Kayak Days at Lyons, CO

It has been a cold and rainy weekend here in Lyons. Originally we had planned to go to Rockey Mountain National Park for a week, but it is hard to get a camping spot there, and now it has turned so cold and miserable, we have decide to stay down here at lower elevations, where it is warmer and we have full hook-ups for electric, water and sewage.

Near and in the park here, over the weekend, there was a gathering of kayak enthusiast. Since this is a sport where the participants get soaked, the rainy weather only slowed down the spectators. The creeks and rivers are extremely high here, so the events were moved to areas where the water level was satisfactory.

On Saturday we drove up the canyon to watch the extreme kayak racers. The rapids there are Class 4 and Class 5, I was told, and I certainly can believe that! There were rapids and falls six to eight feet high, with huge boulders causing "holes" that had to be avoided. Sometimes, a kayak racer did not make it, and was overturned. No one was hurt, but I would think it was very dangerous. The accompanying picture shows one of the racers, successfully navigating a water fall.


The other event was held in the creek that passes through our campground. In this event, the participants paddle into a "hole" below a fall, and do all sort of tricks, such as frontward and do backward somersaults and figure eight maneuvers. The picture here shows one contestant at the beginning of a front somersault.