Live in Buena Vista, CO and just got my new packraft, super excited! If anyone wants to meet up for quick excursions this spring and summer let me know. I’m a long time rafter/pseudo kayaker with plenty of river and rescue experience, on the other hand I’m slow’n down in my old age. So I’m sure I’ll gravitate towards class III with maybe a little class IV. I’m perfectly happy on flat water floats through beautiful places as well. I just recently started fly fishing and I’m totally addicted to that too so anything with potential fishing is great.
I just moved to colorado springs and im looking for people to go pack rafting with and find good spots to go. Ive done a lil rafting in alaska to include 16 miles on the keni river.
Welcome to Colorado! My little town of Buena Vista is about an hour and a half from there up in the hills. I’ll definitely be up for some trips if you’re ever game.
Couple things…
If you’ve never seen it, check out www.mountainbuzz.com. It’s a forum for all things related to floating down the river. I haven’t seen much ‘packraft’ specific stuff on there but they do get about a million times more traffic than this site seems to. It covers the entire country but was started in Colorado and definitely has a rocky mountains emphasis.
I’m planning on some sort of trip to the Dolores river May 12ish if you have any interest. Plan A is to do Slickrock to Bedrock, a super pretty 3 day float with a handful of easy class II/III. This would be more a traditional river trip, requiring a shuttle, but I plan to pack light and take my packraft. I still have to see what shuttle options I might have, especially if it’s just me. My other thought is to just park at the takeout and hike up as far as I can. There is an awesome looking side canyon about 3 miles up called La Sal creek. I have absolutely no idea if it ever has enough water to float, can’t find anything online so far. But there is a trail up it and some hiking reports/pictures make it look like it might be possible during runoff.