Don’t know how many know of this but there’s a new takeout on the Colorado. It’s at Pearce Ferry at the mouth of the Grand Canyon. The reason for this is the serious rapids just downstream. With the low levels of Lake Mead the river is back and there’s a stretch of new river with three rapids. The first, Pearce Ferry, is being called the most dangerous on the river. There is a deathtrap in the middle. Currently the boat ramp is closed to launching to prevent powerboaters from launching and possibly being swept downstream. I talked to the ranger and he told me he has no problem with kayakers launching though. I suggested they create a paddlers launch site 100yds donwstream. They will consider it.
Photo of rapids last year. I hear they’ve gotten more radical.
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2649657970054112084DQhjRY
Lake Mead link.
http://www.nps.gov/lake/index.htm
Sounds similar to what happened when
Lake Powell dropped and allowed new erosion of silt/sand/gravel/rocks on the San Juan. For a while, there was a waterfall that couldn’t be run and couldn’t be portaged.
Your pictures seem to show bedded mud and loose rocks and gravel forming the rapids, which are probably quite impermanent.
Those Rapids Run Over A Rock
Ledge. There is a drop where the ledge cleaved creating a deathtrap near center-left. This run is nothing like what happened on the San Juan. All three rapids are over rock formations.
This photo is river right, same rapids.
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2088186520054112084ZfpObI
If you look carefully at the first photo you can see the drop on the left center of the rapids.
Another view of same.
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2649657970054112084DQhjRY
OK, if they’re rock based, at least
they won’t be wildly inconsistent.