August water flows provide various explorations into the Rio Grande ecosystems. Frogs are prevalent along the Float and Race Course sections even though we have a resident Great Blue Heron who finds them a tasty treat. A select few become familar and allow teaching the fine art of “frog handling” to our younger guests.

Today’s activity:  AM Racecourse: 30, PM Racecourse: 15, No Wave Float: 6. Here are some photos from our AM Racecourse trip of today, 8/12/09. “After 5″ is our swimming hole, and “Sleeping Beauty” is a surfing hole, where the re-circulation of water below the drop holds a raft in place.

"After 5" swimming hole

Neil goes for the eddy at "Sleeping Beauty"

Patrick surfs "Sleeping Beauty"

Neil side-surfs "Sleeping Beauty"

I work in the office at New Wave. Every morning I come in to the office with the zeeps and buzzes of hummingbirds in my ears and the views of the mountains all around me. I return home in the evenings to my 12×14 tent in the New Wave orchard, where I can pick a fresh peach as a pre-dinner snack. I live here, and its great.

But all of these joys lose some of their glimmer when I compare them to the satisfaction of going for an evening dip in the Rio to watch the bats.

Bats descend on the Rio Grande each evening for a full belly of bugs.

By swimming to the center of the river and sitting so that my eyes are just above water level, I can see hundreds of bats dipping and diving through the air for insects.  Some bats pass within just a foot of my face.

For me, it is amazing to be surrounded by so many of these elusive creatures. As I scratch my mosquito bites, its also nice to know that a even a smallish bat colony can eat 2 tons of insects each night.

Very cool.

Pretty good day today – 23 on the AM Racecourse, 14 on the PM Racecourse, 8 on the Rio Grande Gorge and 10 on the Float. We’re expecting things to begin to quiet down soon, as kids go back to school.

Level today is 238 cfs. We could use some rain!

Here’s a photo of a very large bug, encountered along the riverside, which we believe is a crane fly, but it seems to be missing legs and antennae. Wikipedia says they’re fragile and lose body parts easily, and since the adult winged form dies immediately after mating, this guy may have been on his last legs. Or, it may be another bug altogether.

Cranefly?

266 cfs, today, and another bright and sunny day. Today we have 14 guests on the AM Racecourse half-day trip, 8 on the Rio Grande Gorge full-day trip, 7 on the New Wave No Wave half-day trip and 28 on the PM Racecourse half-day trip. There’s no better way to enjoy northern New Mexico in August than going rafting, and no better way to cool off!

For those of us that live on and live for the river, this end of summer low water time is good for more than just rafting and fishing. You also get an opportunity to take a close look at the river rocks – the skeleton of the river, so-to-speak. Many river rocks have been exotically sculpted and polished by the sediments that high water carries, and now they’re available for inspection. Here’s one example I photographed last evening, while out (you guessed it) fishing. Other rocks of interest are the ones that create the big holes and waves during high water. Here’s another photo I took yesterday. It’s of Taos Junction rapid, and “X” marks the rock that creates the hole that causes the most havoc.

"X" marks the rock that creates, at high water, the monstrous hole in Taos Junction rapid, on the Taos Box section of the Rio Grande river

As to yesterday evening’s fishing, there was no action until close to 8PM, when I drifted a #16 Elk Hair Caddis to the only rising fish I’d seen so far. He took it – a male brown trout of about 13″. Here’s a photo of that fish, after being returned to the water.

Brown trout, after being returned to the water, in the Orilla Verde section of the Rio Grande river, New Mexico

Pot-holed rock in the Orilla Verde section of the Rio Grande river, near Taos, New Mexico

It’s another sunny, beautiful morning along the Rio Grande – the river sparkles in the early light. Our kitchen, meanwhile, is overflowing with peaches.Yesterday Kathy picked about 60 lbs worth. And after the peaches are the nectarines, and finally the apples. When we bought our riverside plot, a small orchard came with it. Wow, what a miracle fruit is! Agriculture still stands, in my mind, as humankind’s crowning achievement…but too bad it’s led to overpopulation.

But how about water and the weather? Today the river is running at 281 cfs (see earlier post for an explanation of “cfs”) – down only a smidge from yesterday. And last night’s weather forecast informed us that the monsoon has weakened. We call late summer rains our  “monsoon”, after the weather phenomenon that brings prodigious seasonal flooding to the Indian subcontinent. It’s weak there this year as well. I was told that by a call center employee in India. So, while we can’t look forward to a rise in the river, we can look forward to more sunny skys. Be talking to you tomorrow, and, if you’re taking a trip with us anytime around now, stop by our office for a peach! As you’ll see by looking at “How To Find Us”, our office is located just 3 miles south of the County Line. Look for our sign just past the Mile 21 marker (coming from the south).

We think New Wave Rafting Co. goes the extra mile to give our customers the very best and informative trip they can get. We want every  New Wave trip to be especially memorable, and in ways that extend beyond just the whitewater thrills and spills. The following testifies to that:

From: David Arbuckle <arbuckles@sbcglobal.net>
Date: August 6, 2009 12:49:17 PM MDT
To: sales@newwaverafting.com
Subject: raft trip

Hi Millers,

I picked up your brochure at Tomasito’s in Santa Fe, while having lunch.  We decided right then to book a trip.  We were in NM visiting, my sister just had a baby.

We had the best time.  Neil was so knowledgeable on the river, plants, the boulder stories!  He made the trip especially memorable for our 7 year old son!  We can’t wait to come back and try a more difficult trip!

Spencer can’t wait for 2nd grade to start, so he can take the action pics that just arrived!  The trip turned out to be so much more than we had expected.  A huge thanks to Neil, we were so happy that we were in his boat!

See you again soon!

Sincerely,

Shanyn, David & Spencer Arbuckle
Frisco, Texas

Did I go fishing AGAIN last evening? Well, since my wife Kathy was still out of town (visiting the grandkids), you bet I did. I had no action until the sun fell behind the cliffs. I had changed from a Woolly Bugger to  a hopper pattern (Turk’s Tarantula) and, at one point,  was dragging it behind me as I waded upstream. Would you believe it? Right, a bass grabbed it – a nice chunky bass that fought hard. Fish grab dragged flies often enough to convince me that they can’t resist a moving fly, even a hopper doing what no hopper does naturally. Following that excitement, fish began to rise here and there. Those evening risers are usually brown trout, which often don’t bite at other times of the day. I put on a #16 Elk Hair Caddis, which serves as a good imitation of both mayflies and caddis. And there was a variety of both insect types flying around and riding the surface film. I cast to a rising fish and he (she?) took it. It was a beautifully-colored 9″ brown trout, which I slipped back into the water. As it got darker other browns began to leap out of the water, as they chased after insects. But they were out of casting range, so I called it a night.

Smallmouth bass caught in the Orilla Verde section of the Rio Grande river, near Taos, New Mexico

The water level dropped to 286 cfs today (see earlier post for explanation of “cfs”). That means our guides will have to work a little harder today, to avoid getting hung-up on rocks. The worst rocks have been named – such as “Velcro”, “Hemorrhoid” etc. You get the picture! Our Racecourse video says the river at approximately this level. It’s very entertaining.

Water levels continue their slow decline, which will be reversed only if our monsoon gathers more force. The water level today is 307 cubic feet/second (cfs). What is a cubic foot? Imagine it as a box that is 12x12x12. Now imagine the amount of water contained in 307 such boxes, passing you by (let’s say you’re hip deep in the river, just like Bill Gould in the accompanying photo) every second.

Bill Gould fishing in the Racecourse section of the Rio Grande river, near Taos, New Mexico, 8/4/09