Monday, January 24, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Men make run on Amargosa River

San Franciscan scouted river bed, sought right time

David Haist, left, and Rob Dreyer dump water from Dreyer's canoe after an 11-mile run down the usually dry Amargosa River in Death Valley. The trip was organized by Bert Welti. PHOTO COURTESY OF BERT WELTI

For most of its 125-mile course from Nevada's high desert to the bottom of Death Valley, the Amargosa River is as dry and empty as a ghost town.

The only time the Amargosa really runs is during abnormally wet periods -- once every year or two, sometimes less -- and even then the river is unpredictable and fleeting.

That is exactly what made Bert Welti want to run it.

For years, the San Francisco resident has watched the weather and scouted the river bed, waiting for just the right conditions to support what he hoped would be the first-ever kayak trip down Death Valley's only river.

Earlier this month, he finally got his chance.

Welti and his longtime friend and accountant, Rob Dreyer, drove south from San Francisco on Jan. 11. In Baker, they met up with fellow rafting enthusiast David Haist, who lives in the San Diego area.

From there, the three men hurried into Death Valley National Park to scout as much as the river as possible before the sun went down. The water wasn't as high as they had hoped.

"It looked like in wider areas the river was going to braid and we were going to be doing a lot of dragging boats," Welti said.

The next morning, they ditched their plan to start further upstream and put in instead near the old Confidence Mill site just off the unpaved Harry Wade Road, which cuts across the southern end of the park.

To get to the river from there, the three men had to carry their boats across the desert for about three quarters of a mile. They hit the water just before noon, Welti in his hard-shell kayak, Dreyer in a canoe, and Haist in an inflatable kayak.

Welti said the river was thick with mud. "It's sort of like putting a spoon in chocolate milk," he said.

Where they were, the river was never more than about 15 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet deep. The water moved along at a tranquil 2 to 3 miles an hour.

Dreyer and Haist had to get out and walk their boats across a few of the shallower spots, but Welti fared a bit better in his kayak. "There were parts where I was putting my hands over either side and dragging myself over the rocks, but I never had to get out of my boat," he said.

For about a third of the route, the river was bracketed by steep, 3-foot banks. In those areas, only Dreyer in his canoe was sitting up high enough to see out of either side of the channel.

"It's not quite the visual experience I had hoped," Welti said.

Even so, the three men often could look downstream and see Death Valley and the snow-capped Panamint Mountains spread out before them.

The only people they encountered were two tourists who waved to them as they paddled past Ashford Mill, 98 feet below sea level. Their trip ended about a mile downstream from there.

"We just had big grins on our faces," Welti said. "For me, the thrill was doing something I had this idea in my head for such a long period of time."

He said he has found no record of anyone else boating the Amargosa River in Death Valley.

Neither has Charlie Callagan, a park ranger in Death Valley for the past 14 years. "I can't swear it's never been done, but I've never heard of anyone doing it," Callagan said.

It's unusual, but it happens.

One summer about 20 years ago, Susan Sorrells and her husband, Robert Haines, climbed into a large river raft with another couple and rode seven miles down the Amargosa.

Sorrells, who has lived in Shoshone, Calif., for most of her life, said she also knows of several other people who floated sections of the river east of the park in the early 1980s.

In the end, Welti's group paddled down about 11 miles of the Amargosa, less than one-tenth of its total length and less than half what they originally had hoped. The trip took about 3 1/2 hours.

"Only people who move to a different drummer will drive 7 1/2 hours to float something like this," Welti said.