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MWD to Host 2012 Annual Poudre River Clean Up

Join Mountain Whitewater Descents for their annual Cache la Poudre River Clean-up. With help from our co-sponsors Save the Poudre and the City of Fort Collins Natural Areas Program, we will clean all along the Poudre trail from Shields Street to Lemay Avenue, possibly further.

Clean-up meets Saturday, May 26, 2012 @ 9am and will last until noon. All you need is gloves, sunscreen & the desire to make a difference in our community. Meet @ Lee Martinez Park in the main parking lot. Any and all volunteers are welcome; please register at the check-in table prior to the cleanup.

New World Sports will provide bike trailers to haul the trash bags off the trail, and Gallegos Sanitation is donating trash & recycling bins for the event.

Please try to carpool or ride bikes to reduce parking congestion and to reduce the event’s carbon footprint. Also, make sure to dress for the weather. We will clean the river rain or shine!!

To say thanks to anyone who volunteers during the event, there will be a volunteer appreciation event held at Mountain Whitewater Descents after the cleanup. The event is going to begin at 12:30pm and will last until around 5:00pm. There will be FREE beer provided by Odell Brewing Company and FREE food provided by Backcountry Provision, Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant and LaPorte Pizza. Other refreshments will also be provided for those who are not of legal drinking age. This event is only open to those who volunteer, so make sure you register at the cleanup before you start.

Please contact MWD by email (contacts@raftmwd.com) if you would like more information on these organizations or would like to know how you can donate your time and money to help these organizations.

Why we paddle…

“Upstream, winter seemed immovable and eternal. Unbroken ice stretched northward; solid, silent, enduring. downstream, spring beckoned with motion, music and change. We turned our boats toward spring, chasing winter downstream.”- S.L. Reinke

“There is something you get out of paddling that you can’t get in any other sport. It’s finding the happy balance with an always changing force of nature, and it makes you feel very small yet powerful at the same time.” -Shannon Carroll

“Rivers have a way of enchanting us, of somehow prying into a nebulous pleasure center in our souls. I think it is a matter, largely, of earning the right to be enchanted. We care most deeply about rivers when we have invested a great deal of effort in working on them or have spent much time canoeing, kayaking, rafting, fishing, exploring, or observing them. As in any love affair, you get back only as much as you put in.” -Jerry Dennis

“Looking into a lake, an ocean, or a river is like looking into the night sky. Both water and sky are filled with mysteries, and when we stare deeply into them we connect with every man and woman who has ever sensed the tugging vitality of the universe” – Jerry Dennis

“No matter how good you are, and no matter how well you know a river, the river is always in control. All we can do is play as safely and responsibly as possible with the awesome and humbling power of whitewater.” -Ken Whiting

Rope Bags and Rope Safety

Rope Bags & Rope Safety

To put it simply, a rope bag is a bag filled with rope. Most commercially available rope bags are made from canvas, cotton or Cordura and range in size and shape. They will generally be made with bright colors and even reflective tape to ensure high visibility for the rescuer and the person being rescued.

In general, the ropes are made from a synthetic material that doesn’t lose its integrity when it gets wet. Max loads range from 950-2500+ lbs depending on the material and rope size.

There are bags designed to worn around your waist. NRS

There are bags designed to be clipped onto a D-ring on your raft. NRS

There are even bags designed to fit inside a small kayak. NRS

The rope bag toss is one of the guide’s best ways to get guests to safety. Anyone that may have to throw a rope should practice regularly. As with most things, the better prepared you are for a rope toss through practice, the better you will perform when someone’s life is on the other end. Lucky for us, there is a road alongside much of the Cache La Poudre River. This allows our bus drivers to stop at the bigger rapids during high water to add another set of hands to help with throwing ropes.

When using a rope bag, there are several factors to consider. If possible, you should set-up before the rescue to ensure the best success. Trying to gain eye contact with the person to whom you’re throwing a rope. Swimmers are more likely to grab a rope if they see it coming and can look for it. Yelling “ROPE” before throwing a rope bag can also help gain the swimmers attention.

Most bags are best thrown with an underhand grip, though there are some that are designed to be thrown overhand. In order to throw a rope, you must hold the loose end of the rope with your non-throwing hand and grasp the bag firmly with your throwing hand. As you throw and release the bag it is VERY important that you don’t let go of the loose end…that’s what you’ll use to pull the swimmer in. When you throw, yell “rope” and aim straight at the swimmer’s head. As you throw the rope, the rope will unravel from the bag.
If you manage to hit the swimmer in the head, you’ve made a great shot. Now the swimmer only has to grab the rope to be pulled in instead of swimming to it. Hold firmly to the rope and make sure your swimmer does the same. If they hold the rope over their shoulder while floating on their back with their feet pointed downstream, it will be easier on both you and them. You can tow the swimmer back to the boat or shore or pendulum them towards shore or another boat to allow them to climb out on their own.

