Colorado rivers are peaking — and so are drownings (2024)

Anyone who’s driven Interstate 70 west of Glenwood Canyon recently knows. The Colorado River is extraordinarily high right now as warm temperatures spike the spring runoff.

The high flows — nearly 18,000 cubic feet per second below Glenwood Canyon — are buoyed even more this month by a coordinated release from a half-dozen reservoirs across the Western Slope. The Coordinated Reservoir Operations program deploys sustained, not-quite-flood-stage flows through the second week of June to help endangered fish along the 15 Mile Reach of the Colorado River as it traverses the Grand Valley upstream of Grand Junction.

The Coordinated Reservoir Operations program dates back to 1995, with the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Denver Water, the Colorado River Water Conservation District, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and Colorado Springs Utilities — as well as water users, energy companies and irrigation groups — working together as part of the federal Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.

The hope is that the near doubling of releases from reservoirs for two to 10 days will benefit four endangered species including the Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, razorback sucker and bonytail chub in the Colorado River below Palisade in the Grand Valley. It’s the first time since 2020 that the program has increased flows out of Green Mountain Reservoir (400 cfs to 1,500 cfs), Lake Granby (240 cfs to 400 cfs), Williams Fork Reservoir (600 cfs to 950 cfs), Ruedi Reservoir (230 cfs to 650 cfs) and Wolford Mountain Reservoir (490 cfs to 550 cfs). Other reservoirs are not filling as part of the coordinated flows.

The coordinated release has thrilled whitewater paddlers. For the first time in several years the fleeting Big Sur wave — a rare phenomenon above a long-destroyed dam on the Colorado River upstream of the Cameo Diversion Dam — has emerged from the murky flows to draw stand-up river surfers and kayakers. The glassy surf wave at Big Sur only forms when the river hits 20,000 cfs in DeBeque Canyon.

And, more grimly, the warm temperatures hastening snowmelt and river flows have spiked drownings. Local officials across the state have imposed temporary closures on several rivers as peak flows create dangerous conditions for river users. A stretch of the Gunnison River is closed below Almont and access to the Arkansas River below Pueblo Dam was restricted until Thursday because of high flows and frigid temperatures. Boulder County last week closed sections of the North St. Vrain and St. Vrain creeks to tubing.

Flows on the Upper Arkansas River — including the most-paddled stretch of whitewater in the country, between Granite and Cañon City — are reaching 40-year highs. The high flows have prodded Salida officials to warn surfers about the city’s heralded Scout Wave, a surf feature that ranks as one of the top river surfing waves in the country. The high flows on the Arkansas River have canceled some of the on-water events at this weekend’s FIBArk festival in Salida.The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday closed Boulder Creek to tubing in the city as flows topped 700 cfs.

Since late March, there have been at least 18 water deaths in Colorado, including nine drownings in reservoirs and nine deaths in swollen rivers. (One man remains missing after his raft capsized June 2 on the Upper Colorado River below the Pumphouse Recreation Area.) At least six of the fatalities involved people recreating on the water without personal floatation devices, or PFDs. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials counted 32 water-related fatalities last year, down from a record-high of 42 in 2022.

CPW officials have been sounding the alarm about water safety and PFDs in the past couple weeks as temperatures drive more folks into the water and river flows peak.

“We have added signs at the entrances of our parks, and many state parks have loaner life jacket stations,” said Kara Van Hoose, a CPW spokesperson. “We’re trying to talk about life jackets and water safety on our social media channels and interviews as much as possible.”

Early Wednesday rescue teams in Otero County launched a search for a missing 19-year man in the Arkansas River north of La Junta.

“This is also a reminder that this time of year the river is running high and much faster than it appears and is clearly dangerous,” Otero County Sheriff Shawn Mobley wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday, “so I am putting out the message again this year that for your safety and ours, to please stay out of the damned river!”