On February 17th, I began my 2023 river paddling season by taking my inflatable stand up paddleboard, the Voyager by Red Paddle Co, to the Poudre River in Fort Collins. The river flow in wintertime is close to zero, about 20 cfs, but you can find some water in the Poudre which will float you boat. Just look for backwaters of diversion dams: standing or slow moving water and very shallow. It’s not good for serious paddling, but it may be enough for some playing, shooting pictures or testing equipment.
I visited Poudre River section in Kingfisher Point Natural Area (access from Hoffman Mill Rd). In my old blog posts I may refer to this area as Nix or Nix Farm Natural Area. Depending on the river flow and operations of the diversion dam you may find there almost 1/4 of paddling water. If you are willing to do some dragging, you can even reach the Lemay street bridge at the upstream end.
The river is very shallow except very close to the dam. Therefore, you cannot use a regular long fin on your paddleboard. For recent 6 years, I’ve been using a retractable fin from Frogfish. I’ve found it on Amazon, but it doesn’t look to be available right now. Another solution is to use some sort of a flexible fin, like this one from saruSurf. You don’t really need a fin here, since you are paddling in circles anyway. However, the retractable fin is very useful for paddling down the South Platte River which is usually deep enough, but poses a high risk of hitting shallow areas or other underwater obstacles. So, if you are a SUP paddler be prepared for the joint paddling clubs trip on the South Platte, usually 3rd Saturday of March from Evans to Kersey or Kuner.
During my trip, I paddled more than 3 miles, going up and down the river and paddling in circles while shooting pictures and videos. I have some footage to edit and post on my Youtube channel. Please check my paddling playlist.
You can find another river spot like this in Fort Collins downtown at Legacy Park, but it’s more likely to be covered by ice in winter.
It was rather cold and cloudy day …
which ended up with some snow.
Two days later (March 15, 2013). Paddling Badfish SUP on Beaver Pond in Arapaho Bend Natural Area with a smoke plume from Galena wildfire behind me.