Some things to keep in mind to make throwing ropes easier…

1. Make sure you have secure footing either on shore on the raft.

2. Having another person that can help back you up is a great idea. It’s nice to have someone that can help you pull the swimmer to safety and make sure you don’t get pulled into the river yourself.

3. Make sure you repack your rope bag properly after every time you use it to ensure easy unraveling and not a knotted mess.

4. Don’t release to early or too late.

5. If there are several of you with a rope to throw, don’t all throw at the same time. This will prevent potentially dangerous tangling of the ropes.

What’s In a Name

A History of the Cache La Poudre River by Morgan Mayo

Juniper and silver sage cascading down long red riverbanks. The shadow of spruce trees falling across dark water, flowing over lichen covered boulders, disappearing over drops and around bends in a tumult of white. Craggy grey canyon walls against a pale blue sky, all ablaze at sunset. Dark hills covered in ragged rocks. Lush grasses blowing in a summer wind beneath a ghostly white moon.

What do you call a place like that?

How do you give a wild river, flowing older than time, a name?

Today we call it the Cache La Poudre River. It begins in the peaks of the Rocky Mountains along the Continental Divide; winds its way through the Roosevelt National Forest, the city of Fort Collins and eventually merges with the South Platte River near Greeley, Colorado. It flows a total of 76 miles and drops 7,000 feet in the process.

“Cache La Poudre” is French for “where the powder is hidden”. The name came about when trappers for the American Fur Company were stranded in the canyon during a snowstorm. In order to lighten their load and make it to their destination in Wyoming; they had to bury much of their cargo including several barrels of gun powder. The next spring they returned and found that all their cargo was still intact, where they had hidden it.

But the Poudre has been a river of many different people and many different names throughout history. In the letters of a military captain and explorer stationed in the area in 1820, it is referred to as “Pateros Creek”. The Captain said it was named after a Frenchman who lost his way along the winding river and then wandered for twenty days without food.

In 1840, the river was also widely referred to as “Piteux” which is French for Piteous. It achieved this name after a band of French trappers left a young man behind to watch after their trap line over winter. When they returned the following spring they found the man wandering “piteously” along the banks of the river, his clothes in shreds, completely insane from the isolation of the canyon in winter.

And then there was “Mini Luzahan”. Perhaps the most accurate of all the names the river has worn throughout the years, it means “Swift Current” in Sioux.

If there is anything that all the names of the Poudre River have in common, it’s that they describe a place that is at once savage and beautiful, isolated and tranquil.

The words Poudre Canyon instantly inspire images of hidden trails meandering through meadows filled with wildflowers; spring snows melting into the quiet rush of a pristine river. However, for centuries the Canyon and the river have had utilitarian purposes beyond beauty.

Evidence of Native American settlement in the Canyon can be seen through the left over rock shelters, burial sites, and fire hearths nestled in hidden corridors near the river. Gold mining, logging, and railroad construction resulted in permanent settlements in Poudre Canyon in the mid-1800’s. Gold mining met with limited success, as ghost towns such as Manhattan and Old Poudre City continue to attest to today. Yet, there are whisperings that a 19th century bandit’s hoard of panned gold and stolen treasures still remains hidden in some shady grove deep within the Poudre Canyon. Imagine the happy hiker, climber or rafter that happens to stumble upon that secret.

In addition to failures in mining, efforts to construct a railroad track through the Canyon were also abandoned. However, many of the original railroad grades eventually served as a foundation during the construction of Highway 14, which continues to snake its way alongside the river today. The construction of this highway gave outdoor enthusiasts greater access to the area and private whitewater rafting trips on the Poudre became immensely popular in the 1950’s.

An important and special milestone in the Poudre River’s history occurred in 1986 when it was designated as Colorado’s first and only Wild and Scenic River. While 46 miles remain open for recreational use, 30 miles of the river are completely wild. In addition, certain restrictions limit the amount of rafting trips that are allowed to go down in a day. Thus, any rafting trip you take with Mountain Whitewater Descents ensures a level of peaceful isolation in nature and a total escape from the hectic, crowded daily grind.

The Poudre River has had a long, tumultuous and at times tragic history. Yet, the moment the shadow of those canyon walls falls across your shoulders it feels as though you’ve entered some furtive world where time stands still. You see a river wound round boulders as deeply as a vein pulsing blood through some pre-historic giant, whose sleeping form has been mistaken for mountains all these years. It is a Canyon torn between light and shadow, the quiet whisper of a breeze passing through the branches of a Cottonwood against the loud crashing cacophony of swirling rapids. It is a place for lost people, lost secrets and lost treasures. Let Mountain Whitewater Descents introduce you to this un-spoilt world so that you can re-discover them.

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El Nino brings snow

El Nino has been bringing snow to the mountains in giant blizzards. The skiing is great and soon the rafting will be excellent as that snow melts its way into the Cache La Poudre River near Fort Collins, Colorado.

2010 brings new trips

We will be including some new multiday trips down the Cache La Poudre River. A two day trip from upper Rustic down through the bridges section make for one of the longest 2-day trips around. We are also now offering one and two week trips to Panama