Day 8: Brown's Canyon

We woke up after an excellent night’s sleep above Buena Vista and drove down into town for a great breakfast of Huevos Rancheros at the Evergreen Café in town and headed off to the Brown’s Canyon section of the Arkansas River. We had arranged to meet some friends of our friend Will at the takeout at 11:00am. We got to the takeout at the Stone Bridge at 10:30 am and Lindsey and Greg were there shortly after. We loaded into Lindsey and Greg’s truck and headed for the put-in. The put-in for this section is like Six Flags over the Arkansas. Here’s Lydia getting suited up amongst the crowds.

The level was around 2800 CFS and this was a great big water level without any big scary holes. We scouted the first major rapid, the infamous Zoom Flume.... Here's Lydia in the entrance paddling for the large curler in the meat of the rapid

And then crashing through the curler...

...And behind her was Greg

And last, getting pushed around in her EZ was Lindsey

Overall the run was a nice big water run with a few bigger rapids to pick the pace up. Lydia ran the largest of the rapids, Seidel's Suck Hole and had a great line. After finishing up the run we parted ways with Greg and Lindsey and headed for Durango, CO so we would be close to Mesa Verde for our next stop. Off to Mesa Verde and then Moab for some sweet slickrock action!