Three-4-Thursday

Rio Chama 2012 - Aragon Rapid

Our second day on the river was a layover day at the Aragon campsite.  Eight of us hiked up Aragon Springs Trail to the end of the box canyon.  While I continued up Aragon Canyon above the pourover (and beyond), three of our adventurers were making a practice run through Aragon Rapid in their empty boats.  We would be heading down the river the following day in our fully-loaded craft, and they were checking out the feasibility of running the rapid rather than portaging their gear and kayaks.  Or, more likely, at least in Steve's case, just wanting to enjoy the challenge more than once.  Thanks to Larry for these three photographs.  As described in my December 20 post, which shows Mike running the rapid, a fallen piece of the cliff face had drastically changed the rapid's character since our trip the previous year.  The new boulder can be seen to Steve's left in the photo above.

 

Unlike most of our group, Steve ran the meat of the rapid.  The photo above shows him dropping into the large hole at the bottom of this wild section of the rapid.

 

All is well as Steve's kayak resurfaces and exits the hole.  As seen in my New Year's day post, Steve filmed himself running the rapid the day after this trail run.  He made it look easy.