Shaneslogic

We just got off the water at the Pueblo Play Park and we were headed downtown to have a cold one with the local paddlers when my phone rang. Damn another relaxing evening after a good paddle lost to the need to drive 5 hours and paddle a new river. I had gotten two calls in a matter of minutes. “Hey the Embudo is cranking and you should come down”. The guy on the other end of the line gave me all the info he had. It was like this, Big Party, Near Taos, camping at a confluence, Embudo river is near the town of Dixson, New Mexico. So with that detailed information we headed off into the desert to try to find a party in the middle of the night and then paddle the Embudo at fairly high water the next day. I was game because I have been wanting to get on the Embudo for a while. I had heard lots of great stories with the exotic name Embudo involved.


Yonton and I drove the 4+ hours down into the area but after searching down several dirt roads we found nothing and settled into sleep once again on the side of the road near a sign that said, “Embudo River”. Figured that would help out in the morning. We woke in the morning with no more information and crappy cell service. We wandered around a little longer and had two lucky things happen. One we found the “Yacht Club” which was a quick stop coffee shop with kick ass breakfast burritos. The other piece of good luck was running into Stan who was a grizzled old raft guide looking guy who said, “oh yeah big party up that road right there last night”. We headed up the road and ran into all kinds of kayakers and eventually found our team. Some were not in shape to paddle, some were.

Yonton took off with Katie and Jenn to paddle on a sweet wave on the Rio Grande. I took off with Dunbar Hardy and a pack of guys from the southern Colorado, New Mexico area. Dunbar, Brian, Brad, Tim, and Grayson Schaeffer made up the team. The nerves were a little high because not everyone had done it and we all knew that the level was high. The guys said it was in the 3.9 area on the gage. I am not totally sure what the top end is but it does seem like you could be on there a fair bit higher but you sure wouldn’t want anything to go wrong or you would be picking up your boat in Texas.

The river started off with a mile of warm up stuff. Then it was game on. The first real rapids were pushy and very continuous. The eddies at that level were not big enough for the entire group. So we did a bunch of relaying info and working our way down this tight run. “The Long Rapid” was especially sweet because it was actually long and tight with bunches of moves to make. There were several rapids with a long pushy nature. I was given good beta like keep left of center then get some angle blah blah blah and it all went out the other ear by the time I entered the top of the rapid. It was pretty much combat paddling. Read and run fun. The main thing to know was that all the rapids pushed on through.
I put together a video of the river so the rapids that we scouted on in the video but as always video doesn’t do it much justice. The sceneary and paddling were fantastic and I will make a return trip to do the Embudo again.
Here is the link to the video of the Embudo.
Rio Embudo Video Link

After bruising and battering our bodies at the Salida Bowl trying to skate we headed out to Pueblo, Colorado for the Grand Opening of the Pueblo, Whitewater play park. There was much fanfare and hoopla by the politicians that decided they did a lot for the play park to happen but actually Bob from Edge Ski and Paddle Shop in Pueblo and a big group of local paddlers spent 8 years trying to get the playpark started, funded, and finished. Finally after all that time the park is complete and really fun. It is different from paddling experience than anywhere I have ever been before. The river is actually a big concrete viaduct that has been modified, and landscaped. As a matter of fact the locals even put in the trees and did much of the landscaping for the project. Bob was out early the morning of the grand opening chasing off Beavers that were trying to get to his precious trees he had just planted.

The first thing you notice is the huge mural that covers the river left wall. The wall itself is, I don’t, 40 feet high? The mural goes from top to bottom and for as far as you can see. It actually is the worlds longest mural and is in the Guinness Book of Records. There have been artists from all over in to add to the mural as well as locals and even the local paddlers have put in a mural as well. Some of the artwork is amazing. Each of the rapids is named after one of the paintings near it.

We were there at close to the minimum flow for the summer which was 600 cfs more or less. The holes were mostly pretty shallow at that level but still deep enough to throw plenty of ends, blast, and spin. The last big hole was deeper and pretty powerful and you could throw as many ends as you wanted and I did get a huge loop with a little impact as I initiated. I think with 1000 cfs or more this thing is going to rock. There is also some potential I think for some of the holes to become waves at really high water. The local guys said they thought the river should get up over a couple grand and that should be great down there. There are several holes that two people could play at the same time. A couple of the holes were great for learning to cartwheel and learning the more advanced hole tricks. There were also a couple holes perfect for just learning how to side surf and spin, and like I said the last hole was pretty rowdy we saw a couple swims out of there but the way the park is set up its a nice pool right below so its easy rescues and actuallly pretty fun to body surf.
Here is some footage from the park as well as a harrowing extreme/ freestyle tubing trip that Kyle Scarbrough and I did down the Pueblo play park.
PuebloPlayPark
Freestyle Tubing


All in all a great time was had by all. We went out in downtown Pueblo a few times and had a blast.
Thanks again to Bob from Edge Ski/Paddle/Pack for taking care of us and the whole Pueblo Paddling Crew for making the park happen.
Shane