Colorado: Day 3

Sunday was a free day and Kevin and I explored our river options. It was between Cache Poudre near Ft. Collins, or the Arkansas, a regional classic, in the south part of the state. We decided on Poudre because of its proximity; the Ark would have been at least a 2.5 hour commute each way.

Up in a canyon past Ft. Collins the scenery became more rugged with jagged rocks pointing skyward above the green slopes, pine trees and river below. We finally got to see a little of Colorado's natural beauty, not that it wasn't pretty around Golden, it was just a little more barren there. The water was on the high side of a medium flow, and we were told that the Narrows section would be obvious when we saw it.

It was. The first rapid just below a bridge looked like a lot of fun, with some fun sized drops and holes and lots of froth. Along the road above, we used almost every pullout to study the slots and drops from all angles. The middle one we decided would be unrunnable, but the other two might be. We didn't have any local knowledge so we had to be particularly calculating about this. One run was a really narrow slot with a boulder drop/rooster tail just afterwards that looked makeable on the left; the slot wasn't bad -- it was what was after it; how much did that rock stick up and would the hole afterwards flush. It would be okay if you had safety set up around the hole and also downriver to make sure you could eddy out before hitting the unrunnable rapid below. With only two of us, we decided to pass on these upper rapids.

Back to the lower one, and we looked at it harder from a lower perspective. Dark spots appeared where we hadn't noticed before. Rocks. Right after a big drop with a very small amount of time to make any correction or directional change. These rocks aren't smooth. They'd shred your wetsuit at the minimum. Kevin decided he had nothing to prove and I rather like my legs, so we agreed to just do a fun run on the upper Mishawaka to the bar, which was a nice class II-III 3 miler.

While Kevin went to park the car downstream, I got to thinking what would make this more interesting. We could race, and the loser buys the first round! A stop in Ft. Collins was already on the agenda, following the advice of a good friend who had lived in that town for 17 years. Kevin agreed, and our fun run turned into a battle for bragging rights and a brew. Unfortunately I'd decided to fully pad up, wearing gear I would never race in: thigh pads, hard shell knee pads, and a second 3 mil farmer.

Before we started I was almost laughing to myself so hard about what we were doing I couldn't take it seriously, but once we were in the water the race was on! We traded leads more times than movie stars get divorced. Each time he passed me, something would happen to slow him down. He surfed the top of a rock for a few seconds; he took a diversion in the river that ended up being slow and shallow; took the slower side of the river and had to fight back to the current. But each time he recovered. At one point Kevin was a good 50-60 feet behind me and I thought I had him. I relaxed just a little; I was tired and burdened with all that padding and neoprene. But I relaxed a little too much. Somehow he found the leg power to catch up during a flat section and pass me about 150 yards before the finish. 'How did you do that!' I asked. He didn't answer but kept charging, and earned every ounce of his Fat Tire.

The restaurant we hit was called the Rio Grande in Fort Collins. One thing I will say about Colorado towns, they really like their festivals. The first day we tried to find the whitewater park in Golden, we were diverted not only by road closures due to construction, but we couldn't park at the park because of some music and laser show event that evening. When we left town that same day, hundreds of folks had lined the streets to watch our little white rental car cruise by... (I couldn't resist waving) or was it for a parade happening later.. that would probably explain why earlier that day we'd seen a group of people spray painted gold from head to toe, and heard music coming from random and indistinguishable places. It appeared something was going on in Fort Collins as well, and parking wasn't easy to find.

The Rio had awesome mango margaritas but no free wireless, so afterwards we looked for a coffee house. We eventually found one near the car called Mugs. I ordered decaf which I am pretty sure wasn't, but the score of the day was their free bumper stickers that were a take-off of the Starbucks logo, and in writing, "Friends don't let friends drink corporate coffee", with the mermaid/woman thing in the middle a squinting-eyed frowny face. I have two on my car already.

We got some internetting done then headed back to Lafayette to prepare for the 3:45 am departure to catch airplanes. Idaho was just a couple days away. My schedule is insane. As I write this (Tuesday), I still feel sleep deprived (sure that was decaf??) although I had three seats together on both flight legs, which allowed enough sleep to let me get through a partial day at work on Monday. I catch a plane tomorrow afternoon to Boise. I am currently four points behind 1st place in the FLRC after last weekend, and if everyone on my Eddy Flower team posts all their runs, I have a serious shot at this championship. We'll just have to see what happens this weekend in Idaho.

At the Mishawaka put-in. Taken with a go-pro hero wide angle.