# Gates of Ladore @ 8000cfs



## whip (Oct 23, 2003)

Will Disaster and Hells Half Mille be tricky or washed in a raft?


----------



## earthNRG (Oct 24, 2003)

This is the THIRD thread talking about this in a week. Look here:

http://www.mountainbuzz.com/forums/f11/high-water-thru-lodore-36183.html


----------



## peernisse (Jun 1, 2011)

*No wash out*

Nothing in Lodore washes out. They get burlier. Enjoy!


----------



## bill (Oct 13, 2003)

Any beta for kayaking Gates of Ladore (June 8-11, 2011)?


----------



## earthNRG (Oct 24, 2003)

Just got off the run with my kayak on Sunday. If you're a solid class III boater you'll be fine above the confluence. After the Yampa comes in, you'll find big waves, big crashing laterals, boils, and whirlpools. Sometimes the boils and whirlpools show up in the middle of wave trains. I had to paddle upstream a fair bit to keep from out running the rafts in Split Mountain. You'll also find logs everywhere, some will be significantly larger than you in your kayak. The last day through Split I had the largest shit-eating grin I can remember having in my kayak.


----------



## whip (Oct 23, 2003)

Big water, fast women n hard liquor twas great


----------



## thunderbus (Dec 29, 2007)

Easy. Ran thru it on the 17th. Hell's half was a slow float down the middle. Nada was difficult. All was fun.


----------



## PaulPhillips (Jun 14, 2011)

thunderbus said:


> Easy. Ran thru it on the 17th. Hell's half was a slow float down the middle. Nada was difficult. All was fun.


Thunderbus--thanks for the info, 'cause we're agonizing on whether or not to take a group with some fairly inexperienced passengers launching on June 30th--never run Lodore at these levels (more like 1-2,000). Question: were flows 8800 for you? rafts or kayaks? Really no problems or bad holes in any of the big rapids in Lodore? Any other thoughts welcome--many thanks!


----------



## thunderbus (Dec 29, 2007)

PaulPhillips - I believe it was 8950 during our trip from the 16-19th. The water was moving quick so the float times to camps were short. We heard from other groups that there had been a flipped raft or two, but we also encountered a few groups with small kids.

Our groups had all rafts with a range of experience levels, and everyone did fine. We scouted Disaster and Hell's and got to watch another group float them. There were no "must make" moves, and despite the fast water, there was plenty of time to move around.

After the Yampa confluence, the rapids are big waves trains with plenty of room to get around. Eddie lines and random boils made me happier to be in my raft than the kayak, but i still didn't think anything was difficult.

Also, it looks like flows have dropped today (6/20)....

I'll post some pics and maybe some vids soon.


----------



## thunderbus (Dec 29, 2007)

Disaster and Hell's Half - full of water!


----------



## thunderbus (Dec 29, 2007)

Bring skeeter nets big enough for your entire kichen and you will be the hero. And a tip from a local gas station owner paid off. Get 98% DEET or above... 

Deep Woods Off was just like a marinade for those beasts.


----------



## Andy H. (Oct 13, 2003)

*Trip Report - Red Canyon, Browns Park, Lodore at high water*

Here's a trip report by Roy Webb, a veteran boater and river historian, reposted from the UtahRafters Group. I (unfortunately) was not on this trip and am merely reposting his account. 



> From: utahrafters On Behalf Of Roy Webb
> Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2011 10:03 PM
> To:
> Subject: [utahrafters] warning, long! Red Canyon, Browns Park, Lodore at high water
> ...


Continued...


----------



## Andy H. (Oct 13, 2003)

*Trip Report - Red Canyon, Browns Park, Lodore at high water*

Continued:



