Glendo to Guernsey 2025

The river along this 16 mile stretch is a class I-II.

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Glendo to Guernsey Float 2025

20250718

This was a one day 16 mile float on the North Platte from Glendo State Park to above Guernsey organized through the Poudre Paddlers. It was in conjunction with the Rocky Mountain Sea Kayak club. A total of 16 people took the trip on a myriad of small boat types.

Roger Faaborg was to be a key leader on the trip, but sadly he contracted COVID and had to cancel. This thrust me to lead role along with Leslie Copeland Taylor.

My trip started out from Longmont. I'd managed to lose some of my paddling gear since my last float on the Poudre, so I made a stop at Rocky Mountain Adventures in Fort Collins to purchase a new personal flotation device (PFD) and semi-dry paddle jacket.

I arrived at Glendo State Park north on I-25 just after 3PM much sooner than I had originally planned or expected. After wandering about at Two Moon campground I eventually found my campsite #12. It was rather close to the pit toilets. More importantly there were several large camper trailers with generators and boom boxes nearby. I pulled out the tent and then, being lazy, decided to just sleep in the car. This turned out to be a good decision, because the noise was dramatically muffled.

However, but before laying down for the night I visited with a number of folks paddling in our group the next day. Dave pulled a small camper trailer. He has spent more years than I have backcountry skiing. His knowledge of free-heel gear was encyclopedic! His latest equipment set up centers on the Rotefella light weight touring binding, Xplore. While chatting with him, Leslie showed up followed by Tracy and Janet. Tracy and Janet are headed up to Canada in August to paddle the South Nahanni from Heart Lake to the Liard river. They are paddling sea kayaks. While back at my campsite, Brian and Jude walked up. With the two of them, Dave and myslef, we drove over to Russ and Carol's campsite #72. This site has a spectacular overview of the reservoir. Greg was also staying at their campsite. We all chatted while sitting on the cliff overlooking the reservoir and watching the sun set.

20250719

This morning the day opened with a rainbow to the west and some spitting rain that turned to partly cloudy skies by the time we got to the put in at 7:30AM. The flow for the day was recorded as 4762cfs. Folks assembled or inflated their boats and organized gear taking about 45 minutes. Then five cars headed to the take out. Two of the vehicles were pulling trailers which helped logistics upon the return. The two cars shuttle back to the put in didn't arrive until almost 2-1/2 hours later. It turned out they were delayed in Glendo by a train shuffling back and forth for 45 minutes.

We conducted a safety meeting and talked about the plan for the day. The fourteen boats and 16 people launched at about 11:15AM setting off down the river. The boats consisted of inflatable pack rafts, canoes, and kayaks. We floated through the first short rapid with some minor splashes. After the right and then left turns of the river, we took the right side channel near the train tracks. A train headed up river gave two short 'hello' blasts in it's horn. One of the pack rafts hit some low branches and flipped, but the person was back on board and paddling before anyone barely had a chance to notice.

Upon immediately exiting the side channel came the determined cross river ferry to reach 'lunch island' on river left. Here we spent about 30 minutes eating lunch and chatting. Refreshed we climbed back into our boats and continued on down the river. Along the way we spotted some deer and a bald eagle high in a tree. By now the air temperature was into the 80's so the bird had it's wings spread as it worked at cooling off. We past a group of locals launching in fancy donut floats from private land. After about an hour we reached the swirly ~140 degree left turn as the river entered Wendover Canyon. We passed two 14 foot rafts with locals enjoy a float.

We paddled through the second minor rapid immediately above the Haystack rapid and eddied out on river left. Options were given again on either running the 'haystacks' or sneaking down the left side. Everybody was told to stop at the big eddy on river left beside the rapid. A couple of accomplished paddlers went first just in case of a swimmer with one hanging at the top and the other near the bottom of the rapid. Everybody did a marvelous job. Some folks played in the rapid by running it upwards of five times thanks to the strong up river eddy on river left. Non-bailing boats were dumped and then we continued on down the final stretch. A thunder storm could be heard barking behind us to the north, but it never did more than that as far as it concerned us.

Nearing the take out, we past a truck with a Texas plate careening on the edge of plunging into the river. The vehicle appeared to have been driving on or immediately along side the railroad tracks and then found itself sliding sideways down the embankment of the railroad bed toward the river. It's passenger side door rested against a small dirt pile which was the only thing that kept the car out of the river and dry.

We exited on river right at the prescribed 'Guernsey' take out passing underneath the first set of rail tracks on a trestle. Unfortunately, we experienced another train delay for the day. The second set of tracks had a train parked on them with our cars in sight just beyond. This was a very long coal train. There was some discussion about passing boats and people under or between the train cars. The group leads gave instructions not to do that. While we waited, the rafters and fancy inner tubers arrived. They saw the parked train and settled in without discussion to wait for the train to move. Another north bound train arrived and parked on the trestle immediately over the take out point. We suspect, though can't confirm, that the two parked trains surrounding us were because of the vehicle just off the tracks up river. After about 45 minutes, the south bound coal train suddenly released it's air brakes with a hiss and immediately started rolling away at an increasing clip. A few minutes later we were loading boats and gear into vehicles.

Several folks headed home. The remainder of us went back to Glendo State Park and enjoyed delicious and generous amounts of potluck food at Shelter Point.

20250720

I experienced a very depressing and stressful dream that woke me up a little after 2AM. I managed to return to sleep until just before 7AM. After a cup of coffee, I made the just shy of 3 hour drive home.