Dry Run: Rafting the Dolores River

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Outside Magazine, June 2004

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Dry Run on the River of Sorrows
The Dolores used to be one of the mightiest whitewater rivers in the West. Then politics and dry weather got in the way. But neither drought nor dam nor partisan bickering can stop Mark Sundeen from floating (and walking and driving) the entire course of the Rio de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.

By Mark Sundeen


	End of the run: the depleted current of the Dolores slides near Bedrock, in southern Colorado. (James Fee)

Wind gusts swept over the government-regulation picnic tables and, from inside a distant outhouse, something rattled. A sign optimistically announcing "Rules for River Runners" flexed in the wind, lonely and unread.

Dolores Audio Slideshow

Click here to see more of James Fee's spectacular Dolores River images and hear the famed photographer discuss his work.

A black cat appeared and wandered toward me, trying to get in my truck. Even though it was April, when rafting usually begins on Colorado's Dolores River, the Bradfield Bridge launch was empty.

In theory, a ten-day float on the Dolores is one of America's great river trips. By the time it reaches its confluence with the Colorado River—171 miles in all—the Class IV rapids, awesome canyons, and solitude put the Dolores up there with the Grand Canyon and the Middle Fork of the Salmon.

Eleven years ago, the Dolores was my first canyon, part of a guide-training course that kicked off right here, about 12 miles west of McPhee Dam. I remember paddling—in a blizzard, terrified—down Class IV Snaggletooth Rapid, where the cold, green water tends to wrap rafts around Snag Rock. The other trainees ran the rapid again and again; I pitched a tent and crawled into my sleeping bag. That I flunked the course is beside the point. What mattered was that the Dolores River was the start of a long stint as a river guide, and now I wanted to run it again.

But as the stray cat followed me from the truck, I saw only a delicate stream bubbling between piles of pebbles. The Dolores could not float a boat.

The cat looked at me with scorn, as if to say, What did you expect? It was 2003, the fourth year of one of the worst droughts in the recorded history of Colorado, the sort of conditions that must have sent the Anasazi packing. Crops were withering, cattle were dying, and the river that once sculpted canyons was a trickle. Almost every drop behind the dam was allocated, and there would be no releases for river runners. A paltry 17 cubic feet of water per second was dribbling out of McPhee Reservoir that day, about 2 percent of what's required for a raft, and 8 percent of what a kayak needs. This once bustling boat ramp was now a place where people abandoned their pets.

I distracted the animal with a handful of dog chow, crept to my truck, and spun out of there. I wasn't afraid of a black cat in my path. I had a journey to complete.

I was going to run the Dolores River, come hell or, um, low water.

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MARK SUNDEEN is the author of two novels, Car Camping (HarperCollins) and The Making of Toro (Simon & Schuster), a finalist for the 2003 Utah Book Award. This is his first story for Outside.

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