From The Denver Post (Jason Blevins):
That record-breaking snowpack — with the Colorado, Yampa and White river basins nearing 200 percent of their 30-year average and several others near 150 percent — harbors both a blessing and a curse for Colorado’s commercial rafting outfitters, who last year hosted more than 507,000 paddlers. When the weather warms, that initial surge of cascading snowmelt will certainly close stretches of steep and swollen rivers for commercial rafting and elevate the difficulty of traditionally mellower stretches. But that same bountiful snowpack also promises raging rafting deep into summer…
The last time the Eagle River ran deep into summer, in 2008 with the Colorado River Basin 146 percent of average in early June, the upper portion of the river hosted more than 4,300 commercial rafters. Last year, with a sudden early surge stealing all the flows and whittling the Colorado River basin to 57 percent of average in early June, the upper Eagle saw fewer than 1,100 commercial rafters.
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