We ran our final Taos Box trip of the 2010 season on 6/23, as the water level in the Rio Grande had, by that time, dropped to 500 cfs. Below that level the Box is just too hard to negotiate. We will,of course, be offering all of our other trips for the remainder of the season, which ends on August 29. Being less steep and rocky, our other trips remain do-able at any level. With the lowered water level, the river water has warmed up (over 65 degrees), and we are bringing out our funyak fleet, which will add considerably to the excitement that can be had on the river.

Some of you know that we had a pretty good snowpack going, which normally would give us a Box season that would extend into July. What happened? We had a very windy Spring, and strong sustained winds cause the snowpack to evaporate directly off the surface. It’s called sublimation. We also had a period of early snowmelt, in April, when the river was running over 1000 cfs for quite a while. But we had very little Box (or any) business at that time. We would like to encourage you to consider doing the Box earlier in the year. Of course, it might snow on you, but so what – we give you wetsuits, after all!!!

So now, the Box returns to a quiet and remote locale, populated by the critters only. The Bighorn sheep will no longer have boats passing by to relieve the monotony of munching riverside grass all day …

Rio Grande Gorge High Bridge, which spans the Taos Box section of the Rio Grande river. And guide Neil O. Photo by Steve Miller

Just another day at the office for Neil, indisputably one of the best river guides out there.

At our 7th inning stretch, he demonstrates the correct handling of a friendly Bull Snake.

Neil gets a little air at the Wall Rapid.

The final drop in Pinball Rapid is loads of fun.

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Kathy and Steve's place on the Rio Grande

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I’m posting this photo so that those of you who have not had the opportunity to visit us can see the layout. We’re located at Mile 21 on Hwy 68, in the spread-out village of Embudo (“funnel” in Spanish), about equidistant from Espanola to the south and Taos to the northeast. Our more precise location is known as “La Bolsa” (the “pocket”, in Spanish), which consists of a few homes located between the highway and the river. Additionally, our place is located on the “Bosque” stretch of the river, which begins at the County Line (3 miles upstream of us, and the take-out for the Racecourse stretch), and concludes at the mouth of the Rio Grande Gorge, at Velarde (about 8 miles downstream of us). “Bosque”, in Spanish, translates to grove of trees, most usually cottonwoods in New Mexico and the name “Millers Landing” was bestowed on our piece of shoreline by the BLM, who regulate river use on the Rio.

This photo was taken on 10/20, as it began to rain. The storm (which is now clearing out) provided the first good snows of the season at the higher elevations, which includes Taos Ski Valley. They got at least 4” at the base, and our rafting colleague John Weinmeister has reported (on Facebook) that he and crew have begun snowmaking operations there. Yeah!

The New Wave gang that headed out to raft the Green through Canyonlands NP about 3 weeks ago returned last night. They had a great time, and saw a lot of fantabulous scenery. It was the first trip on that portion of the Green for all of them. The crew consisted of: Britt Huggins, our NWR Operations Manager (and contributor to this blog): Neil Oberheide, longtime NWR guide and nephew of Kathy Miller; Patrick and Jenni Chandler, who arrived back from their Honeymoon in Italy, Turkey, Greece and Egypt just the day before leaving on this trip (they are, respectively, NWR guide and NWR Office Manager); Jesse Mogler, NWR Rookie Guide of the Year and Sara his girlfriend. You can look forward to seeing a post from Britt on this trip, featuring his usual great photography. And, he was shooting his brand-new Nikon D 90!

Also, this morning, our friend Martha Clark Stewart and husband Thad arrived. She just got off a commercial Grand trip. She’s been a Grand Canyon guide for umpteen years, and before that, she, Kathy and I worked together for the Southwest Outward Bound School, in Santa Fe. We all did a Grand trip in 1979, which preceded (and perhaps led to) her decades-long career. Thad also was a Grand guide for many years. He had just arrived from a 3500-mile car trip from Haines, Alaska. They own and operate a Mexican food restaurant there, in the summer, called Mosey’s Cantina, and they came to New Mexico for the express purpose of buying a summer season’s worth of roasted green chile, peeling it (with the help of friends), freezing it and then, ultimately, driving it and themselves back to Haines for the summer season. Wow! They spend the winter in Springdale, Utah, at the mouth of Zion Canyon, where they own a home. They and friends will be camping with us for the next few days while they peel the chile.

Today, with the rains gone and the New Mexico sun back out., the Rio Grande Race Course was all about getting wet. With our new friends from Alamorgordo New Mexico and Neil as their river guide, it was time to have some white water fun on the boulder so appropriately named, Broach Rock. It’s all about catching the eddy, positioning the raft sideways on the boulder, then being ready to highside (moving to the rock side or the downstream of the raft ) as water pours over the upstream side and into the boat.

Catching the eddy.

Broadside to the boulder, they wait.

Oops, looks like a little more than a simple broach!

Yep, looks like Neil is headed for the highside!

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"