{"id":17223,"date":"2018-08-10T15:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T22:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=17223"},"modified":"2018-08-20T15:47:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T22:47:55","slug":"a-two-river-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2018\/08\/10\/a-two-river-town\/","title":{"rendered":"A Two-River Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

Glenwood Springs is a city at the confluence of two classic mountain rivers, the Roaring Fork and the Colorado, each boasting seasonal, mild-to-wild, year-round runs. Easy to access, travelers can find their way into Glenwood via I-70, coming up from the east and Denver, or from the red rocks of Utah and Moab to the west. Highway 82 shoots down to the ever trendy Aspen scene and then over stunning Independence Pass for another kind of adventure. Cultures mesh in Glenwood, as a growing outdoor recreation crowd, seeking rivers, trails and rocks, meets a strong, proudly represented Old West ranching and mining history. And tourists from all over the world come to soak in the natural hot springs from which the town originally took its name and fame. Raft, SUP, climb, hike, camp, fish, mountain bike, steep in the hot springs or soak in the local history\u2014in G-wood, you can only be bored by choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

The diversity of paddling offered throughout the year is what makes the rivers near Glenwood unique. Although be warned that the high water season can get things really roaring with the Colorado river averaging 20,000 cfs during runoff and the tranquil Roaring Fork river ripping icy<\/span>, cold and fast around 8,000. <\/span><\/p>\n

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A few minutes east of town, deep in the beautiful Glenwood Canyon, with towering walls of limestone layers and granite bedrock on either side, the Colorado river crashes over the Shoshone Dam into some gnarly Class V rapids known collectively as Death Falls, with Upper and Lower Death, and the slightly less terrifying, Life after Death. Runnable only by highly skilled kayakers or very stupid Kreature Krafters, these rapids are short and intense. Below them, the quarter-mile-long Barrell Springs rapid pummels along at high water, rating expert-only until mid or late summer when the water diverts through the old Shoshone Power Plant and it becomes a creek through boulders. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But below the heavy hitters is a juicy little section of III and IV\u2019s called Shoshone Rapids. The main attraction for most boaters, this mile-and-a-half section is a splashy, technical garden of surf-waves, rock-dodging, and standing wave trains dotted with a few holes. At high water, the flow is fast and dangerous, and at any time of the year, an unsuspecting boater can get hung on a rock or swamped by an eddy line, so run it with a local first or scout it thoroughly from the paved bike trail that runs the length of the canyon. All Day Wave is on river left for the kayakers about half-way down.<\/span><\/p>\n