The Dolores River听starts in the high, ancient ponderosa forests on the southwestern edge of the San Juan Mountains before making听its way to the desert, cutting through 250 million years of geology, en route to听its meets up with the Colorado River. It has听one of the longest continuous raftable sections in the country, winding through one of the most beautiful, diverse canyons in the Southwest.
But it almost never runs.听听
Aside from a small section听set aside for fish habitat, nearly听all the water in the river is allocated for agriculture.听McPhee Dam, about 60 miles northwest of the Four Corners,听holds the river鈥檚 water in the second-largest reservoir in Colorado. Its availability is mostly dependent on snowmelt, and it only spills enough for people to听float in it听every three to five years, after irrigation needs have been met. Since 2000,听the river has run at 1,200 cubic feet per second (cfs)鈥攖he recommended level for floating鈥攐r more for only 131 days.听
This was one of those good years. Snowpack in the river basin was at 302 percent of its normal level听in late May, and authorities planned to open听the dam and听听near听the end of the month.听I was at home听in Seattle when my friend Brad called on Tuesday, two days ahead of the听planned release, to invite me on a trip down the river. 鈥淲e put in on Friday, and you should come. You can just meet us at the put-in.鈥
I was a 19-hour drive听away, but I鈥檇 been mythologizing those infrequent听releases in in my head. I told him I鈥檇 be there.
I rolled听into the Bradfield Bridge parking lot, downstream from McPhee, after midnight on Friday. In the morning, five of us pulled听up to the ramp and started yanking boats off the trailer.听

We pushed off听into the swollen channel, which was choked with coyote willows that grow thick when the river doesn鈥檛 run. Brad rowed one boat. Matt, another friend who鈥檇 been down for the last release two years ago, was at the oars of another, scouting for familiar landmarks.
The river was filled with groups ahead of us, commercial trips that had dusted off barely used permits. There were two boats of people in their eighties听from Oregon who planned to float all the way to Moab, Utah,听ten听days downstream, because they might never have the chance to do it again.
The Dolores鈥檚 rare flows are the result of a complicated mesh of storage capacity, water rights, and a variable climate.听The people who depend on the river are searching for a way to meet the needs of agriculture, conservation, and recreation while accounting for those factors. It鈥檚 a marker for the future in a hotter,听drier Southwest.听
The Dolores has been used for farming since 1889. Irrigation听became its primary purpose once the McPhee project was completed in 2000.听
for McPhee Reservoir is 229,000 acre-feet. The average inflow鈥攖he water that runs into the reservoir from snowmelt鈥攊s 327,000 acre-feet, of which 278,000 is听allocated for agriculture. That means McPhee is听essentially only big enough to serve agricultural rights. Because it鈥檚 entirely听dependent on inflow, it doesn鈥檛 have space to hold听extra water, so even in wet years, authorities can鈥檛 bank any for recreation听or research. The reservoir can only spill the extra water for recreational flows听if there鈥檚 enough precipitation.
鈥淭he [Dolores Water听Conservancy] District鈥檚 whole mission is to end the season with the reservoir at the tippy tippy top,鈥 says Jimbo Buickerood, lands and forest protection program manager of the , an environmental advocacy group focused on the San Juan Basin. He听first paddled the river in 1973.听鈥淚t didn鈥檛 end up full in 2017, and their board members freaked out.鈥澨鼺or the water district, which manages the dam, a full reservoir is a safety measure and a way to make sure all the legal needs are met, but it means there鈥檚 minimal flexibility for ecological and recreational flows, especially because the basin has been in drought for the past 20 years, Buickerood says.
That鈥檚 particularly scary in years like 2018. The Dolores didn鈥檛 run at all last year, leaving听people in the region haunted by the ghost of skimpy snowfall, the fear of threatened shortages, and not enough water to go around.
鈥淥ur eyes were twitching because it was so freaky,鈥 says Sam Carter, the program and outreach coordinator for . 鈥淎nd now, this year, there鈥檚 enough water to fill a reservoir that was at historic lows.鈥 Carter, who sits on the spill committee that helps decide how much water to release and when, says this year caught them off guard, and that they鈥檙e still nervous about last year鈥檚 drought. They鈥檙e constantly at the mercy of the snowpack.

