As temperatures start to spike, the remaining snowpack from a historic winter season will melt and flow off mountainsides into rivers, streams and lakes around Utah.
Already on the flood watch for quite some time, the Weber River, a hot destination for summer river rafting in Summit County, is seeing its water levels soar.
But that isn’t stopping local rafting companies from embracing the higher, faster and more challenging waters.
“We don’t want to scare people away,” said Sean Myers, general manager of High Country Adventure rafting for the last 23 years. “People are calling up and asking ‘Are we going to die?’ No, these are still Class 1 and 2 rivers.”
While danger levels on Utah waterways will increase, Myers said he and much of his staff are excited to confront the water on the Weber.
“It’s high, it’s fast and we’ve been doing guide training. We think it’s fun. I look at it a little bit different. There’s normally a lot of rocks sticking out when the water is low, even when you’ve got a faster river and bigger rapids in normal years.
“This year, I think it’ll be easier.”
Bruce “Goose” Juhl of All Seasons Adventures, who has been working on the Weber for 10 years, said he has never seen the water this high or this fast at this time of the year.
“Last year, it got pretty high,” he said. “It was as high as it is now, last year, but I think it’s going to get higher.”
Juhl explained that water speed and flow in rivers is often measured in CFS (cubic feet per second). He said recently the water under a bridge near Henefer was measured at 1,800 CFS. To put that into perspective, Juhl said, typically in July and August, when the waters are, at the same spot, measuring in at about 400 to 500 CFS.
“I think if it gets much over 2,000 CFS, we’re not going to be able to make it under that bridge,” he said. “We might end up having to stop rafting until it goes back down.”
Juhl said there’s another bridge about halfway down Weber Canyon near the town of Croydon, an old train bridge two miles below the popular public put-in point near Henefer.
“Normally we go under that bridge, and right now we can almost go over it,” he said.
Added Myers: “It’s kind of a bummer, because that’s a mandatory portage. Unless you’re with a company that knows what it’s doing, there’s no way to get out.
Myers said a few weeks ago, when he was in the Croydon area, “people were digging across the river bed to make the river deeper there, so it had more room to flow underneath the bridge. Back in ’83, folks said water was rushing across that bridge.”
Juhl said the take-out ramp for most of the rafting companies is at Taggart, an exit off Interstate-84. He said one of the river’s biggest rapids just before the take-out point is swirling furiously at this point.
“It’s a big, fun wild ride,” Myers added. “It’s a lot different than 8 to 9 years ago when we hardly had any water going down.
“It’s just one big hit right now.”
Myers and Juhl, were both extremely complimentary of the Echo and Rockport reservoir water-management crews, saying they’ve done a phenomenal job releasing water in a timely fashion early in the spring to prevent an overabundance of water.
Myers said he and Juhl weren’t around to run the river back in 1983 when Northern Utah experienced massive flooding, but he said he is excited the levels are back up. Better to be a bit high than too low, he said.
“If the water gets too high on the Weber, there’s a lot more options with the Provo River, with the size of Jordanelle and Deer Creek,” he said. “It’s more controlled. If it ever gets to the point where we can’t take customers down the Weber, we can take them to the Provo.”
As for All Seasons Adventures, Juhl said if the water levels on the Weber get too high to raft, he and his staff may have to get creative.
“Theoretically, we might be able to go further up river, and not worry about bridges,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s the quality of the experience we’re looking for, though. Rather than putting out a substandard effort, we’d rather wait for the water to subside.”
Myers and Juhl both thanked Mother Nature when asked if the up-and-down temperatures have helped stabilize water levels somewhat. Myers said the weather “is just what the doctor ordered.”
“We’ve been fairly lucky in that it gets warm and cold,” Juhl said. “If it got up toward 80 (degrees) for two weeks, we’d have floods, no doubt about it.”
Myers said he is eager to get the summer season underway and is excited to see what kind of tricks the river throws his way.
“The main danger with our rivers is the cold water,” Myers said. “It goes a lot faster, the little rapids are a lot bigger, but it’s still not the Snake River, and it’s never going to be the Snake River.”
For info on rafting the Weber River, visit any one of the three local businesses’ websites: www.allseasonsadventures.com , www.highcountryrafting.com and www.dinoadv.com .