SSV is in Come and get it

I fail to see what exactly folks are congratulating themselves for. The entire run has changed drastically, and 80% of the run is worse than it was. Sure, the run below the Narrows is greatly improved. And the short section at the very top looks slightly improved. However, Cascades 2-5 and all of the Narrows are worse, and the construction drainage control measures are a blatant part of those changes. It's artificially tight, artificially fast, artificially lacking eddies, with ugly holes, and ugly rock. Arguably what it's always been, but the affects of the road are now amplified. I'm sure that all of it goes (abusively), and some key drops don't look that awesome.

I think now is the time to ask the City of Lyons to build an artificial creeking park at the Narrows section. It would be hard to make it worse, so bust out the backhoe and add some rocks, pools, eddies, and boofs back in.

If you don't want to hear my opinion, suck it, or something.

Cutch, I'll fill you in over a beer sometime, but SSV after the highway was rebuilt was significantly worse than it is now. To shore up the embankment of the highway, CDOT had to get big trackhoes into the creek. To move the trackhoes up the creek to where the embankment needed repair, they needed to get the rocks (which make kayaking awesome) out of the way. CDOT was jackhammering huge rocks and splitting them into pieces. There were logs strewn across the river that were likely too big to chainsaw easily, and there were large sections of the river that had no rocks in them.

By the time we were able to get to CDOT, a lot of the damage had been done, but we did accomplish getting CDOT to stop jackhammering big rocks, take out some of the huge wood hazards to make the run safer, and the big deal (to me) was getting them to put rocks back in the river per our recommendation.

The creek as it stands is temporary. There will be permanent road work next year where the highway will be rebuilt with a permanent road bed, not the temp road bed that is currently there. There is another opportunity window that we are working aggressively on to get permanent streambed restoration done after the final highway repair, and thats where the big opportunity lies. What we did was just a first and temporary step. Demonstrating that we can work for positive solutions with multiple agencies and contruction contractors with no sanction and no budget shows Boulder County, CDOT etc that we mean business and we can get it done.

My rant earlier was really just an admonishment to the non-believers who use the internet to crap on folks who take an active stake in improving our rivers. Any a-hole with a keyboard can talk shit. Only a few have had the success in getting real tangible improvements done. And thats something the kayaking community should rally around, and its not just a self congradulatory thing. Its showcasing that we can make positive change if we try.

As for failing to see... perhaps you didn't go up to SSV dozens of times over the winter like some of us did to see how far we have come.