The main reservoir release gate will be reduced to 65 cfs, and the fish hatchery will remain at 5 cfs today, Thursday, April 11, 2024.
Sixx is out of play…. Did check Sixx late yesterday evening, looked surfable despite the triangles not covered. See the pic below. Not sure why Chatfield is releasing just below a good surfable flow. I looked at the farmer calls for water and not much if any are in need of irrigation water just yet. Just hypothesizing from looking at the data sheet I get from the water managers on water allocations, possibly the water managers are hedging their bet to avoid a repeat of last year of a heavy spring storm with a strong melt-off of the snowpack that over flooded Chatfield Reservoir. Our snowpack currently is over 100% and Chatfield is basically at full level, so all that needs to happen is another mid-latitude cyclone heavy rain storm like we had last May and it will be a free for all early high stage river season in the S Platte. Kind-of setting up for a potential good surf season at RRP… Though, sure wish we had a recreation flow policy out of Chatfield, imagine holding back flow to like 30 cfs at night and then kick it back in at 150cfs during the day, that would give us lunch and afterwork surf. Pipe dreaming.
Beavers and 16th will be low flow surfable. Daves is surfable…
Read up below on Pueblo’s New Wave test yesterday and a Scout update….
Pueblo’s New Wave Tested and Failed: Don’t think this was in the plans by the contractors working on finishing off the whitewater park that removed the deadly low-head diversion damn, but the Pueblo Reservoir dropped some significant flow below from the dam yesterday at like 900cfs. Not sure why they are dropping so much water, maybe Mother Nature has filled up their reservoir as well? One of the local surfers went down to take a look at the New Wave and sadly it was blown out!?!
Here is a screen grab of the video taken of Pueblo’s New Wave yesterday; but as you can see, the water is spilling over the rock edges that should be directing the water into the wave channel. Also the wave is crumbly but that might be due to the fact that the back pool has not been completed yet (or at least we hope it has not been completed yet).
Unfortunately, it has become commonplace for these whitewater park builds nationwide that the river surfing public is kept in the blind on designs and project updates. We are crossing our fingers that Pueblo’s New Wave doesn’t turn out to be a dud like what was built at the Ft. Collins whitewater park and many other bunk “piece of suck” whitewater parks at the cost of millions upon millions of dollars for each that are not surfable. Come on Pueblo, build it and we will come and spend $$$ in your town surfing a quality new wave!!!
Scout 3.0 Surfable or Not???: Again, no announcements on the status of Scout to the surfing community. Why?…..
From the grainy and often wind shaking web cam pointed at Scout (that needs to be augmented with another closer cam), it looks like the construction is complete. Mike’s team did what looks like an awesome job of replacing the sandbags with cemented in rocks, widened the back pool, calmed the wild eddy, and fixed the river edges.
Right now Scout is surfing low flow and rides like a wide version Sixx at 120cfs, if even that good. Look for the flow to kick in shortly and then Scout will be tested to see how the fish ladder that was widened as a deep channel boat chute will impact the wave…
Fingers crossed that we see a return of the big green wave that Scout 2.0 produced with the sandbags in place. Hopefully Scout 3.0 produces a similar wave as last summer. Judge for yourself by lurking (looking) at Scout 3.0 on the cam pointed at it from the mountain top: https://www.coloradowebcam.net/camera/salida-co-lower-wave-arkansas-river-zoom-tenderfoot-mt
Pray for surf, or better yet demand surf by advocating for it because these wave parks are built with our tax dollars be it sales tax, lodging taxes, or other taxes and fees that are allocated to parks that originated from dollars out of our pockets.
LBK
The Denver Surf Report 