate-mousse cake topped with freshly whipped cream.
The next morning, a teetering footbridge, the kind even Indiana Jones wouldn't cross, signals the day's first and biggest rapid; Broken Bridge. A quiet forest walk leads us to a roaring boulder promontory. Below it I see a rock and river maelstrom of biblical proportions. The boatmen, however, see a route, a series of strokes and power pushes that preserves their hard won skill at rafting the Upper Animas
Indeed, Broken Bridge tests everyone; a wave pushes me sideways to see Casey straining at the oars against a force so great the tendons in his neck stick out like guy wires holding his head on. But we sail through upright and elated. Testing fate, I run Broken Bridge on Ron's raft, again without mishap.
Whitewater never ceases that second day until we reach the take-out at Tacoma Power Plant. And like this till operating turn-of-the-century hydropower plant we too are electric. Adrenaline has pushed us to an almost-immortal outlook. But as we begin our train ride back to Durango, Schermacher points to the Animas, pinched between granite walls 300 feet below us. Known as the Animas Gorge, this forbidding river section tests the most experienced kayakers who all too often require the skills of Schermacher and other members of the La Plata County Search and Rescue Team. Little wonder Spanish explorers dubbed this torrent in southwest Colorado "El Rio de las Animas Perdidas," The River of Lost Souls.
Perhaps, as our boatmen believe, the river gods smiled on us that sunny June weekend. If so, we must have appeased them by coming prepared, guided by the best of boatmen, and smiling like Cheshire cats.
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