Landowners' river fences pose ongoing rafting issue

Last week in OutWest, we offered a list of 10 "bucket-list" rivers for folks to consider, great runs that offer a variety of experiences around the state.

Not surprisingly, I heard from readers outraged that their favorites weren't mentioned fans of Clear Creek, the Cache la Poudre, the Yampa worthy options, all. Hey, I had to pick 10. It was a tough choice.

I've been lucky enough over my 20 years in Colorado to have been on sections of those as well as the 10 on the bucket list, either on commercial trips or private runs in our own rafts. A few years ago, though, we bought packrafts, small, portable, inflatable boats, some of which are made in Mancos by Alpacka ( alpacka-raft.com). They're rugged and weigh less than 5 pounds, and now we have a new bucket list, partly driven by a desire to fly-fish less-accessible wilderness waters.

One such river is the Conejos, a tributary of the Rio Grande in the San Juan Mountains west of the San Luis Valley, a lovely stretch of which we ran a few weeks ago. It's mostly rated Class I-II with packrafts, however, it's a good idea to knock those up a notch and famous for its fishing. It starts with some hairy whitewater in Pinnacle Canyon and progresses for about 20 miles of navigating around rock gardens and strainers alternating with some mellow cruising past gorgeous national forest and a lot of private land.

Not to mention negotiating 10 gnarly wire fences (and one twine fence), some barbed, randomly erected across the river.

Fortunately, we'd been warned by several locals some of whom implied, some of whom said outright, that rafters are not very welcome in the area. Imagine rafting at a pretty good clip around a river bend to find neck-level barbed wire, hoping each time that you would see it fast enough not to be garroted by it and also to avoid popping the boat.

The latter scenario would mean facing a multimile hike hauling a 40-pound pack across the very property (likely owned by a cheery gun-wielder) who so didn't want you there in the first place that he erected a fence without even so much as a warning sign. Ostensibly to keep the cattle from moving around none of which we ever saw.

We did, however, spy a coyote loping past on his way to find breakfast while we ate ours one morning, and about 20 bird species, and while we never caught any fish, we glimpsed a few and spent some time trying. We also saw fewer than a dozen people fishing from the banks on our way down, but no other boaters clearly the landowners' intention.

Whether they're allowed to erect those fences to prohibit us from doing so, however, is such a matter of legal contention that you'd need a law degree to understand it. But if you care about this topic, it's worth visiting the website for the National Organization for Rivers ( nationalrivers.org), based in Colorado Springs, to give it a try (they have an entire book due out on the subject soon).

Federal law says that if a river historically has been used for things such as fur trading by canoe, it has to remain in use by the public. Several Colorado state courts have tried over the years to clarify this, but it seems to Eric Leaper, executive director for NORS, that they've done nothing but muddy the waters more.

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Landowners' river fences pose ongoing rafting issue