Unknowingly at the time, Andrew and i took a weekend gettting some sonoran boating in early this spring. Besides the lower salt (which i hav done a few times, most recently in midsummer amid thousands of others) there is not traditionally much boating that is considered good in the area; it is the desert afterall and desert doesnt typically mix with water. Nonetheless, my worktrip happened to coincide with some winter rains which meant at least a few options were possible. A few possibilities had been suggested among a small group for a late winter weekend, but neither Andrew nor I had held a paddle for at least a few months, since our thanksgiving San Juan trip which hardly counted as whitewater. Rather than entering into excessively risky terrain or trying a lesser known section, we optend to hit the Verde.
The verde does have many miles of paddling that consistently flow yearround, as there are springs that contribute water consistently and has been a go-to for us when we want to get on something easy without the hoards that are on the lower salt. This time we went from Tapco to past Tuzigot (we originally had intended to take out at Riverfront park in cottonwood but were having a good time so we went all the way to the 89A bridge).
The upper bit is a popular day run and is well kept by some local outfitters. Even at 65 CFS, which leads to some extreme pool-drop-y-ness, it goes clean and the water is crystal clear which makes for great fishing, obviously the primary use of this stretch. For the most part the pools are long and the rapids are more like short slides (that can be quite narrow sometimes) through trees between pools. After the Tuzigot take out, the river does pass through an old dam diversion site that is no longer functional. This one spot was by far the hardest rapid in the stretch, a ledgy double drop that was fairly steep. At such low flows you just kind of slide dow, but i can imagine at higher flows this might have some interesting hydraulics. Shortly thereafter the trees started to encroach. It started with one log, then another... then, huge jumbled messes of downed trees across the river. With some effort we got through, and as more water returned to the channel/joined from riverside springs, the channel got a bit wider. Close to the take out (with a river that was now very much a CL1 run) things started to become more constent. It is probably worth linking this to the other common section downstream that ends at Beasely, if for no other reason than to be able to see the confluence of oak creek.
The easy run was of course in anticipation of something more. A few options had been thrown out: Oak creek (turned down for now due to potential wood hazard...), Buro Creek (turned down because we just missed the tail end of the flow pulse), and a section of Tonto Creek, which we eventually settled on. It was low but runable, and for whatever reason was off my radar because i was more aware of the class 5 sections upstream. But a winner we had found!
Tonto is a true gem. A reasonable self shuttle (i ran it in an hour and a half or so), and plenty of action to consistently keep things interesting. Plus, how often do you get to float free flowing whitewater in the Sonoran desert?? The day trip starts just out of Jakes Corner at the bridge over Rye creek. THIS creek now officially takes the record of lowest volume water i have ever paddled and i dont know i can go much lower. We thought that the verde at 65CFS was low... Rye was probably at 20 or less, but was JUST passable with a little bit of scraping. It is a short bit that starts in a wide box canyon, and before too long Rye creek hits bedrock resulting in some rapids and water slides. Right at the confluence you have to get out to go over a barbed wire fence, all in all a short half mile or so, which leads you right into the action on the Tonto! The creek needs to be in somewhat of a flood stage to be boatable, so expect water in the bushes and currents to be strong. It is pretty consistently pool and drop with plenty of bedrock features and the occasional wall shot, most of which go at 2+ until you get to "the gauntlet". Here the creek hits bedrock and is funneled into a narrow channel with a drop at the entrance. At 450 CFS this was pretty straight forward, maybe on the low end of CL3, but i could see this being much harder at higher water. We stoped here to set up a safety and run through the rapid one by one. Andrew and i even decided to swim it to practice defensive swimming and rescue throw techniques because the outflow was clean. During lunch, we had the pleasure of watching another group run through it and somehow two of the three flipped in the small hole dropping into the gauntlet; we got to help play clean up. After this there was a short but excellent section of basalt narrows with some very fun rapids, plus a nice side hike to a water fall before the run ended all to quickly as Tonto flows out into the floodplain of the tonto basin, on its way to the slackwater in Roosevelt lake.
It was an excellent run, i would definitely go back and do it again, and turned out to be the perfect warm up for the Salt River Wilderness run we did a few weeks later, which was a similar style but a bit harder.
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