With these nice days I am getting inquires from people wanting to get out on the river.
What about this weekend?
Sorry - it is a little early yet. The river is opening up in the lowest sections. Just a bar of ice on each bank with open water flowing in the middle of the river. It is still quite low yet. If we went on the river it wouldn't be any fun now. We would have to put wheels on the raft!
Notice the ice on the rock in the middle of the picture!! That says cold.
It will be a bit of time yet before we are on the river.
Friday, April 17, 2015
.Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Nice Weather Ahead - Book Now!
Time is ticking away getting closer to the start of the rafting season. It will be here before we know it. I'm really looking forward to it just like every spring. Nothing beats the feeling of freedom floating down the river. Add some rapids and your senses are heightened to what it is like to be out in nature.
With the next week full of sunny, warmish days the phone is starting to ring with people making their reservations for their day rafting on the river. We have plenty of openings left - as of today! Remember we have limited seating - Saturdays are our busiest days so you should be booking soon. But there is also Sunday and midweek trips available.
Have you thought of a midweek trip? We have some discounted rates. The perfect team building outing for corporations.
Here is a great picture. Makes you wonder what happened next? Bet they had tons of FUN!
With the next week full of sunny, warmish days the phone is starting to ring with people making their reservations for their day rafting on the river. We have plenty of openings left - as of today! Remember we have limited seating - Saturdays are our busiest days so you should be booking soon. But there is also Sunday and midweek trips available.
Have you thought of a midweek trip? We have some discounted rates. The perfect team building outing for corporations.
Here is a great picture. Makes you wonder what happened next? Bet they had tons of FUN!
Thursday, April 9, 2015
When do we start rafting?
How soon? The answer is always – that depends.
The Red Deer River is a wonderful river for rafting on. It is called a “wild river” which is a river which is not dam controlled. In the quest for cheap energy these types of rivers are at risk of being lost.
The amount of water in the river varies with the depth of the snow pack as well as rainfall. When it warms up in the mountains the melt occurs and the rivers start to swell.
Here in the parkland of Alberta we have lost all our snow but we can see it west of Sundre on the mountains. Depending on when it warms up at those higher altitudes we will get our stream flow.
Usually the river is flowing by the long weekend in May or the weekend after. At this time we have enough water in the river to float our rafts and there can be some sizable rapids. From this time on the flow rate of the river builds up until about the third week in June. Then we are melting the snow in the wide mountain valleys and passes where there is a lot of expanse of land, and snow.
As the day temperatures continue to warm up, snow is disappearing in the lower regions and the snow melts at higher and higher elevations. Here the total land area decreases as we climb up toward the narrowing peaks such that the flow rate of the river is slowly dropping.
Along with this process of melt contributing toward the amount of water in the river add on the rainfall. Whether it be cold or warm temperatures, a good rain in May or June can be a heavy wet snowfall that accumulates in the colder mountains or if it is warm rain it speeds up the snow melting process. The river flow rate in June is very unpredictable and can vary in amount wildly.
With the factors of amount of snow, rate of melt, temperature, elevations and warm or cool precipitations, which can be rain or snow, we can only guess at when the season starts and when the most water will be in the river.
I hope that a lot of the factors are in favour of water in the river come this long weekend in May; maybe we can get out paddling... depending.
The Red Deer River is a wonderful river for rafting on. It is called a “wild river” which is a river which is not dam controlled. In the quest for cheap energy these types of rivers are at risk of being lost.
The amount of water in the river varies with the depth of the snow pack as well as rainfall. When it warms up in the mountains the melt occurs and the rivers start to swell.
Here in the parkland of Alberta we have lost all our snow but we can see it west of Sundre on the mountains. Depending on when it warms up at those higher altitudes we will get our stream flow.
Usually the river is flowing by the long weekend in May or the weekend after. At this time we have enough water in the river to float our rafts and there can be some sizable rapids. From this time on the flow rate of the river builds up until about the third week in June. Then we are melting the snow in the wide mountain valleys and passes where there is a lot of expanse of land, and snow.
As the day temperatures continue to warm up, snow is disappearing in the lower regions and the snow melts at higher and higher elevations. Here the total land area decreases as we climb up toward the narrowing peaks such that the flow rate of the river is slowly dropping.
Along with this process of melt contributing toward the amount of water in the river add on the rainfall. Whether it be cold or warm temperatures, a good rain in May or June can be a heavy wet snowfall that accumulates in the colder mountains or if it is warm rain it speeds up the snow melting process. The river flow rate in June is very unpredictable and can vary in amount wildly.
With the factors of amount of snow, rate of melt, temperature, elevations and warm or cool precipitations, which can be rain or snow, we can only guess at when the season starts and when the most water will be in the river.
I hope that a lot of the factors are in favour of water in the river come this long weekend in May; maybe we can get out paddling... depending.
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