It’s May 3rd and I’m sure everyone is ready for summer! Excited to start participating in all of the fun adventures that this season brings (rafting being our personal favorite), this late snow may have deterred some fun outdoor adventures planned for this week. The owner of The Adventure Company, Mark Hammer, has a different reaction. He woke up this morning in his Buena Vista home, with a smile on his face excited about the cold weather and large flakes of snow cascading down from the sky.
If you ask him why this makes him so happy, he will be able to relay that answer immediately: “Image two mounds of ice on the ground on a hot summer’s day,” Hammer explains, “one of these piles is smaller, and the other is twice as big. The smaller pile will melt in much less than half the time that it takes for the larger pile to melt. The size of the larger pile will help keep itself cold for longer and delay the melting process.”
This is the analogy Hammer uses whenever he explains the concept of snowpack, and how an abundance of snow makes for a longer rafting season. The piles of ice represent the deep snowfields that are located above the tree line on the mountains. By the end of winter, those snow fields can get as deep as a 10 story building. These fields feed the rivers with snow melt that directly impact the water levels in the rivers that we raft, including Brown’s Canyon and the Arkansas River. Feeding the river all summer long, larger the snowfields mean a longer season, as it takes more time for the snowfields to melt.
So, while we may have already unpacked the flip flops and shorts, we are thankful for this snow and the possibility for a longer rafting season! We are running trips now and spots are filling up fast. Give us a call or book online to experience this awesome opportunity that mother nature has given us to ride the snow melt.
