Packrafting Utah | Spring 2019

See more: http://www.danransom.com/2019/07/ephe...

Utah’s desert rivers are notoriously fickle, and conditions have to be just right for boatable flows. And the window is usually incredibly short.

But that’s exactly what made spring of 2019 so special. The rivers ran, and ran for months, because of a variety of unusual conditions. Snowpack in Utah was late to start building, but by February storms were massive and frequent, especially in the southern half of the state. Some drainages reported over 180% of average snow water equivalent. Combined with an abnormally cold and wet April and May that kept hard freezing at elevation and the snowpack would feed the ephemeral desert Utah rivers all the way through June. We got our first river in March on the backend of a pretty big spring storm, and paddled all the way through summer solstice and more.

I’ve owned a packraft now for a decade, and I can never remember a spring season like this.