Pumphouse on the Colorado River

Date: Saturday, see the calendar for this year's date
Rating: Class II/II+
Short Description courtesy of Steve Cassells: "Join us on a nice cruise on a Class II/II+ trip through beautiful mountain scenery. Even the drive is pretty. There is enough whitewater to keep your attention and enough flat water to be able to enjoy the views and look for wildlife. A couple of pleasant surprises await first timers. Stay overnight to enjoy the mountain air and Poudre Paddler nightlife. Paddlers may choose to paddle either Saturday, Sunday, or both days. Sunday we will paddle the Blue starting at Green Mountain Reservoir. The Blue is a class III float."

Directions to Pumphouse: Trough Road intersects highway 9 just south of Kremmling, Colorado. Go west on Trough Road. Trough Road is also labeled as County Road 1. Take Trough Road about 10 miles and take the turn off for the Pumphouse Campground. The put-in is at the #2 boat ramp, which is near the campground. There are three boat ramps at Pumphouse, so go to the middle one near the campground. Driving from Fort Collins via I-70 takes about 3-3 1/2 hours depending on traffic. Some paddlers will probably drive up Friday and camp at Pumphouse. There is a camping fee.

9:00 am Saturday. Unload your boat at the put-in. Then drive the shuttle. Drive back to Trough Road and follow it south (right turn) . Go to the take-out at Yarmony Bridge. Yarmony Bridge comes after Rancho del Rio and is hard to miss as it crosses the river.

Distance. The float is around 12-14 miles to Yarmony Bridge. It takes around 5 hours assuming a stop at the hot springs and a stop for lunch.

Rapids. There are two named rapids. The Eye of the Needle comes first when you enter the canyon. Go to the right of the big rock that sticks up in the middle of the river. Then look ahead and dodge rocks and avoid walls. There is no good place to scout this rapid and scouting really isn't necessary. There are a few rocks and this continues about a 1/4 of a mile. At 1500 cfs, the waves are larger, but there are fewer rocks. The second rapid is the Yarmony Rapid. It occurs after the Radium Bridge. We will scout the rapid by stopping in the eddy before it on river left. To run it, you enter on the tongue on the left and then work across to the right about mid-way down, then stay to the right of the big wave at the bottom. The rapids are not too difficult, being Class II at 1000 cfs and class II+ at 1500 cfs.

List of Items along the River

  1. Start at Pumphouse Campground, Boat Launch #2
  2. Eye of the Needle rapids about 1 mile from the putin.
  3. Hot Springs and Cabin. They are about a mile after the Eye. Following the Eye is another series of mild rapids, ending with a hard left turn (avoid the wall on the right), and just below that is the old log cabin on the left (good pull-out to see if people want to. Then another short rock garden with a tricky pour-over in the middle of the rapid at the bottom. Then it mellows out, and the springs are on the left in a narrow spot with vertical wall just above it. I've never seen it totally unoccupied (would be nice). Across from the hot springs is a cliff that you can climb and jump into the river, if you are so inclined.
  4. Lunch. Take a sack lunch along with all the other items you need to be on the river for several hours. We will stop along the way to eat lunch. We can stop at the Radium campground or several other sites. The picnic groundsite with outhouse on the right is about a mile below the hot springs. There are about 4 picnic spots along there (all on left), if not occupied. Then the Radium campground is on the left after the Radium bridge. No other formal picnic spots exist until below Yarmony Rapids - and there are about 4 or 5 over the next mile below that rapid.
  5. Bridge at Radium
  6. Radium Campground
  7. Yarmony Rapids
  8. Dinosaur Tracks near Rancho Del Rio, on river right, across from really large picnic table on river left.
  9. Yarmony Bridge take-out

Food: You will need a sack lunch to take on the Pumphouse run and another one for the Blue. On both floats, we stop and have lunch. The other meals are prepared near the cars at the campgrounds. There are no restaurants nearby. We are about 15 miles from Kremmling on gravel roads.

Host: see the calendar at poudrepaddlers.org for the host information