"Richard Ferguson" wrote in message
...
Thanks for all the tips, I forwarded them to the team members. I will
try to post a trip report. The trip is shaping up as 6 people, three
canoes and one cataraft. It is kind of a mixed bag of people, no real
novices, but a broad range of experience. I usually run whitewater
solo, so will need to rethink a bit to run it tandem.

I will bring my wet suit, and I am trying to talk my canoe partner, with
limited paddle experience, into buying a wet suit as well. I figure the
water to be seriously cold, and the air temperature may not be much
better in early April.

I am not sure what the San Juan flow is likely to be, but in 1993, the
last big snow year, the April flow averaged 6000 cfs. It could be huge
in June, but that does not affect us. One of the trip members has made
the run a half dozen times, but never above 4000 cfs. No one else has
run it before.

Richard


When is your trip? April? Hmm, you might not want to continuously wear a
wetsuit, as you probably wont swim, and the daytime air temps should be in
the 70s, IIRC. Even if the water is snowmelt, I think the water temps will
still be in the high 40s, minimum.

BTW, in the past week, flows have dropped from 6000cfs to 1000cfs. That
usually means a huge drop in temps upstream, locking up the meltoff. But if
it was flowing 6K last week, a lot of runoff has run off. I bet you don't
have any more than 4000 for your trip in April.

Could be wrong on all counts, though. :-)

--riverman