We tried to boat Topock Gorge last time we were at Lake Havasu but the winds were too high and they canceled the trip. We were able to go before the big wind storm this time. We had to pay a shuttle to bring the car around.
Topock Gorge is one of the Colorado river canyons. It is shown here in the orange Havasu Wilderness area. It is a 17 mile down river paddle on flat water. The gorge is, well, gorgeous. We put in just south of Needles, California at Pirates cove resort- see the pirate ship behind John.
The gorge goes through the Needle mountains in the Havasu wilderness area. There is no camping allowed here. The gorge is red rocks and beautiful blue green water.
They allow motor boats and jet skis in here, so it is really loud and choppy from them. Especialy here where the gorge is narrow. Really ruins the ambience.
This is near Devil’s Elbow. John got a photo of me on the other side of the canhyon, the tiny dot in the second photo.
The Needles are really pretty peaks. John is pretty cute too. We stopped at Picture Rock to eat lunch and view petroglyphs.
The petroglyphs are a short hike in. Then we forged on. 17 miles is a really long paddle. Above is near Sand Island, it is a big sandbar and the water is only a few inches to a few feet deep. Lots of boats where there and people were playing in the water. I think at spring break it is a huge party.
The canyon widens out and mountains are much farther away. Forturnatly there are less motor boaters here so there are some spots of calm water.
The take out is at Castle Rock just north of Lake Havasu. We were whupped, long paddle, fun day. We were really lucky in that there was a two mile current the whole way. A lot of the Colorado River in this area between dams is just a big lake with no current. It still took us about 6 hours of steady paddling. The whole area is a wildlife refuge. It is along the pacific flyway where all the mirgrating birds go. There are 312 species of birds seen here. Probably more when there are not jet skis. We did see a loon, a golden eye, a hooded merganzer and a ton of coots.
I bought John dinner at the brewery in the Colorado Belle casino in Laughlin. I came out $12 dollars richer, John drug me out before I got any richer. When we came out it was sunset behind the green Tropicana casio. I finally got to see the green flash in the sunset.
Petroglyph sun by the river, may be modern graffitti, hooded merganzar, cool trees, arch, arrow bush flower and a couple of the mesquite blooms.
We drove through California and Arizona to get there. Parts of the road followed the old route 66.
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