As we floated downstream,听red Wingate sandstone morphed into tan slabs of Navajo sandstone, Triassic ceding to Jurassic. Beavers popped their heads up in the eddies, and one night we set up the groover toilet next to fresh bear prints.听
The campsites and banks were overgrown with plants like invasive tamarisk, which听grows in shallow salty soil, because no one paddled through last season. That made it easy to picture听what it looks like when it鈥檚 dry and the flood regime that supports native plans doesn鈥檛 happen. You can see the human impact of a river channel with no water in it.听I wonder where the otters and beavers go when there鈥檚 only 40 cfs, the minimum fish flow, pulling through the channel. Buickerood says they鈥檝e discovered听that cottonwood can鈥檛 regenerate when the flows are low, and willows take over, armoring the banks.
The pinnacle of paddling on the Dolores is a rapid called Snaggletooth, a long, complicated series of moves where plenty could go wrong. It has a course of screw-you rocks at the top, then a narrow slide into a fast tongue of water听between a huge hole听and a ledgy pour-over. Below that, all the water pushes toward two hooked fangs of red rock, the teeth that give the rapid its name. We scouted for a while, watching other boats run through, trying to memorize the line, picking out plan A and plan B听in case we flipped or got听stuck in the hole听or surfed sideways in the pour-over. One of the boats of older folks heading to Moab pinned on a pancake rock while we looked on.
On shore, Matt told us it boated easier than it looked, which was a small consolation as we floated toward the horizon line and the river picked up speed. Brad was on the oars. We came in river right, skated over the rocks, and caught the current, slicing the edge of the hole,听just sucking back for a second. Then we were free, and he was pushing downstream, toward the left bank, away from the toothy rocks, when I remembered to breathe again.听
Scenery, Snaggletooth,听and solitude all coalesce to make the Dolores a prime destination for rafting, but ecological integrity is part of the puzzle, too. The two are linked, and Buickerood says that, in the face of drought, pressure to maintain the ecosystem might be the most powerful tool to keep water in the river for paddlers when inflows are reduced.听
To try to account for that, and balance water rights with wildness, there have been a series of moves aimed at protecting听the corridor. They range from a Wild and Scenic recommendation in 1968, after the dam was approved, to a more recent proposal to become听a national conservation area, which Carter says would only protect the landscape, not the water, because flows are still beholden to the irrigation water rights, even if the land is protected.
This year, even though the snowpack was high, runoff was slow, thanks to a cold spring. The spill committee was cautious about when to release water. Buickerood says a lot of those decisions have historically happened out of fear.

The , a stakeholder group started in the early 2000s, is trying to get more flows for fish and more flexibility. It听sets recommendations for how to use excess water (when there is any),听and Carter says it听brings in all of the river鈥檚 constituents, from irrigators to stream ecologists, to try and听figure out how to use the river for the most purposes. Endangered fish are a big lever, as is the desire to maintain and manage the river corridor, all of which take water.听
This year鈥檚 levels were听abnormally high. By the time we got off the river, three days later, snowpack was at more than 1,000 percent of the average.听That鈥檚 what climate change is鈥攊nconsistencies in the systems we depend on. The future of the Dolores is a complex question:听How do we plan for a variable future and avoid one where听decreased flows potentially pit agriculture against environmental concerns or recreation?
鈥淢y answer to that听question is building relationships.听The biggest piece is communication,鈥 Carter says.
As the Southwest dries out鈥攁nd nearly 听that it will鈥擨 don鈥檛 want river trips to be freak pilgrimages that feel like last glances at a fragile, fading slice of a natural system we used to know. I鈥檓 glad I came, I鈥檓 glad I saw it, but I don鈥檛 want this swollen water year to be the last time I do.