With runoff abnormally high, rapids at Souse Hole will be wild
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.
“We’re hoping it gets up to six grand,” Oberheide said.
If that happens — if it even comes close — the section that Oberheide ran on Monday will get, in his word, “rowdy.”
“This time of year, it’s not for families,” said Kathy Miller, owner of New Wave. “It’s for people who want more of an adventure.”
The spike could begin this weekend, if the weather warms up in the southern Colorado mountains, where an above-normal snowpack still waits for the heat.
If it does, expect parking to be at a premium along the dirt pullout beside N.M. 68 just north of the Taos County line.
“If it gets above 4,500, it’s carnage — boat after boat flipping,” said Ron Whitney, another New Wave guide.
Among Oberheide’s Memorial Day passengers were two young girls from near Tucumcari, who squealed at every riffle and rapid on a building Rio Grande. Rapids like Sleeping Beauty and Big Rock are already wild. The Racecourse features seven Class 3 rapids in quick succession.
“It’s going to get bigger,” Oberheide told his group on Memorial Day. “But this is big enough for me.”
That might have been because he was responsible for those young children. In 2005, the last time flows reached 6,000 cfs, Oberheide guided a family with two young children on that section.
It was his first time hitting Souse Hole at that flow. Luckily, there were two more experienced guides in the boat.
They hit Souse Hole’s diagonal wave head-on — a necessity at that flow — and it sent the raft upright.
“That’s the first time I ever thought a boat was going to flip over backward,” Oberheide said.
But Miller threw herself onto the front of the boat, and that was enough to keep the craft upright. She, Oberheide and the other guide bounced out in the attempt, Oberheide said.
The family stayed in the boat and coasted through the calm water below while the guides swam to catch up.
That’s the one forgiving feature of Souse Hole at high water — there’s nothing but calm after the storm.
