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Highlights
 | South Beach to Duffy Mountain (31 miles) |
| Cool: low 22°F, high 85°F |
| Water temperatures 48°F to 57°F |
| Wind speeds around 11 mph |
| No rain |
| No canoes tipped over! |
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25 people took part in the 2007 Fort Collins Audubon
Canoe Trip. This year's trip was on the Yampa River between
South Beach and Duffy Mountain (31 miles). Centennial
Canoe's Randy and Becca again served as our guides, and again we
were lucky in having good weather and few pesky insects!
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 On the first day, we
enjoyed a quick breakfast, packed our canoes and shuttled cars from the put-in
at South Beach to the take-out at Duffy Mountain. Centennial
Canoe guides Randy and Becca led us through introductions, followed
by canoeing basics and safety tips. Our first day of paddling
took us past three bald eagle nests. After our lunch stop, the
observant ones among us spotted the prehistoric rock art-- a
bisected shield figure painted in red pigment. Those not so
observant had to paddle back upstream to see it! |
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We awoke on the second day to frost on our tents and gear.
According to my weather tracker, the low was 21.5°F at 5:30 a.m.
The high was around 3 p.m. that day at 85°F. Before breakfast, many
enjoyed a short hike around the camp area before the Tai Chi
exercises let by Mani Lee.
It was an easy day of paddling and we held on to each other's canoes
to form one big raft-- a great way to lazy down the river and enjoy
the scenery. After a lunch stop below rocky cliffs across the
river, we paddled on to our campsite. An afternoon hike before
happy hour brought great views of the bend in the river below
sandstone cliffs. |
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| During our hike, Lucy
surprised us with some fascinating facts about harvester ants. Did
you know that the queen ant can live up to 50 years? Worker ants
usually live only a few weeks. Harvester ants forage up to 90 ft
from the colony to carry back seeds to eat and small pebbles to form
the mound. At archaeological sites, they also collect beads and tiny
artifacts for the mounds. You can read Lucy’s masters thesis,
Harvester Ant Mounds: Utility for Small Object Detection in
Archaeology, at
http://www.greybull.org/burris_thesis.pdf After
dinner, Sheryl discovered a nest of red-tailed hawk chicks in a
crevice of the cliff across the river. Luckily, we had two
scopes along, so people lined up to take a look! |
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 The second night camping was
not quite as cold. The low was 26°F at 5:00 a.m. As
usual, Randy and Becca rose extra early to make sure that the early
morning birders would have hot coffee. After breakfast, we
loaded the canoes and did Tai Chi exercises with Mani. Then
after a poetry reading by Randy, we enjoyed the Centennial Canoe
tradition of quiet paddling on the last morning of the trip.
We passed by several large stick nests in the rocky cliffs before
reaching the takeout at Duffy Mountain. |
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Bird Species Observed
44 species
(Bird list courtesy of Sheryl Gracewski) |
Great Blue Heron
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Golden Eagle
American Kestrel
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Rock Pigeon |
Mourning Dove
Common Nighthawk
Common Poorwill
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Western Wood-Pewee
Willow Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Say's Phoebe
Western Kingbird |
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Eastern Kingbird
Violet-green Swallow
Bank Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Cedar Waxwing
Rock Wren
House Wren
Mountain Bluebird
American Robin
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Black-capped Chickadee |
Common Raven
European Starling
Warbling Vireo
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Yellow-breasted Chat
Spotted Towhee
Brewer's Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Common Grackle
Bullock's Oriole |
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Participants (listed by canoe) |
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Randy Hertzman |
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Anne Stewart and Bill Worley |
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Mani and Ulla Lee |
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Judy Sanborn and Joann Gile |
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Christina Andre and Mike Paulick (Trainee) |
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Anne Saunders and Becca Arndt |
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Diann and Tom Johnston |
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Sheryl Gracewski and Tom Nash |
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Denise and Mark Bretting |
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Beth and Miranda Lahman |
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Bruce and Joel Lahman |
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Jean Sayre and Susan Bonsall |
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Lucy Burris and Joel Hurmence |
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Our Favorite Centennial Canoe Guides:
Becca Arndt and
Randy Hertzman |
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Our thanks to the participants for
sharing their photos! |
