February + Snowing feet out East = Let's go paddling!

Trying to look tough at the end of a successful day!

With forecasts in the mid-60s and water levels pretty decent, Garrett and I decided to explore the mighty Rio Grande. You might be saying, "I didn't realize the Normal Man kayaked!" Well, it depends on how you define what it takes to be kayaker. If most of your paddling haven taken place in a pool, several extremely mellow floats down small streams in Ohio, and having not been in the boat in about 6 years still constitutes being a kayaker, then that's me!

In this case, maybe smaller is better

In the days prior, anyone to whom we mentioned our upcoming plans generally looked at us in confusion, asking if we realized how cold the water would be. We would be putting in shortly below Taos and the river would be fed by snowmelt in the mountain. But we figured, how bad could it be... Garrett did all the research on the area and I kept myself blissfully ignorant. My biggest concern was that I would severely slow him down on the flat water since my boat is considerably shorter than his (see the picture!). Well, as we soon learned, the little man was the better equipped on the day.  By "soon" I mean the first rapid (see the pictures). 

Garrett cruising the first rapids...then "decides" to take a drink

By the end of the day, we had each taken a swim at least once; swimming through rather large standing waves is pretty exciting. We both learned class III/IV is certainly enough rapids for us! There were many times going into the the white water I thought I would definitely be taking a drink, but somehow found my way through it; I definitely credit it all to luck -- there was no skill to be found. But most importantly, we had a fun, exciting day on a beautiful river -- and we had it all to ourselves.

Beautiful day on the Rio Grande

Relieved to be on solid ground after a somewhat hairy section