On an early morning in mid-May, a group of near strangers shoved camping gear and clothes into waterproof bags, slathered on sunscreen, and ambled into the bright-yellow rafts that would carry them down one of the last free-flowing rivers in the American west. Unhindered by large dams or diversions, the Yampa curves across 250 miles (400km) of alpine tundras, cottonwood forests and ancient red-rock canyons, rising from Colorado’s Rocky mountains to where it joins with the Green River in Utah, much in the way it has for millions of years.
High Stakes for an Endangered System
But it wasn’t just the Yampa’s unique place in history or the chance to take in its austere beauty that drew these people to its banks. About 30 in all – scientists and policymakers, tribal representatives, a rancher, a famous actress and this reporter among them – were there to see the high stakes posed by an uncertain future. The Yampa is an important tributary to the Colorado River, the sprawling and imperiled system that supplies water to more than 40 million people across seven states, dozens of tribes and parts of Mexico. The basin irrigates more than 5.5 acres (2.2 hectares) of farmland, fuels an estimated $1.4tn in economic activity, and provides critical habitat for more than 150 threatened or endangered species.
The Colorado is dangerously overdrawn, and enormous cuts are needed to bring the basin back from the brink. Negotiators have blown through deadlines and remain mired in thorny disagreements over how to manage the essential waterway in a warming and drying west. A devastatingly low snowpack and a historically hot spring added even more strain this year, casting the system into uncharted territory.
A Relic of the Past Under Threat
As other rivers have been drawn down, dammed and redirected, the Yampa has mostly remained wild and free. It’s the last river in the basin that still follows its natural cycle, left to naturally ebb and flow with the seasons, but that could change as demand for water in the region continues to outpace supply. There have already been close calls. Its waters have been eyed by the oil shale industry, growing communities in the Front Range, and by farmers affected by the systemwide crunch. In the background, the climate crisis is also taking a share – flows have roughly declined by a quarter over the last century. This winter was the region’s warmest on record.
“The bullseye will always be on the Yampa’s back,” said Kent Vertrees, an advocate and guide with the non-profit Friends of the Yampa. That’s why he and other intrepid guides have spent over a decade paddling people who can help determine the Yampa’s future through its soaring rock cathedrals, over bounding runs of whitewater, and into remote reaches, far from the pressures of negotiating tables.
Rapids, Wilderness and Vibrant History
The fickle temperament of high country conditions were on full display for the roughly 70-mile journey through the rugged wilderness of Dinosaur national monument. Strong winds rattled tents through soggy nights of camping. Snow dusted canyon tops and waterfalls burst to life in real time. The trip began under the false promise of a cerulean sky. But on day three, a clap of thunder released torrents of rain on the rafters, just as the group approached the river’s most exciting run. The downpour didn’t mask the deep rumble of churning water echoing off the surrounding canyon walls, heralding the fearsome Warm Springs rapid waiting just around the bend.
One by one, the boaters had paddled close and paused to land a kiss on Tiger Wall, a beloved stone slab lined with signature stripes of “desert varnish” – residue more than a millennia in the making – that jutted 2,000-ft into the fog. The superstition is supposed to secure good luck and safe passage through the ever-changing Class IV. Moments like this one helped transform the group into a crew, an essential part of the experience. Respect and understanding is easier to foster when huddled close in turbulent weather, learning to paddle as a unit, or swapping stories around the crackling campfire over a thermos of tequila.
“One of our board members used to say that the environment is the medicine and recreation is the spoon,” said Lindsey Marlow, the executive director of Friends of the Yampa. “Everyone comes to this environment to enjoy it, but then it starts to make them open their eyes to a larger world.”
Ecological Engine of the Basin
The adventure may be the draw, but advocates said the underlying goal is to showcase how the Yampa’s unclaimed flows play an important part in buoying the entire Colorado River basin. From its headwaters through its confluence with the Green and down to where those waters surge into Colorado River, are among the most intact remnants of how the system once was, according to Michael Fiebig, the director of the Southwest River Protection Program for American Rivers and a guide on the trip. “The Yampa truly is the ecological engine that keeps that reach going.”
