good areas for beginners

Bandemer · 06-18-2005

Besides the park in golden are there any good areas for beginners (near denver)?

cb

prozoned · 06-18-2005

u could come up to the Fort and run the poudre, filter plant run

heliodorus04 · 06-20-2005

The platte at C470 is mild. I'm a new boater and I've built some confidence there.

gh · 06-20-2005

There are sections of the Deckers run that would I take beginners on.

madmoe · 06-20-2005

The Lyon's Playpark is a great place for beginners as well. The water is at a good level, was just there with another beginner! Lot's of fun to just do laps.

cstork · 06-20-2005

For practice, Denver Confluence at low water (<200) is good. It forces people to learn to catch eddies. It's nice to run it several times.

For a river run, Deckers/Chutes is great. Very pretty.

Geezer · 06-20-2005

You take a beginner to Golden right now, they may never boat again

. That is some fast moving shit right now and you might look for something a lot calmer to get them used to moving water. If they go to Golden they might be swimming several drops before you can get them out and their gear might end up in the Coors intake downtown.

Try Deckers if it comes back up and same for the C470 section on the Platte. There are some challenging drops on the C470 to Bowles section but they can be scouted and walked if need be.

heliodorus04 · 06-20-2005

For the record, I got taken to Golden on Friday for a lesson, it was my 9th time in a boat, and 3rd on moving water. We ran the section twice, I swam 3 times (held out for one t-rescue - yay me!) and my paddle wanted to go have a beer one time. If my instructor was a little over-ambitious about my skills, he at least did all that paddling after my own paddle.

It did scare the crap out of me - triggered a real adrenaline rush that was very unhelpful. But I kind of made the best of it, and now I'm headed back to C470 for more confidence building.

And hey, I did get some real practice swimming among rocks and getting out of the current.

I think those eddies are really tractor beams

DaleTR · 06-20-2005

For a real beginner to moving water, even Lyons may be a bit much at the level it's at now >300 CFS.
It's MUCH more friendly for a true beginner at < 200 CFS. (Based on my experience of learning on moving water there...)

rasdoggy · 06-20-2005

I got my Ass handed to me tonight at Golden... Lesson learned about when in doubt stay out. Thanks to the people that chased my boat.

The section above Deckers Chutes is a real eazy place to paddle lots of eddys and a very eazy swim...