HikeArizona.COM

Insane river data right now, and this is only the beginning?

Verde below Tangle Creek, 29,500
Tonto Creek above Gun Creek, 32,000
Agua Fria River, 21,000
Cherry Creek, 6,000
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/az/nwis/current/?type=flow

@big_load
From the LCR and I'd say, probably some lesser creeks as well. The last couple days of work, I went to Diamond Creek on Monday, and to Lees Ferry on Tuesday. River at Diamond was pretty muddy, due mostly to LCR, but it was fairly green at Navajo Bridge the next day, because the Paria has gone way down. And of course, I drove over the LCR bridge at Cameron coming and going. Nice to see the river running, but of course, my bus/rafting passengers would like to see the blue water at LCR confluence. I am going rafting in October, so maybe it'll be dry by then!

@azbackpackr
Another thing that surprised us is how few raft groups we saw compared to the same week in prior years. We couldn't come up with a plausible hypothesis for that.

@big_load
This was in April? I think it's luck of the draw. I've noticed when I'm on river trips that groups tend to bunch up. I've been down to the river on backpacking trips during the rafting season and didn't see a single one. They don't camp together, though. Where were you at the river? I looked at your page but I didn't see anything posted recently.

So that's the only explanation for why you didn't see very many, that they bunch up. I think this starts to happen when scouting big rapids, and then just continues on.

As a matter of fact, the Park Service is issuing extra permits for both privates and commercials this year, as they did the last 2 years. Next year they will go back to a regular number of permits and user days. The reason is that people lost so much during the covid summer of 2020. Private boaters lost their trips during the closure. Even after the river opened up at the end of June that year, commercial business was down about 60%, because they lost all the Europeans, and also because people were fearful of going, or fearful of getting on an airplane. And it was the same with the privates. A lot of them canceled or had to cancel. If they were forced to cancel then they were given priority in the following years.

But next year the number of launches, both commercial and private, and the number of user days will go back to more like it was before the covid.