It has been a dry 2026: for the US river permit lottery system, the western US snowpack, and me going mid-July before I got on a river. A permit for the 22mi wilderness section of the Rio Chama, a major tributary of the Rio Grande in northwestern New Mexico was the only lottery win Heather or I got this year. Grim I thought but we might as well use it. It was Heather's permit and I was grateful that she took the lead on planning, giving me a rare opportunity to show up with minimal background on the river, rapids, side hikes, camps, and terrain. We went through a slew of personnel changes on the permit but eventually ended up with 7 including Zora the dog. Although a wilderness section, the flows were controlled by scheduled releases from El Vado Reservoir just upstream of the put-in. We initially planned for a three day paddle until we realized the 500cfs recreational release shuts off Sunday afternoon for a 100cfs baseflow so we shifted plans for an overnight. In the end we opted to have one car shuttled to Chavez Canyon (Mile 22 at the end of the wilderness run) and one shuttled to Big Eddy (Mile 31 at the end of the day run section. This gave us options to finish early if progress was slow and the river was too low, to finish somewhere along the day section and run the road back to the nearest car, or to paddle the full section of the river. Heather, David, and myself detoured to check the put-in and touch the water the afternoon before (cold but very manageable without a wetsuit/drysuit) then drove the short distance to meet Keith, Kari, and Zora at our "lakefront" (the lake was a half-mile out of sight because of the low water levels) campsites and then later was joined by Maia.
We arrived at the El Vado Ranch put-in bright and early all things considered but found it already a flurry of activity with several other launches that day. The volunteer ranger checked us in before too long and ran through our required gear. It is always hard to anticipate what they are going to object to; this time they were fine with my hyper-portable firepan (required despite fires being disallowed...) and our various throw ropes, first aid kits, and PFDs, but were displeased at our carefully constructed poop tubes because we were apparently a large enough group that we needed to bring a full ammo can toilet that we would have no way of transporting. After a little bit of a hard time he let it pass.
At 10am we were finally on the water, the first group to push out. The scenery started with an open valley of Morrison Formation bedded mudstones lightly covered in pinyon-juniper forest before sandstone cliffs began to rise from the river. There were remarkably few pools on the river as the current remained pretty consistent between the many light riffles. Happily we made 3-3.5 mph progress with some occasional paddling which meant a more relaxed less grindy trip. At four miles in we made a brief snack stop at the hot spring set in a marsh a stone throw away from the river. The temperature and depth were perfect but it was hard not to cloud the water by stirring up the silt floor. I was the only one to fully emerge as everyone else was content to soak their feet on the edge. It was too bad the hot spring was not further along; it would have been pleasant to camp near.
We continued on down the river, soon realizing it was very much like the San Juan River with named rapids being not much more than slightly splashy read-and-run riffles. It was a very chill river, easy to make a constant pace with a nice variety of scenery- much better than expected. The camps we past were very nicely laid out with signposts and rock stairways leading in to nice flats such that you really could not go wrong with any of the camps. The scraggily pinyon forest led us into lusher Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir draped on rising cliff-banded canyon walls. We saw a few other groups but most of the time had the river to ourselves. The only annoyance was the compromised valve on my seat which meant that I had to stop to reinflate my seat every 20 minutes or so. At about Mile 10 we stopped to scout Aragon Rapid as we were advised if we were going to scout one it should be this. It was a very straightforward read-and-run; as we later found out, some of the day section rapids actually had a bit more bite to them. As the day got on the thunderstorm clouds built. The river also evolved from a cold and clear reservoir flow to a cool murky-brown from all the acquired suspended sediment from the local rocks. The last camp was at Mile 18 so at Mile 15 we began to enter the zone where we should look for a camp, especially after passing a couple occupied ones and the draw of having our camp set up before any thunderstorm descended on us. At Mile 15.4 I pulled in to check out Entrada Camp which I thought perfectly pleasant and we called it a day at 4pm.
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| Quite scenic really! |
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| Aragon Rapid |
We had a nice and chill evening in camp. I ended up going for a solo half-mile hike behind camp to climb a ridge and traverse across to gain the top of the prominent sandstone cliff towering over the river. From here I got great views downstream towards the Chama Wall and upstream towards Navajo Peak. It was an incredibly sweaty humid hike but I was glad I made the effort. Thunderstorms and rain threatened for a time but largely missed us.
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| Entrada Camp |
We put on at about 8:30a in the morning, giving us plenty of day to wrap up our river trip. We passed underneath Chama Wall, the largest sandstone bluff on the river, after the first riverbend from camp. Owing to our early start we passed many other groups still in camp and had the river to ourselves. Around Mile 20 the river got annoyingly flat requiring very deliberate paddling for about a mile. Also around this section the confined forested canyon gave way to a wide valley of multi-tiered slopes. Keith, Kari, Maia, and Zora opted to get off the river at Chavez Canyon (Mile 22 at 10am), while Heather, David, and I came this far and we interested in the bonus 9 miles of the day run to our car.
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| Chama Wall |
The Chavez boat launch was bristling with activity and unsurprisingly we saw several other groups paddling along the day section. The scenery was not quite on par with the wilderness run but the day section actually had better rapids (still read-and-run riffles) and allowed us to keep a 3 mph pace. The temperature was warm with clouds building already but pleasantly complimented the slight chill of the river. Apart from light scraping of the occasional ghost rock hiding in the murky water the 500cfs flow were no real issue. We made it to Big Eddy a little before 2pm and had the bollards near the boat dock drying our gear in the warm sun while we took a few laps floating down the refreshing river against the cliffs here. Fairly efficiently and with most gear dry, we loaded up and drove out the the highway.
We drove lonely desolate roads counter-clockwise around the massif of Valles Caldera (a new drive for me), passing by and through some very impressive roving thunderstorms. Weighing our grim camping options in this part of the reservation, we eventually came up with a plan to book a cheap hotel in Gallup then to spend a few hours passing through Petrified Forest on the way home.
While the effort and cost-per-mile with permits and shuttle to get to the Rio Chama does not give me much interest in a repeat, I thought it was a very worthwhile stretch of river and I think we all were more impressed with it than we thought we would be and had a great trip. Special thanks to Heather for spearheading the trip logistics as trip leader.
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