Rio Grande
White Rock Canyon
May - June 2003

Larry and I met in Bernalillo and caravaned to the boat ramp at Cochiti Lake on Saturday morning. Larry tossed his stuff into my Jeep and we headed off to the put in. There was one other party setting up a small cataraft there, and they gave us the beta on the river: "Stay right at Ancho," they said - whatever that meant... We saw a coachwhip swimming in the river just before we set off downstream.

We got on the river at about 11:30 and cruised for a while. The beginning of this run flows well, losing about 10 feet in elevation over the first 4.5 miles. This makes for a pleasant float past Pajarito Springs (at about mile 3.3) where the rafters stopped for lunch and a dip in a pool. Then it's on to the first rapids (Class 2) at about mile 4.5. Larry and I flipped the canoe twice going through this rocky rill. We had to stop for a few minutes after that to dump and regroup.

The rafters passed us as we finished bailing the canoe and warned us again about Ancho Rapid. About 1.4 miles downstream of there we saw the rapid approaching. It didn't look like much from upstream, but we stopped at the confluence of Ancho Canyon and the Rio Grande to scout it out.

At 1100 cfs, this rapid is fairly technical. The advise to stay right was not good for the canoe. There are LOTS of sleepers (rocks not really visible - especially from upstream - but at the surface) on the right that a raft would roll over but that we would ram hard. The line was to the left, but after slipping past a large obstacle the current would have to be fought to get by another large one. After this the river swung right pretty sharply and there were a good number of rocks to avoid on the next stretch.

We walked the canoe around the rapid and set up camp.

Not long after this the raft we saw at the put in floated on by. The pilot of that raft hollered "Hello" and looked very glad he wouldn't have to execute a rescue. That evening, we hiked up the hill on our west to check out the view.

The next morning we packed up and got on our way. It was a nice pace in the morning; not too rushed. We got into the canoe and pretty much immediately flipped it. Of course we stopped so we could dump and bail out the water.
The remainder of the morning was quite pleasant. Cruising along in the calm waters with a nice current to keep us from stalling out. We eventually made it to the confluence of the Rio Grande and Frijoles Canyon - just a short hike up lies Bandalier National Monument. But we didn't go there. Just a quick stop and we continued on our way.

The last time I was though this part of the canyon I was in a raft that we had to keep pulling over sand bars. It was much nicer, and much quicker, to float it. We made good time before stopping for lunch. After eating, we took another hike to a spot overlooking a side canyon. We had a good view from here, and even saw some wild mustangs across the river.

Some dark clouds started to blow on by, so we decided to get moving. Eventually we saw a powerful thunderstorm rise over the rim of the canyon. We stopped to wait it out, huddling together just off shore under our panchos. After the storm passed we got back in the canoe and continued on our way. We kept hearing fast, turbulent water but we knew we were nearing the upper end of Cochiti Lake and there were no rapids approaching. We finally saw the source of some of the noise - a spectacular desert waterfall pour brown off the high cliffs.

These water falls were undoubtedly the highlight of the trip. The remainder of the trip was probably the lowlight of the trip. Winds were blowing across Cochiti Lake when we found its upper reaches. Waves were breaking higher than our gunwales in the middle of the lake. We wanted to bee-line across the lake to the take out, but the brutal conditions kept us hugging the shore. We finally made it to the boat ramp after a great deal of work. Then it was just loading up, shuttling to the put-in to pick up my Jeep, and heading home.