Pilot Greg Paulin and Cody Perry flying by camera over Southwest Colorado. Photos: J Poma

Behind the Lens

Reflecting on a year of filming the Dolores River.

The pilot was showing us hand signals flying over the twisting canyons of the Dolores River in Southwest Colorado. We had him banking left and right over a maze of meanders to film and photograph for an upcoming documentary being produced for the Dolores River Boating Advocates. Flying provides an astonishing and altogether different view of the land. Rig To Flip partnered with Lighthawk to coordinate this unique filming opportunity over the district- over the river. For the Dolores is spread far and wide in this portion of Colorado. To really see the full extent of the river, you have to take flight.

Water from this river is purposed, all of it. That’s worth repeating. The communities in Montezuma and Dolores counties are the beneficiaries of a reclamation project that harnessed an entire river. The region is a vast and gentle plain ringed by mountain peaks and desert mesas. Agriculture has been practiced here for 3000 years, but never like today. Vast quanities of water are distributed from control rooms via mouse and keyboard over hundred miles of canals, pipes, ditches and facets. Thousand foot center pivots swing 60 acre circles of real time rain. This is part, if not most, of what the Dolores is today. It’s a rural kingdom, a river province.

Flying in a cessna feels a lot like riding in my own pickup. It’s loud, bumpy and badass. We’d been warned five or six times not to eat much before the flight, probably good advice. It’s a small space to be covered in vomit but I was far more worried about dropping my camera out of the aircraft. You get in, belt up, squawk a bit at each other and before you know it you’re sailing over the Earth. El photo grande.

Like any great ride, it was over before I knew what to do best. Touching back down onto the Cortez tarmac I immediately felt lucky. Not to have survived, but to have had learned so much from so many involved with Dolores River’s story. The landmarks have become familiar now- the places are personified and rich with character. From above I saw the routes we traveled this way and that recalling our own journey. A quest guided by a simple question: What do we stand to inherit here? At first glance out of the aircraft window it seemed clear. The land speaks with the story of our heritage and dreams in these arid lands. There wasn’t a idle moment where a camera wasn’t pointed out the window, the view was amazing.

From the flight line Mesa Verde dominates the horizon and I stared up in contemplating what I had just experienced. I knew we had some killer images from the flight and more than one high-five was exchanged over celebration and cervezas that night. Its not often where nearly every frame, every photo is so haunting and vibrant. Perhaps that’s time though. Time and one year now behind the lens.

Cody M. Perry, Rig To Flip

Views From Above, 9 photographs of the Dolores. By Juliann Poma

The Montezuma Valley, where the majority of the Dolores River will be used. Here the Towac/Highline Canal will ultimately carry water 40 miles to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

McPhee Reservoir seen below is the product of a main channel dam on the Dolores just downstream of the town Dolores, Colorado. Looking over the Western arm of the reservoir is the Great Cut Dike (upper right), where a large quanity water is diverted out of the Dolores River Basin. From there it will travel hundreds of miles in canals, laterals, pipes and ditches primarily to irrigate crops, mostly alfalfa and corn.

McPhee Dam creates Colorado’s second largest reservoir but nearly half of the pool content behind the dam isn’t unusable for any purpose. The reservoir feeds its canal system by gravity so lake levels need be high enough to drain out into the canal system. Drought conditions and a fully allocated resource have led to little if no room to wiggle.

Snaggletooth Rapid, Pondersoa Gorge on the Dolores . A feared and formidable rapid once considered one of North America’s “10 Big Drops” is a boulder field at 20cfs. The rapid is located high on upper reaches of the Dolores on its way to the confluence with the Colorado river some 140 miles down river. On its way there the overall river will decend over 7000ft, travel through several lifezones and defy geologic structures in its path.

Once McPhee became opperational in 1984 a physical and biological alteration of the river has been underway. Vegetation has encroached and narrowed the channel, creating in some places ideal environment for tamarisk. Native fish species such as the roundtail chub have become functionally extinct or extirpated from any habitat since the high water of spring flows no longer flush the corridor or are timed to create spawning opportunities for fish.

The Dolores River Canyon. A 30,000 acre wilderness study area and one of Colorado’s great unknown canyon systems. An Isolated maze where the easiest way to see and access it is by floating in, but that may no longer be realistic on todays river. The Dolores is fully allocated water resource. Only in years of deep snowpack and only after the reservoir fills will the Bureau of Reclamation pass enough water for the public to float these wild lands.

Agriculture in this region falls into two distinct categories, two different models: dryland and irrigated crops. Dryland farming is a once a year harvest for crops like beans and wheat. Dryland farming is also soil-centric relying on natural precipitation and crop rotation to maintain viable production. The town of Dove Creek , Colorado was once called the “Pinto bean capital of the world”. But when water from the Dolores began to arrive everything would change.

Dove Creek, Colorado. An important distinction to make between the Northern communities of Dove Creek and the Southern area Cortez farmers is when water from the Dolores began to be used. The farmers in Dove Creek didn’t get irrigation water until the later half of the 80’s where as Cortez area farmers have diverted the Dolores on and off for over a hundred years.

Since project water became available some ag producers in Dolores county began to opt for an alfalfa crop because you can harvest four or five times a year, as opposed to once annually with beans. Its an attractive model for a low value and fluctuating market the Colorado bean industry contends with. Thus, it appears that project water from the Dolores has helped drive an agronomic model that requiers lots of supply and lots of use.

Ute Mountain Ute Tribes Farm and Ranch Enterprise is the largest sole recipient of water from the Dolores River Basin. Vast quanities of water have been moved across 40 miles of desert to reach these fields of alfalfa. In the early 90’s the tribe didn’t have flowing water on the reservation, then when project water arrived had more than they could possibly use. This illustrates one of the rock and hard place scenarios that Western water doctrine places us in. If you don’t use the water, you lose the water.

The Dolores Documentary: River of Sorrow

Watch the trailer and learn more about the project. Click Here
Also check out rigtoflip.org and the doloresriverboating.org