I finally got around to stand up paddle boarding on the Colorado River. In my typical fashion I went in the hottest part of the day starting around 1:30. I took off from West Wetland Park and headed up stream. I didn't have any plan on how far I would go, but I knew I wanted to go at least as far as Gateway Park, about one mile up stream.
There was no shortage of people doing float downs on the river. Almost every one of them asked me what I was doing and told me that I was going in the wrong direction.
The river in the area I paddled varies from about 1 foot to 5 feet in depth with a bottom of sand and the occasional beer can from lost form one of the many people floating down. The river really is the only oasis here in the desert of Yuma.
The first mile was peaceful, I only encountered one family flowing down. I let them try my board for a little while.
At Gateway Park the river was full of people and I threaded my way through. I continued to get a lot of attention as I paddled by. Upstream of Gateway Park was when I started passing the giant flotillas of rubber rafts and some jet skis. I also passed by the sherif in their air boat, that you could hear long before you saw, as its made its way down stream.
If you zoom in, you can see on the map below the upstream route wasn't nearly as strait as the down stream.
There was no shortage of people doing float downs on the river. Almost every one of them asked me what I was doing and told me that I was going in the wrong direction.
The river in the area I paddled varies from about 1 foot to 5 feet in depth with a bottom of sand and the occasional beer can from lost form one of the many people floating down. The river really is the only oasis here in the desert of Yuma.
The first mile was peaceful, I only encountered one family flowing down. I let them try my board for a little while.
At Gateway Park the river was full of people and I threaded my way through. I continued to get a lot of attention as I paddled by. Upstream of Gateway Park was when I started passing the giant flotillas of rubber rafts and some jet skis. I also passed by the sherif in their air boat, that you could hear long before you saw, as its made its way down stream.
I am happy with this trip as a whole. The only bad part was the heat. Next time I will start earlier in the morning and try to make it all the way to "Shit Creek" as the convergence of the Colorado and Gila rivers is known. I will also try to get video of next time. I thought I had things set up this time but when I got home my camera hadn't recorded anything.
If you zoom in, you can see on the map below the upstream route wasn't nearly as strait as the down stream.
-James
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