{"id":795387,"date":"2019-05-01T21:28:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T03:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/summit-county-based-rafting-guides-hopeful-big-snowpack-equals-extended-season-on-lower-blue-river\/"},"modified":"2019-05-01T21:28:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T03:28:00","slug":"summit-county-based-rafting-guides-hopeful-big-snowpack-equals-extended-season-on-lower-blue-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-county-based-rafting-guides-hopeful-big-snowpack-equals-extended-season-on-lower-blue-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit County-based rafting guides hopeful big snowpack equals extended season on Lower Blue River"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery\" readability=\"6.5013698630137\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-365309-173\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Rafting-SDN-050219-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Rafting-SDN-050219-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy Performance Tours Rafting | Local outfitters such as Performance Tours Rafting in Breckenridge anticipate as many as seven weeks of raftable flows on the Blue River north of Silverthorne this summer.\" class=\"h-100\">\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\" readability=\"7\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Rafting-SDN-050219-1.jpg\" alt=\"Local outfitters such as Performance Tours Rafting in Breckenridge anticipate as many as seven weeks of raftable flows on the Blue River north of Silverthorne this summer.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"9\">\n<p><strong>Local outfitters such as Performance Tours Rafting in Breckenridge anticipate as many as seven weeks of raftable flows on the Blue River north of Silverthorne this summer.<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy Performance Tours Rafting<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Rafting-SDN-050219-1-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Rafting-SDN-050219-1-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy Whitney Harrell \/ Special to The Daily | Performance Tours Rafting guides a whitewater trip down the Blue River in June 2018\" class=\"h-100\">\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\" readability=\"6.5\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/05\/Rafting-SDN-050219-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"Performance Tours Rafting guides a whitewater trip down the Blue River in June 2018\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>Performance Tours Rafting guides a whitewater trip down the Blue River in June 2018<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy Whitney Harrell \/ Special to The Daily<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/sports\/summit-county-based-rafting-guides-hopeful-big-snowpack-equals-extended-season-on-lower-blue-river\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/sports\/summit-county-based-rafting-guides-hopeful-big-snowpack-equals-extended-season-on-lower-blue-river\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">As winter refuses to loosen its snowy grip on Summit County, whitewater rafting season has officially begun. The first drop-in for Breckenridge-based Performance Tours Rafting came on Saturday south of the county at Royal Gorge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Down south, Kevin Foley, owner of Performance Tours, described the flows right now as already near 900 cubic-feet-per-second. To put that in perspective, Foley said it wasn\u2019t until late May of last season when flows reached those levels on the Upper Arkansas River.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cAnd we really never got very high flows last year,\u201d Foley said. \u201cLast year was a very low snowpack year. So we were rafting last summer for a better part of the summer on flows that were lower than what we currently have now, believe it or not. For most of July the river was about where it is now, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The super-popular whitewater destination that is the Upper Arkansas near Buena Vista is looking very healthy right now, at about 130% to 140% of annual averages, Foley said. With that, the real treat for Summit County adventurers may be what ultimately plays out on the Lower Blue River this spring. Foley anticipates Performance Tours will begin rafting on the Lower Blue River, between Silverthorne and Green Mountain Reservoir in northern Summit County, around Memorial Day weekend. Once out on the water, Foley is hopeful Performance Tours and other area Lower Blue River guides, such as Breckenridge-based KODI Rafting, will be able to raft for twice as much time as last year \u2014 perhaps as long as seven weeks total.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">To put that into historical context, Performance Tours guided just three weeks last year while there have been other years when outfitters have only been able to raft a single week on the Lower Blue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Annually, Foley said the Lower Blue is different from the Upper Arkansas in that outfitters don\u2019t have a set opening and closing date. Down south, outfitters like Performance Tours target a May 1 open and a Labor Day close each season. On the Lower Blue, though, there is so much variability, Foley said, that in some drier seasons the river fails to reach the 500 cfs level needed for a baseline minimum to raft commercially. As such, each spring, outfitters like Foley keep close communication with the Denver Water Board to stay abreast of what the board is thinking with regards to potentially releasing and diverting water from Dillon Reservoir to the Lower Blue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWhat we are being told this year is we should see raftable flows around Memorial Day weekend,\u201d Foley said, \u201cand we\u2019ll see them hopefully for six weeks, maybe into mid-July. But there are a lot of variables on the Blue River that affect raftable flows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">At its best, Foley described whitewater rafting on the Lower Blue as Class III fun that is, generally, not overwhelming for rafters of all ages and ability levels. Foley added that the last time the Lower Blue had a season like he\u2019s expecting this spring was back in 2011.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cProbably every seven years or so,\u201d he said, \u201csomewhere in there, to see an extended season like that. And, hopefully, that\u2019s what we\u2019ll get.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As for scouting out the river for potential spring runoff debris, especially in the wake of this winter\u2019s record-breaking avalanche cycle, Foley said this coming Tuesday\u2019s Colorado River District Summit County State of the River meeting at the Silverthorne Pavilion (6-8:30 p.m.) will initially clue him and others into more specifics on how the Lower Blue is flowing and how it will be managed in the coming weeks. After the meeting, he and others will keep tabs on the rate of snowpack melt on Snotel sites as well as physically scouting the river out for debris as Memorial Day nears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe make sure that no big trees have come down and block channels,\u201d Foley said. \u201cSo we go out there and scout the river, and if there are any obstructions it\u2019s something that we are aware of and report it to the Forest Service. \u2026 What I\u2019ll probably do, in a couple of weeks, is go down to the section that has the whitewater \u2014 and you can actually get a pretty good visual of that from Highway 9 \u2014 walk into different access points, and look down. And when the flows get a little more raftable, we\u2019ll raft down without guests, and we kind of go, \u2018OK, this channel is clear. This one\u2019s clear. This one\u2019s clear. OK, that left channel looks like it has a log or tree that comes down, make sure everybody knows to go right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/sports\/summit-county-based-rafting-guides-hopeful-big-snowpack-equals-extended-season-on-lower-blue-river\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Local outfitters such as Performance Tours Rafting in Breckenridge anticipate as many as seven weeks of raftable flows on the Blue River north of Silverthorne this summer.Courtesy Performance Tours Rafting Performance Tours Rafting guides a whitewater trip down the Blue River in June 2018Courtesy Whitney Harrell \/ Special to The Daily Show CaptionsHide Captions As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-795387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 04:29:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}