Poudre Loop below Fort Collins in Sisson Nucleus

Sat - July 2, 2005

Poudre Loop below Fort Collins in Sisson Nucleus

Environmental Learning Center, Fort Collins

June 18, 2005, Saturday. My first river paddling after Texas Water Safari. I took Sisson kayak to the Poudre Loop in the early afternoon. It was big water in the Poudre Canyon. However, below Fort Collins, the river showed a strong diurnal cycle: the highest water around noon and very low water during night.

The flow was only about 250cfs above Timnath, but I had a rather smooth paddling upstream without any obstacles or portages. I couldn't come very close to the dam because of the shallow water, so I had to do a long portage through tall grass and then along a trail in Environmental Learning Center. A population of mosquitos in tall weeds was thriving and I wouldn't survive without a heavy use of a repellant.

A passage around the old logjam below ELC was still clear, but a surprise was waiting for me a little further just above the confluence of two river arms: a big cottonwood tree just felt into water creating a new logjam. It required just a short portage on left. It may be possible to crawl under that tree but during my visit the tree looked still quite unstable. Good news: a dangerous strainer was eliminated at that spot.

It was a nice paddling and good workout, very likely the last one on the Poudre this year.

Posted at 02:23 PM

Wayfarer on paddling and photography

Sat - July 2, 2005

Poudre Loop below Fort Collins in Sisson Nucleus