Clear Creek Season Wrap Up in the Arkansas Valley

This year I fell in love with Clear Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River. It's about 20 minutes from my house and it runs through one of the most beautiful valleys in Colorado. I had the pleasure of running this creek about 20 times this season at many different levels ranging from super low, to really high, to flash flood.

Since I moved to Buena Vista, Clear Creek has definitely become my favorite run in the area. It's just so nice to be able to get off work, drive 20 minutes, and then run a few laps of fun/low stress Class V.

Over the past couple weeks, I've adopted a one shuttle vehicle policy which forces me to do a little jogging after kayaking. I'm by no means a "good runner" so 2.5 miles at 10,000 feet can make me start sucking wind pretty quickly. I also am not a big fan of running, but if I have to, the Clear Creek Valley is the most beautiful place to do it.

This creek is a little over 2 miles long and it's only one rapid the whole time. Any single 100 yard stretch of this creek would be considered Class IV by itself, but due to the lack of eddies and recovery zones, it gets a Class V- rating. I think no matter how good of a boater you are, if you flip over on Clear Creek you have a 50-50 chance of swimming. I watched several really good kayakers swim and pin/break their boats up there. It is definitely not a good place to be upside down.

We didn't take many pictures just because it's such a chore to get out of my boat on this run, but here are a couple shots I managed to take last week:

(the crux of the second gorge)

(the end of the first gorge)

(put-in bridge, as you can see - the creek is not very wide)

(I got boofed on about 1/2 second after this was taken)

(myself on the fun one in the second gorge, photo by curtis england)

(dropping into the crux of the 2nd gorge)

I soloed my last lap today after workf. It was pretty nice to go in there alone and have the entire valley to myself. I've found that jogging the shuttle afterwards can be pretty rewarding, it gives you that "earn your turns" mentality that backcountry skiers always brag about.

Now that Clear Creek is too low to run, Lake Creek will be coming down to a more manageable level in the next week or so. Hopefully I'll fall in love with Lake Creek soon and be able to have a new after-work favorite.