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The Rocky Mountain Canoe Club is an organization for paddlers in the Colorado area covering all aspects of paddle sports from flat water to white water with an emphasis on the open canoe.
Trip Status: (Thurs March 18) This trip is a "Go". Weather forecast looks fine, not as perfect as earlier forecast. Slight headwind expected on river, not serious. Flow 450 cfs at Kersey, low but quite adequate.
Introduction
Wecome to the Third Annual South Platte River Joint Paddle Trip. This event is hosted by Rocky Mountain Canoe Club, Poudre Paddlers Club, Rocky Mountain Sea Kayak Club, Canoe Colorado, and Colorado White Water Association.
This is a fairly simple and casual flatwater (class I) day trip, suitable for novices, families, etc. There are two short dam portages.
Pre-registration is not necessary, membership not required, though we encourage you to take this opportunity to join our organizations.
The meeting and put-in is Riverside Park in Evans, a few miles southeast of Greeley, Colorado. We will all start paddling together. From there you have your choice of shorter or longer trips to any of these three destinations:
- Mitani-Tokuyasu Wildlife Area, 7 miles total.
- Kersey bridge, 9 miles total.
- Kuner bridge, 14 miles total.
(We're verifying that we can still take out at Kuner; there may be new fences.)Details
This trip could possibly be postponed due to bad weather. Please check this web page the day before the trip for current trip status.
Meet at 9:00 am Saturday March 20 2004, at Riverside Park in Evans, Colorado. From the stop light in the middle of Evans on highway 85, go 1/2 mile east on 37th Street. Turn right on Riverside Parkway; there should be a blue state patrol sign there. Go 1/4 mile south through the neighborhood. Go to the far (southeast) end of the main parking lot at the ballfields, and find us there next to the fence.
Please unload boats and equipment promptly, and hand in waivers to your club coordinator (see below).
We will have a short meeting for everyone at 9:30, then run three separate car shuttles to the three destinations. One driver per car is needed for the shuttle; everyone else stays behind to finish moving boats and for security. Please decide by the meeting time which shuttle to join, so that your car will end up at the right place.
For those doing the longer trip, please use the second (southern) bridge at Kuner, and stay within the highway right of way. The first bridge and surroundings are heavily posted.
Rough time estimates:
Lunch stop at second dam, 12:30 pm.
Mitani-Tokuyasu, 2:30 pm.
Kersey Bridge, 3:30 pm.
Kuner Bridge??, 5:30 pm. - TBDBring suitable canoe or kayak. Also ESPECIALLY recommended is warm clothing, spare change of clothing, lunch, water, leakproof rubber boots and/or change of shoes (wet portage alert!), sunglasses, sun screen, sun hat, dry bag.
Optional dinner get-together afterwards at a location TBD. Meeting around 6 or 6:30 pm. We'll work out the dinner plans at the group meeting.
Safety Notices
WAIVERS REQUIRED. There are normal boating risks involved; thus signed waivers and PFD's (life vests) are required. Cold springtime water; two dams to portage; submerged and overhanging trees; sometimes wires across river; unpredictable changes to river configuration; voracious gators; etc.
Help us out by printing your waiver off your club website and bringing it to the meeting place. Unaffiliated paddlers please use the RMCC waiver.
Dams. Please use extreme caution around the diversion dams. It can be surprisingly easy to get sucked over the edge if you don't keep a respectable distance away.
At lower water levels, the safe portage at the first dam is a lift-over at the bank on river right (you will get your feet wet). The second dam has a short land portage on the left bank. (These portages get more difficult above 1000 cfs.)
Hypothermia. The water can be quite cold on a spring trip like this. One of the best defenses against hypothermia in case of a tip-over is to travel with one or more companion boats, so that you can quickly get assistance to dry land and a change of clothes. Please see Mark Zen's page on hypothermia.
Traffic. There is high-speed traffic on the roads at Kersey and Kuner bridges, not expecting pedestrians there. Please avoid a casual attitude about the road, and watch your children.
Organizations and Contacts
Come on out and meet your fellow paddlers and club representatives. For waiver print-outs and more club info:
Poudre Paddlers -- Debbie Hinde mail to: dhinde@woodward.com 970-669-6247 http://www.poudrepaddlers.org/ Waivers can be obtained off of this site in .doc or .pdf Rocky Mountain Canoe Club -- Dave Allured mailto:dallured@indra.com 303-499-7466 http://www.rockymountaincanoeclub.org/ Waiver: http://www.rockymountaincanoeclub.org/waiver.html Rocky Mountain Sea Kayak Club -- Brian Curtis Who is the RMSKC? http://www.rmskc.org/who-what.html RMSKC membership application: http://www.rmskc.org/documents/membership.pdf RMSKC release of liability form: http://www.rmskc.org/documents/release.pdf South Platte Run Info Courtesy of RMSKC: http://www.rmskc.org/places/splatte-evans.htmlCanoe Colorado - Eric Nyre http://www.canoecolorado.com/ Mail to:canoe@canoecolorado.com Colorado Whitewater Assocation http://www.coloradowhitewater.org Nice area maps by Marek Uliasz of Mountain Wayfarer, photos and videos: http://biocycle.atmos.colostate.edu/~marek/archive/maps/s_platte_map4.jpg http://biocycle.atmos.colostate.edu/~marek/archive/maps/s_platte_map6.jpg http://www.frii.com/~uliasz/wayfarer/
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Updated 2004-mar-18, 11:00 am Maintained by:
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