[Cdt-l] Water Level Report in the Gila

[Ryan Bozzell]

 Hi folks,

 

Just got back from a four day trek in the Gila Wilderness, NM. We ventured up the west fork and came back down the middle fork rivers. 

 

-As of Sunday April 11th the river crossings up the middle fork river are still prety high.

-We came down from the middle fork from the meadows (can't remeber the distance up that is, but I think it's like 12 miles up the middle fork) area so we had at least 40 stream crossings on the way back down.

-In most cases on a stream crossing we had to bush wack up or down the trail to find a safe place to cross where the water looked not as swift or deep.

-We are all around six feet tall and the highest the water level got was a little above our waist.

-We were discussing how if the water was any much higher than our waist then the water would be swift enough to throw off the center of gravity and potentialy sweep you down stream.

-The middle fork also had a lot of sediment in it so you could'nt really see the bottom and where you where putting your feet. The west fork was a lot more clear and was easier to see how deep the water was and places to put your feet.

-IMO I think treking poles are an absolute nesessity for balance and gauging water depth.

 

We took photos of the trip and my buddy put them on his flikr account. Here is the link.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/backpacking_and_hiking/

 

Ryan
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with Hotmail. 
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multicalendar&ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_5
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/cdt-l/attachments/20100413/eac88014/attachment.html