SantaFe.com

PILAR — The Rio Grande’s Racecourse section is getting rowdy. But its wildest rapid, Souse Hole, is just getting started.

“This is a guide’s favorite time of year,” said Neil Oberheide, a guide for New Wave Rafting, on a Memorial Day trip near the Taos County line. “We’re just as excited as you are.”

The reason the guides get excited each year at this time is the big water that spring normally brings. In an ordinary year, that means peak flows of around 3,500 cubic feet per second on the Rio Grande. But this is no ordinary year, with record-setting runoff resulting in unusually brisk flows.

Monday, June 2, 2008
by Bryce Petersen, Jr. • Journal Santa Fe

TAOS — The handful Taos area residents who formed the river conservation group Amigos Bravos 20 years ago shared a love of the Rio Grande and a taste for whitewater. “In those days, we had lots of kids, and we were on the river every weekend,” recalled Charlie Anderson, a pediatrician and founding member of Amigos Bravos. As the nonprofit celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend, the original members who first grew acquainted along river banks and on cross-country ski trails are reflecting on the early days of Amigos Bravos, as well as the battles ahead. The group made its debut at...

Sunday, May 18, 2008
by Raam Wong • Journal Santa Fe

Rafting Season runs late April through parts of September with high water typically running in May and June.

Ever gone swimming in the washing machine when it was spewing out sudsy water? How about sitting in a boat through a car wash? That's the problem with trying to describe the froth and mayhem of paddling down whitewater rivers to someone who hasn't experienced the real thing. It's like trying to describe a river that is the real thing, a 16-mile stretch of the Rio Grande through what's known as the Taos Box near Taos, New Mexico.

It's called “The Box” because of the steep walls...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

What happens when you take someone who’s used to spending the bulk of every waking hour in a tiny, fluorescent-lit office cubicle, hulked in front of her computer screen, breathing dead, re-re-circulated air, and you toss her onto a wily rubber raft floating precariously down river? That person–me–whose everyday experience continues to be one of being a giant head carried around the world on stilts, is in for an adrenaline rush.

Or at least, so I thought when I told my friend Ed I’d go with him and a group of his friends on a rafting trip. It sounded like such an idyllic adventure:...

Friday, July 1, 2005
by Gail Snyder • localflavor magazine