Endangered Colorado pikeminnow, a native fish that can live more than 40 years and grow more than 4ft long, depends on the rock-strewn sand bars to spawn. Unrestricted floods in the spring clear channels of vegetation and aid fish migration patterns. The waters fill nearby wetlands, essential nurseries for other endangered fish species, the razorback sucker and bonytail. “The dynamics of the free-flowing Yampa River sustain both native fish communities and the physical habitats upon which they depend,” said Dr Robert Schelly, the resource stewardship and science program leader at Dinosaur national monument who joined the trip, adding that it is a “linchpin of Upper Colorado River Basin ecology”.
History and Conservation Legacy
Stops woven into the itinerary are meant to showcase the river’s vibrant ecology and history. Hikes into slot canyons and dark caves served as time machines, where fingers could be run over ancient fossilized creatures etched into the sandstone slabs, near where petroglyphs were left by the Indigenous people who lived along the river hundreds of years ago. The terrain itself is historic. Cryptobiotic soil, a living black crust that coats the arid landscapes and holds onto moisture, was formed billions of years ago. There are more recent artifacts, too, that tell stories not about what was once here but what was kept out. A silvery wooden ladder, slumped on its side against the brick-red Uinta rock, was left by surveyors in the 1950s scouting the site for a proposed dam. Had it been built, everything experienced along this journey would have been drowned beneath a reservoir such as Lake Powell or Lake Mead, ecosystems and history lost under its waters.
On a lunch stop, Fiebig recounted how the efforts of early conservationist groups saved the Yampa and provided a framework for fighting on behalf of the environment. “It was the first big win,” Fiebig said, noting that this was the birthplace of the conservation movement. “They were the first to show that there can be a constituency for the natural world.” It’s an important part of the Yampa’s story, and a legacy that inspired organizers of this trip. “People protect what they love and they love what they know,” Fiebig said. “That’s what we are doing here.”
‘It’s All Interconnected’
On the fourth day, the group reached the end of the Yampa River. It is tradition to float in reflective silence for the final stretch. As the Yampa’s chalky, sediment-rich waters blended into the viridian flows of the Green River, hard raindrops that pelted the group through the morning softened into swirling snowflakes, leaving the canyons tops coated in white. “I can’t describe it – the immense emotion that you feel,” said Crystal Tulley-Cordova, the principal hydrologist for Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources, recalling the moment and the impact the confluence has on those who get to cross it. An ending and a beginning, it drives home why the trip was created.
“All of these people who are from so many different backgrounds, still have this connection to a tributary to the Colorado River,” Tulley-Cordova said. “To the fish, the wildlife, the fowls of the sky and the plants – it’s all interconnected.” Sunshine burst through the clouds by the time the crew reached camp. The storm had passed. But soon the group would return to the challenges and the negotiation tables they had left behind five days earlier.
Before hitting the last run of the trip on day five, guides directed the boats onto an embankment for a last shared moment. One their first night together, gathered in a circle of folding chairs as the sun sank behind the canyon walls, Vertrees had asked each person to share their story, and what brought them to this river. Now, sitting on the sand at the other end of the long journey, the question was what they would take home.
“To understand that we all value that same resource, that same water, and that we have that special connection to it – I think that really is key,” Joelynn Ashley, the chair of the Navajo Nation Water Rights Commission, said in the weeks after the trip. She had set photos of the confluence as her phone’s screensaver. For Amy Moyer, the chief of strategy for the Colorado River District, the agency that manages water rights in the state, the trip served as a reminder of the vastness of the basin and the impact decisions made here can have. “It really hits home why our short time here is well served to make sure that this river can stay alive and serve future generations.”
Nate Pearson, the assistant director for water policy for Colorado’s department of natural resources, agreed. The trip, he said, helped put into perspective the value of the natural environment. “The integrity of our watersheds is directly correlated to the health of our communities, even if they’re hundreds or thousands of miles away,” he said.
Hope Amid Challenges
Another great trip had come and gone, but deep challenges remain. Vertrees said he was hopeful, though, despite it all. It is hard not to be. “With how the weather beat us down for 36 hours and how we all came together to cherish the moment and overcome the difficulties, it’s kind of a metaphor for what’s happening in the Colorado River basin this year,” he said. “Sharing in the beauty of the Yampa canyon and all of its wonderful attributes and stories and lessons is a great reminder that we can overcome whatever we put our minds to.”
