Even hairboaters from Durango knew to keep away from Southwest Colorado’s Vallecito Creek at this level.
Fueled by by Hurricane Priscilla, about 4 inches of rain fell over 48 hours in the Vallecito Creek drainage on Oct. 10, sending a surge of water down creeks near Vallecito Reservoir and cresting Vallecito Creek at historic levels Saturday afternoon. Emergency responders evacuated about 390 homes in response to the flooding, whose gauge reading of over 6,000 cfs came close to the flood level in 1970 when it hit 7,050 cfs.
For those watching the gauge and thinking of kayaking Class V+ Vallecito Creek, it reached six feet on the gauge near Bayfield, when, according to American Whitewater, the recommended flow for running the gorge is 1.6-2.2 feet at the high end, which is about 420 cfs at its upper end.
The floods also brought the town run on the Animas River up to 5,000 cfs, bringing out rafters and kayakers in droves for a rare, big water October run. The record October rains also brought the nearby San Juan River near Pagosa Springs to record levels for the date, surging to 13 feet on the gauge and more than 8,000 cfs when it normally flows 106 cfs this time of year. The river completed inundated the town’s downtown whitewater park and jumped the banks to flood the riverside Pagosa Hotsprings.