> But as soon as the boatmen got on shore they clustered about the flip-ee, who was favoring her arm. As it turned out, she had been pinned by her arm and in freeing it, had hyperextended her forearm and could not use it at all. As soon as I saw that I knew what it meant: I would have to run her boat through HHM. Now I've run HHM plenty of times but rarely with any water; the highest was once at 6000 but that was years and years ago. I was on the trip as historian, a supennumerary, and had not planned to run any big growling rapids. So while lunch was being made and the kids were being calmed down, I looked downstream and could see water flying in the air and hear it roaring, so I walked down to take a look. Such times, as all of you know, are real Zen experiences; your senses seem so alive and awake. So HHM looked a lot different; the huge boulders on the left, onto which I've clambered many times to look at the low water run, were islands in a huge surging current. Little Stinker, the pointed rock you have to avoid then, had a huge log stuck against it, fortuntately parallel with the current. On the right were three massive lateral waves, each one a sure flip if you were sideways. Below the river split around three islands, with the channel studded with barely submerged rocks. I saw right away there was a line right down the middle, just to the right of the top marker rocks (the outermost of which was barely out of the water). It led you onto the submerged rocks but that seemed better than flipping in the big waves. Then Holiday RivExp showed up, with Dee's son-in-law Kerry, and his granddaughter Lauren, and two other boatmen I didn't know. Kerry took one look and said "Powell it," or pull into the big waves. And that's what they did; they came to the left of the top marker rock, turned backwards and rowed like the devils straight into the big waves, each one crashing through each of them in turn, making identical runs; the last one caught the first big wave as it surged and it totally covered the boat, but they were set up for easy runs down the central channel. Then the private trip showed up and looked at it, then ran the line I had seen for successful runs. We thought to duplicate the Holiday runs, but one of our boatmen said, very perceptively, that if you blow that run you end up on the giant boulders on the left; if you blow the other, middle run you have some soft water to at least turn and hit the big waves straight.
> 
> So that's what we did. My daughter said "I'll go with you, Dad!" which was a great help on one hand and very scary on the other. We tightened every strap on that boat, which had been re-rigged after the flip, tightened our jackets to where we could barely breathe, and set off. I was the second boat. I got too far left in the entry and hit a pour-over above the giant boulders, but luckily that turned the boat perfectly so that I was set up to start pulling my wimpy academic guts out, into the big waves. One, pow! Two, boom! Three broke all the way over the boat, way over my head, but I had my oars in the water and was pulling for all I could, and made it past them. In that moment of intense exultation i stopped rowing for a second and just like that was on a big rock; but my daughter threw herself at the frame and started yanking for all she was worth, I got an oar in the water and we were soon off, hooting and hollering, all the way down to Rippling Brook, grabbing for an ABHHM beer (Alive Below Hells Half Mile!). As Powell said, our joy was sweet, our relief was great; "now the horizon was bounded only by the firmament."
> 
> ...


----------



## earthNRG (Oct 24, 2003)

Wow, that's a fantastic trip report. As for the waves in Moonshine being a "sure flip", I disagree. I ran the meat of those waves and had a blast in a kayak, a couple of rafts in our group did the same. I'm not talking about the hole at the bottom; that looks like it'd be quite the religious experience, even for an atheist like me.

Of the last pictures that were posted, the first looks like the last move of Triplet, not Upper Disaster. HHM looks like a blast at that level (we had 4,600 cfs).


----------



## DeeGardiner (Jun 18, 2009)

According to the Flaming Gorge forecast, today's drop in flow was for maintenance. It is supposed to go back up to 8900 "until further notice".

Thanks for posting the info. Unfortunately, our group canceled. It would have been fun to see the place with some water in it. Instead we are heading to the San Rafael Swell to run some small desert rivers that are usually dry.


----------



## phlexicon (Sep 14, 2009)

T-bus, did u enter left or center to get to th middle. just curious. ive never run th middle at higher water. th report below (roy webb via Andy H) indicates that u can. altho th Holiday group took th standard left entry.


----------



## thunderbus (Dec 29, 2007)

ooops. I incorrectly identified the left picture (with the raft). It is actualy shows the entrance to Triplet. Here is a look at Disaster... Lot's of water and lots of room to pick your line.


----------



## thunderbus (Dec 29, 2007)

phlexicon said:


> T-bus, did u enter left or center to get to th middle. just curious....
> 
> We all entered the rapid just right of some rocks at the top, and then rode the tongoue straight thru. I keep trying to post a vid.... maybe soon?


----------



## thunderbus (Dec 29, 2007)

Here are some vids from the rapids on our second day on the river. Triplet and Hell's washed out.

YouTube - ‪Green River - Hell's Half Mile at 8,950cfs‬‏
YouTube - ‪Green River - Triplet Falls at 8,950 cfs‬‏


----------

