It seems close enough to me. If anything, the gauge seemed to be reading a little bit low for the time I was on the water the other day... just a guess.
At this point, there is only one way for the flow to go and current levels are fun for all 3 of the Clear Creek runs in the canyon so the only use for the gauge now is to make sure you don't get in over your head on Black Rock (IMO). I'd say that plus or minus a few hundred CFS is good enough for that.
My personal chicken number for Black Rock is probably about 750 this year. It goes down every year. It is "easy" enough with water in it (as the new testament says... HA) but god help you if you take a nice long swim in Black Rock or the Narrows at 1000 cfs.
Man, I have only done upper and black rock through rigo once and it was around 820 and I thought it wouldn't be great to have any less water in there with all them sharp rocks. What do you all usually run it down to?
Last year did it down to 325 or 350 or so. It's not an ideal level, but I thought it was worth it when nothing else is going. Hair boaters might find it pretty boring, just depends on your tastes. Yeah, sharp rocks of course, but you can do it without too much boat abuse if you know the right lines.
minimum 200. At 200 the 3 main rapids on Black Rock are fun and the in between stuff is boat abuse.
350: the fun begins. In betweeners are still abusive to your boat.
450: my favorite - everything is filled in good enough and you don't get your ass kicked if you swim
550 - 650: still fun but getting butterflies at the putin and thinking about Rigo the whole way down.
700-800: a rush. I'm not smiling until I get to the takeout with all my shit and I'm probably walking Rigo
800 and up: not wanting to mess up at all. scared and no way I'm running Rigo. If I swim I shit my pants.
This is coming from an old man, though. I used to go run laps in the Narrows around 700 cfs by myself without thinking about it. The older I get the more bad things happen to me. I used to think 750 cfs was a "fun" level but now 750 is in the "beyond fun" zone for me.
I agree with Ture on the levels. Also, when blackrock is your backyard run, you run it way low to start the season and way low to end the season. Same thing I guess with the guys running narrows when the rock is in the inches level vs. feet.
New golden gauge correlation looks good to me, matches with what the river felt like when I was in there, and matches the guage addition pretty well. Good to have it back.
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