The river was angry that day my friends — like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.
One of the guys on the Yampa float trip shot some video of some of the boats running Warm Springs Rapid. As is generally the case, the video and the pictures don’t do this place justice. It doesn’t look like a whole lot on film, but that big hole was scary. I just watched the video again and it looks scary as hell to me. Consider that the boat it flipped was 16 feet long and God knows how heavy. Also note the hail coming down. Dave Rich of Fairbanks, Alaska, shot the video with his Fuji E-900 digital camera. The video is used here with his permission.
The next clip is my Uncle Dale. It doesn’t even look like he’s trying and he missed the hole completely.
That big hole out there is named Maytag after the washing machine company. The river was running 23,000 cfs, a 20-year high.