Happy Earth Day

The rafting season is getting closer. Out on the river on a day like today would be great! And what a fantastic day it is. This is the warmest day yet this year.

Today I drove up the river to Coal Camp where the last set of rapids leaves the foothills. If there is snow and ice here there is plenty more ice upstream and at the higher elevations where we are rafting. With this much ice the river is a few weeks away from flowing enough to float a raft. A month until there are rapids.

The picture of the final rapid is no rapid at all! The build up of ice downstream of the rapid is causing the water to pile up and form a pool that obliterates the rapid.

And being Earth Day here is a picture taken of Cartier Creek, which was just begging to be taken reminding us how beautiful our planet is and that it is worth preserving. Let’s work at that year round.

We’ll be rafting in about 6 weeks.

The snow is just about gone here and around Sundre. When I look west though, those mountains  are white with  plenty of snow. In fact, there is about another month of snow yet to accumulate that will feed the run off on the Red Deer River.

We don’t know when we will be able to raft the river. That depends upon when we start to warm up in the mountains and a melt starts to happen. That is always delayed compared to what happens here on the parkland and on the prairies.

We will be out guide training early and scouting the river for new obstacles pre-season. The guides here at Otter Rafting Adventures have early season safety training and rope skills to hone. Sounds like some swimming in cold water!

Here is the chart of the snow pack now. There is about 20% more snow now than at it’s greatest depth last year. The blue line is heading off the chart!