Rafting companies that offer guided trips on the Arkansas River are finding ways to navigate record-low water, smoke-filled skies and other challenges to what’s usually their best season.
It's a hot, clear blue sky day in Buena Vista about 90 miles west of Colorado Springs, but the faintest bit of smoke in the air from wildfires burning around Colorado and the West casts a haze over the views of the Collegiate Peaks, which tower over the river valley.
Sleepy dogs lounge around the Adventure Rafters’ property, while about a dozen adrenaline seekers try on puffy life jackets and get fitted with blue plastic helmets.
Next, they pile into an old school bus for a 30-minute bus ride to the river.
Once at the river, trip leader Cory Coker gives a brief lecture on staying safe, but he keeps it upbeat.
Then it's time to push off into the waters of the Arkansas River. Rocks that are usually unseen underwater are everywhere in the channel.
Under normal conditions, this location would serve as the take-out, the place where a regular Browns Canyon trip would usually end. But because the water is moving so slowly, and the section through the canyon has become so shallow and narrow, the commercial companies are limited in route options. Today it's a much shorter four-mile section below where this trip would typically go. It's just one of many adjustments companies have had to make after a historically low water year.
Four customers settle into the narrow raft, plus the guide. Prior to this summer, 13- and 14-foot rafts that hold up to eight customers comfortably were the standard.
“The owner bought these smaller 12-foot (long) rafts,” Coker says. “They're a little narrower so we're able to squeeze through some of these lower water lines.”
Rafting companies have pivoted to taking fewer customers per boat to help make navigating the many rocks easier, and that means they need more guides.
Buying a new fleet of boats, higher gas prices, and increased labor costs are all eating into the companies’ bottom lines.
The paddlers sit on the raft’s big side tubes and dig their feet underneath for stability. The guide takes his spot at the back of the raft.
Shortly into the trip. the value of the smaller rafts becomes apparent.
“There's just a rock up in every little spot, making it harder to get the raft through,” Coker says. He’s standing waist high in the river shoving the boat between two rocks.
Normally, Coker says, these rocks would be totally submerged. But this year is different from any other time Coker has rafted this section, which he's been doing for nearly 20 years.
“This is by far one of the lowest (flow) commercially run trips that I've ever been part of,” Coker says. “Usually this isn't the water level till December.”
June and July are when there is usually the most water in the river. On this day, it's running at around a tenth of what's normal.
The smooth gray granite boulders that line the canyon have chalky whitish water marks several feet above today's waterline.
“It kind of gives you an idea of where the water would've been this year if we got more snow,” Coker says.
The river’s more than 100 miles of white water, and rapids attract tourists from around the world. Summers typically generate around $60 million each year for commercial rafting companies. But now the low water has forced the industry into rough financial territory.
Brian Perkins of Texas says he's rafted this section before, in a season when the water brushed up against those white lines on the rocks, and large rafts could navigate down the river without a problem.
“There (were) more rapids and action constantly,” Perkins says of his previous trips through Brown’s Canyon.
Guides usually stay on board the raft, but on this trip Coker is constantly getting out of the boat into the river and pushing the craft off or in between rocks. His goal is to get to and through the first rapid, even if he has to walk and help the boat along.
“I'm just trying to keep you in the deeper portion of the water so we don't get stuck as easy,” Coker says.
Sometimes it feels like bumper cars as the raft ricochets from one rock to another. Other times it's like a wet and very scenic bounce house where guests intentionally rock up and down to help dislodge the boat from yet another rock.
The guests on this trip love it, like the Calderon family, from Florida.
Nine-year-old Charlotte Caldron, was hesitant about rafting before the trip. Now her laughter breaks through the sound of the turbulent water.
“She’s a convert,” her mother, Jackie Calderon, says.
The family is already planning a trip back, this time with some extra data, she says.
“For the first time I'll be looking at the winters in Colorado to see how the snow looks,” Jackie says.
The two-hour trip ends. Folks climb back onto the bus, tired and happy.
Coker says rafting is about a challenge, and making your way through different conditions – this year it's low water, next year it could be really difficult high water.
That's part of what draws Perkins to the outdoors.
“Attitude means everything,” he says. “You're out here for the scenery, and you're out here for the adventure.
Coker says he’s lived by a similar philosophy since he left the military.
“Improvise, adapt, overcome,” Coker says.
Back at the base camp, company owner Mark Hammer says he's not sure how long the season will be able to go, but they are taking it day by day.
Data on how the rafting industry fared this year isn't available yet, but in past extremely low water years, like 2002 and 2012, the number of commercial rafting trips dropped around 20-50 percent.
Meanwhile, there will be a bit more water in the Arkansas River this summer as an additional 814 million gallons will be released from upstream reservoirs to help sustain fish habitat. But even that amount isn’t likely to change the low water conditions rafters have to contend with.
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