Kayaking Rio Chama to Abiquiu

Sunday, August 12, 2018

James had such a good time kayaking, that he decided he and his son Tyler would go this afternoon.  It was on the Rio Chama River above Abiquiu Lake.

This time Tic took the guys to the drop off point and was to pick them up. Jessica had a birthday party Rux needed to go to and I, Dusty, took Noah, James' youngest son, to catch the train in Santa Fe. 

 This is the road to the drop off point. Beautiful cliffs!

 James took off first and is waiting as Tyler gets going. The guys were figuring about 2 hours for this trip.

Tic was at a high point hoping to see they guys to confirm all was going well.

 Here they come.  All looks good!

 There they go as Tic watches on.

 More beautiful cliffs.

 At another spot, Tic could see a storm approaching from the north.

 Tic moved to another high point which he thought might be half way. Below are a couple of pictures of the awesome cliffs where he is stopped.

 It's getting darker and Tic has not seen the guys at this point.

To the south the views are gorgeous and the weather still looks good.

This is the pickup point and Tic still has not seen the guys. It has been 3 hours now.

 More gorgeous views look southward from the pick up point.

Jessica and I were getting worried. Tic called and was able to tell us he had not seen them and that it was raining pretty good.  Jessica called the forest rangers and after talking to several different rangers, some one was going to start looking for them.  By this time it had been 4 hours. 
  We finally got a call from a bicyclist that said he had seen them. Due to flash flooding, they got their kayaks out of the river and were walking towards the pickup point.  We could not get hold of Tic to tell him this.  It took another 1/2 hour for Tic to find the guys. The roads above Abiquiu Lake were flooding and/or water was heavily running down both sides. The river was now raging and had turned dark red from the runoff.  Large trees were also washing downstream. All the guys went to pick up the kayaks and then came home. It was almost 8:30pm by the time they got home. What an adventure.