Now that the mountaintops in the Rockies are slowly becoming snow covered, the rivers in Colorado are dwindling out on their last leg. Although most people in Colorado are beyond excited to pull their skis and snowboards out of storage, it truly is a sad time for us river rats. Since the water in the mountains is freezing, our lower elevation rivers are slowly fizzing out. For our river guides this is the start of a transition to either snow sports or a migration to where the water still flows.
During the winter months our guide staff splits almost in half with part of the group seeking raging rivers while the other group settles in for the long winter. Our senior staff seems to split almost 50/50, with half of the staff heading down to the Gauley in West Virgina, the Rio in Texas and some staff heading South America where the water is always warm. The other half of the staff seems to spread out over the west’s pristine ski resorts, with job ranging between Head Ski Patroller to Snow Making to Cat Tour Operator. Some of these guides such as Chris Baer use this time to explore the worlds lesser known rivers in his kayak continuing his professional career. While Baer may be on the water for a majority of his “winter”, another one of our guides, Miles, will be helping out the guests of Monarch Mountain safely shred the slopes as a Senior Staff Member of the Monarch Ski Patrol crew.
For more information on the trips our guides staff and their levels of expertise feel free to give us a call at 800-370-0581. I hope everyone had a great whitewater season as it was definitely one for the books and we hope to see you again when the weather begins to warm!
