Whitewater rafters exultant as Sierra snow melt yields exceptional season
GROVELAND -- While there are safety warnings for rivers across California, whitewater fans are now enjoying a dream season. Some rivers are actually too high to raft but others are running at peak conditions for exceptional rafting. It's the kind of year that's making things exciting even for the river guides themselves.
Racing through a canyon on the surging Tuolumne River, guide Joe Espenshade, with All-Outdoors Rafting, is stoked.
"OK, when we drop into this one down here we're going to focus up and get full commitment," Espenshade said at a bend in the river.
After 15 years on the Tuolumne, he knows a big year when he sees one.
"I had the fortune of being here in 2017 and then 2019," he said. "Four years ago was our last high water season. Total snowpack for 2023 far exceeds that."
The high water is drawing serious rafters from across the country -- people looking to see this river at its most intense -- and that means maximum safety precautions like sending a dual-hull rescue raft -- cataraft -- running ahead of the group in case anyone goes into the water.
"Right now we need those added safety craft," Espenshade explained. "We need to do a lot more training and have a team emphasis among our crew and we need to qualify our guests to make sure this is the type of adventure that they want to embark on. But the more the merrier and we just wanna say that it's a great year to get out there."
Because of the big winter, just getting out here requires extra work.
"Old Priest Grade got washed out," Adam Walker, with All-Outdoors, said during the walk to the river. "Our put-in road, Lumpson Road, got washed out. Our takeout road, Woods Ferry, got washed out. So we're going to do some hiking."
"It's a really unique, special time out here," guide Garrett Locher told rafters before the launch. "The Tuolumne is really high. This doesn't happen very often. Beautiful. Once in a lifetime. However, with that comes a little bit of added responsibility, right? A little more danger."
Even for those with a lot of experience, these conditions can be a change of pace.
"We're about to do a fairly full-on stretch of whitewater," Locher told them. "It's going to be fairly continuous once we start. There's not going to be a lot of stopping. So, kind of assume that when this talk's over and we get in the rafts, we really want to turn it on and be ready."
"Every day is different and it's keeping us on our toes," Espenshade said of the changing conditions.
The guides themselves are being tested. Spurts of warm weather cause river fluctuations and there was one stretch of rapids where the experts thought it would be best to go it alone.
'So a lot of preparation and thought goes into line selection as we go down the river," Espenshade said.
The big winter is now delivering a big summer for whitewater rafting and, ultimately, it is the weather that will drive how it unfolds on rivers like the Tuolumne.
"People are still skiing up in the high Sierra," Espenshade said. "And if the weather gets real warm real fast, we're going to have a lot of water come down all at once. If it does not, it will be sustained for quite a while. We have a lot of staff that keep returning year after year, training, putting more work and resources into it so that we're able to get out here, be prepared and enjoy what this year has to offer."
The two other people in the raft were also river guides. They're normally working other rivers but they're trying to get more people familiar with the Tuolumne so they can get more guests here. If this river looks like a little too much, there are rivers and segments of rivers all over Northern California that are not running as high and fast so guides can find something that's a little more of an appropriate speed. But, for anyone looking to get out on some whitewater, this is the year to do it.