# Low Water Gates of Lodore?



## raferguson1 (Feb 13, 2007)

The current flow is below 800 cfs. Looking back at the last 90 days, it seems pretty consistent, mostly below 1000 cfs, with brief peaks above 1000 cfs due to power demand. This is near historic lows for this date.

The Dinosaur river office says that the minimum flow is 1000 cfs for rafts, 700 cfs for Canoes and kayaks. Does that sound right to you?

Flaming gorge reservoir reports that they are 83% full, but inflows are low. Their web site does not contain a forecast of flows, as far as I can tell. 

I have a launch date of August 25th. Our group at the moment is mixed, canoes, IKs, and rafts.

Should I be pushing the rafts to back out of the trip? I do not have a good sense of the level of skill of the rafters on my trip.

Richard


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## B4otter (Apr 20, 2009)

Commercials run 18' boats at 800-850 w/no issues (well, they do carry repair kits). Below 800 you might want to stay with 14-16' rafts (inflated soft) and keep your loads reasonable but there's no reason to ban rafts.


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## Riverwild (Jun 19, 2015)

I'm pretty sure 800 cfs is base flow, as in it won't go below that. You will be fine, Lower Disaster is a little boney, but that's about it. Everything else is pretty straight forward.


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## zoemaster (May 1, 2012)

We ran it at 850 earlier this year and it was boney but doable. Make sure you know how to unpin a boat. Two other groups launched with us (one commercial) and had pins that took them ~2 hours to deal with in lower disaster. We also had a friend launch a few days later and they had multiple pinned boats in lower disaster. The entrance to triplet is also incredibly boney at these levels. Our largest raft was a 10.5 ft Hyside and I was thankful for that!


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