Salt River trip?

[cemartin]

I was looking for gear on boater talk when I noticed that someone posted a message saying the Salt River in AZ is running. It made me curious so I pulled up a hydrograph. I guess its running above 1600 cfs and dropping slowly. To make things better temperatures are forcasted to be in the low 60's through the next week. I don't know whether the flows will last (rain storm or snowmelt), but a trip down there would be awesome. Does anyone know much about this river? Is it hard to get a permit this time of year? Would it be worth doing? Would anyone be up for such a trip?
Thanks in advance
Curtis

[kayakrider]

The salt is good at that flow, no permit is needed right now except for day runs on the salt river reservations side of the river. Forest service permits are required from March 1 to may 15.
Check out the following link for info and a salt runners guide.
Jeff
http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/tonto/recrea...rpermits.shtml

[cemartin]

Thanks for the info Jeff. It's good to know that you don't have to obtain a forest service permit this time of year. It looks like a great trip! There's another webpage that describes the area that I'll post for anyone that's interested. The river appears to be going up to 1850 cfs today with low 60's in the forecast. Is anyone interested? Good winter paddling for rafts and kayaks!
Curtis

[cemartin]

Sorry I forgot to post the link.
http://southwestpaddler.com/docs/salt2.html

[merry prankster]

Before you drive, keep and eye on the forecast:

http://www.cbrfc.noaa.gov/river/stat...plot.cgi?SLRA3

These events have been rain driven and haven't been lasting too long. This season however, is guaranteed to be a pretty descent one as they've recieved an unusually high amount of snow.

[cemartin]

Thanks for the info merry prankster. It looks like the flows have varied greatly over the past week. On Jan. 5, the flows reached 26,000 cfs. That's more discharge than the Grand Canyon at times. Then it dropped down to its current level. If the model is trustable, we have about a week left of flows high enough for rafts and a little longer for kayaks. It's supposed to rain this week though. I'm still interested in still possibly going. That's a really cool modeling tool. I didn't know it existed.

Curtis

[merry prankster]

The model's as good as they get. Of course, the inputs could always use a bit of work. As with he weather, it's pretty accurate in the 1-3 day frame with diminishing reliability past that point. It's run for the entire Colorado Basin out of the cbrfc site. Abrfc and cnrfc cover the arkansas and Platte rivers respectively.

Any idea what the Salt's like at 28,000?

-ed

[cemartin]

28,000 cfs... Bring the playboat. No big deal right.

Seriously though, if anyone wants to do a short low cost paddling trip to AZ before winter break is over, go for it. As a college student I'm dreading being tied down with no weekends to spare next semester. This would probably be a good way to start the semester.

[Dave Frank]

That forecast graph is pretty sweet. I did see the spike up above 28K earlier on the graph if you change the "look back" days. When I looked at the gauge I usually use for the Salt:

http://www.americanwhitewater.org/gauges/id/4378/

The spike was no where near as high. I couldn't tell if it is a differnt station or if the first on ewas wrong. Pretty big discrepency.

Can't wait to get back down there.

[cemartin]

Thanks for the info. I think that forecast model must have been at a different location, I'm not sure where though. I scrolled down the location tab on the model and found the Salt near Chrysotile. This looks more realistic with perhaps enough water in the next 4 days or so for kayaking. It sure would be great to escape winter for a few days and see some wilderness canyon country.
Curtis