Remembering an Unforgettable Yampa River Rafting Experience
June 10, 2008.O.A.R.S. Founder and President, George Wendt, has returned to the office from his recent Yampa River trip. It was his first whitewater rafting trip on the Yampa River since 1965 when he and his traveling companion narrowly escaped tragedy.
In May and June of 1965, heavy rains fell on the Warm Springs watershed 17 out of 21 days, and the ground became super saturated.
George and his friend, Bruce Julian, were on a private boat trip on the Yampa during this time. On the afternoon of June 10, they had ducked into a cabin – Gardner’s Cabin at Warm Springs Draw – to protect themselves from the onslaught of rain. Realizing the futility of trying to stay dry in such conditions, they determined it best to continue downriver.
(A Marriot Library (U. Utah) photo of Gardner’s Cabin at Warm Springs Draw circa 1956.)
Less than a half hour later, soil, stones, boulders and uprooted trees all responded to the saturated soil and the pull of gravity in a massive debris slide. The cabin was demolished and rocks and gravel filled the riverbed and rolled up against the cliff on the opposite bank.
(Hiking the remnants of the Warm Springs debris slide 43 years later.)
According to Roderick Nash’s book, “The Big Drops”, the Yampa was completely dammed for a few hours. At some time in the morning of June 11, the “river breached the natural dam and with a guttural roar, resumed its accustomed task of carrying the continent toward the Pacific. After several hours of rapid erosion there was a ragged S-shaped channel dropping steeply through the remains of the landslide. Enormous waves and holes studded its half-mile length. A big drop had been born.”
A raft party was organized to commemorate that fateful trip 43 years ago, including George, Bruce, and one other survivor, Doug McDowell, two Hatch River Expedition guides and four other guides who had been on the river and run Warm Springs rapid just two days after its creation.
(Warm Springs Rapid, June 2008)
One life was lost in 1965 – that of Hatch guide Les Oldham. He was the first to run the rapid – unaware of how the river had changed. According to Nash, “Les Oldham entered the tongue and accelerated down it directly toward an enormous hole. Recognizing the danger, he pulled frantically on his left oar in an effort to direct the pontoon right of the hole. He succeeded, but the force of his pull broke the pin holding the oar to the frame, and Oldham’s own power catapulted him backward into the river.”
