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confluence was awesome this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  jonny water 
#1 ·
I went to work at 7:30am with my boat in the car to hit golden afterwork. I almost crapped when I saw that confluence was reading 4890 cfs from the 6:15am reading. I read the flash flood posts and folks said they were going there this morning. I walked out of my office and promptly told the folks there that I was taking a day of vacation and hit the road. I put in around 9:00am at the top of the confluence park at REI. I got eddied out by a wave onto the sidewalk, which was covered! Wow. I paddled on down, heading for the railroad brigde hole. The river was about 3000 cfs then according ot the gauge, and the waves were huge! It was like a big water paddle through the wave trains. I missed a couple of good surf waves on the way down as I was in awe of how big the South Platte had gotten. The railroad bridge hole was awesome. A group of about 6-8 boaters ended up all showing up for an awesome surf session. We were dropping in from the top as you couldn't make it from the eddy below till after the level dropped a bit. The surf was awesome (for the few seconds that I could ride it... not the best surfer :shock: ) and big and fluffy. The levels came down and you could hit it from the eddy and it was just plain awesome. The fact that I could ditch work and hit big ass 3000 cfs play waves in the middle of the city was just awesome! Met a cool group of paddlers down there too. They were kicking ass and having a blast... Union is up now too, so my day of playing hookie might be complete with an afternoon union session! Gotta love it!
 
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#3 ·
I am taking an intermediate boater and we are going to run down Cherry Creek. We want to put on around 5:30 on at Colorado Blvd. The gauge says that it is still holding around 700 cfs and peaked around 950 this morning. Anybody run this section......its just for shits and grins (not literally, I hope).
 
#6 ·
jonny,

DO NOT run past the golf course I am not as familiar with the run above that but below there are bridges that you will NOT fit under.

Like Roy said there are little or no eddies down there.

I think you might be alright from colorado blvd. down to university which will be a pretty short run but like you said why the hell not.

Be Safe
 
#9 ·
Well, we did it anyway. We put in below a nasty strainer b/w Cherry Creek Mall and Colorado Blvd. My buddy was pumped because we knew there would be some portaging and he isn't the best boater. It was a lot of fun though. I wouldn't reccommend it, but there were at least 6-7 descent drops and some good play! The cherry creek hole was in as were some other holes above it. My buddy swam one drop but we went back up and did it again, and again. The waves down in confluence were also fun, esp. the skate park wave, but not as good as earlier in the morning. Thanks for the input though.
 
#11 ·
At the level we ran it, some of the foot bridges were covered but most were producing a river wide sieve. We portaged all the foot bridges and ran all the way down to the skate park waves past the confluence with the S. Platte. We also hiked up and hit the confluence nasty-ass runoff playpark. It was a lot of fun especially when I was doing flat spins up on cherry creek with traffic on both sides of me and people were honking their horns and helicopters were flying overhead filming the news. It was hysterical!
 
#13 ·
I'm moving down to the 303 in a few weeks. Can Cherry Creek be run at any other time besides flood stage? I've seen it in normal conditions and the water looks yucky. Is it worth contracting all the diseases or should I look elsewhere?

What is difficulty of Cherry Creek and Union? Class II?
 
#14 ·
I live next to Cherry Creek and look at it all the time. There is some appeal in running stuff that almost never runs, but Cherry Creek just isn't worth it. Note that even jonny water says he doesn't recommend it after his run. There aren't many drops and the low bridges with railings scare me. Those railings can kill a boater if you can't eddy out.

The biggest appeal to running Cherry Creek is going through the exclusive Cherry Creek Country Club and getting weird looks from people on the bike path.

But, when Cherry Creek is running, there is probably great boating at Union Chutes and the Tressle Wave below Confluence, like yesterday. It's just not worth it.
 
#16 ·
The best part probably was the section thruough the golf course, however, down lower was the best play....the last 3/4 mile had good play but I would assume that this would only be the case at flood stage. Don't keep this run on your "to-do" list. It's not worth it, although there was this sweet lateral wave that I surfed for at least 100 feet until it ended into about a 4-foot tall standing wave/rooster tail with a hole behind it.....it was totally reminiscent of the M-wave and had v. fast surf. The foot/bike path bridges make this section not worth it. I ran it mostly out of curiosity and in search of some good play plus some good laughs. BTW you can make it under all the actual bridges....it wasn't that high.
 
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