While we were hardly ready to put away our skis, Mark and I were excited to hop in the kayaks for a brief break from the snow and make it back down to Taos for some boating.
We met our friend Sam for two days of kayaking on the Rio Grande. While Sam had made dozens of run down the Racecourse in the past few seasons (a popular stretch of class III whitewater near Pilar, NM), Mark and I hadn’t been on the Rio Grande in two years. When we had last been there, we were just learning to kayak and we were excited to return to this stretch as we started our whitewater season.
The racecourse is short, 3 miles, and follows the road the entire way so it makes for a great lap-able stretch. We made three laps our first day finding our confidence after a rocky start. Both Mark and I swam on our first lap as we got reacquainted with the experience of being back in the boat. We were glad to have dry suits and Sam there to support us, and by the third lap, we were hitting our lines and rolls more confidently and having more fun.
The next day we headed upstream to the Lower Taos Box, the run that had really inspired us to make the trip. The 15 mile stretch boasts a number of class III rapids at the bottom of the beautiful Taos Gorge. It has stood out in our memory since we ran it the first time two years prior and it would be Sam’s first time down (he would make many more laps in the weeks to come). Do to some construction in the bridge at the put-in, we had to hike our boats about a mile down to the river.
I struggled to stay positive as we hauled our clunky plastic boats to the bottom of the gorge, but Mark stayed with me and once we were on the river I recovered my attitude and nerves and was once again excited to be out there.
It was an incredible run and those two days made for a great reintroduction to the kayak. Mark and I were excited to be back in the boats, but okay setting them aside for a few more weeks as we looked onto the snowy mountains that shone beautiful ski lines all around us!