Trail Log 1995-1997 - Lamar at Colorado State University

Events in Ft. Collins area:
July 28, Monday. Heavy storms in early morning hours, concentrated near the foothills west of
town. Eastern portions of the city received little in the way of rain from these early storms, although
1-2 inches fell in the north and northeast parts of town. Light rains off and on through the day.
Heavy rains continued over Horsetooth Reservoir and LaPorte, which received an additional 4
inches of rain. Ditches in LaPorte spilled over their banks, but overall Ft. Collins experienced few
complications from the daytime rains. But the soil was becoming saturated, with the result that what
came later was all runoff.
About 5.30 p.m. the deluge started and continued in waves of heavy showers, mainly west of Taft
Hill Road on the west side of town. Nearly 3 inches of rain was reported in this area by 7.30 p.m.
But the worst was yet to come.
The most intense rainfall came between 8.30 and 10.00 p.m., Monday evening, and was
concentrated between the Quail Hollow and Cedarwood Plaza in southwest Fort Collins. This
storm reported dropped 9.5 inches to 10.2 inches of rain in the area west of the Taft Hill and Drake
Road crossing in less than five hours. Much lesser amounts fell over most area of Fort Collins and
north toward Wellington. Accurate rain gauges recorded 14 inches of rain for the thirty hour rainfall
period, and more than 10 inches in LaPorte. These totals are nearly the average annual
precipitation.
The water massed together and ripped along tiny Spring Creek and other ditches and creeks in the
Fort Collins drainage and through the CSU campus.
Before it was over, 1.600 homes were adversely affected. When the Spring Creek flow reached
the western edge of the two mobile home parks near central Ft. Collins, it washed railroad cars off
the tracks and across three huge culverts through the rainroad embankment. There the waters built
up enough force to destroy the mobile home park and to kill five persons.
Flash floods in Colorado are typically at night.
continuing, Montana trip:
Bill and I drove to Missoula, good drive, arriving about 10.00 p.m.
Parkside.
Night at the Holiday Inn,
July 31, Wednesday. Thelma Elser picked us up; we shuttled the car to Elser's ranch, and she
drove us to the North Fork (of the Blackfoot) Trailhead, where we joined Smoke and the packing
(Smoke Elser). Drove by the former Lindberg ranch. The Blackfoot River is the river featured in
A River Runs Through It, although the filming was done on the Yellowstone River. Some kettle and
kames topography en route.
Wranglers: Cody Hensen, P. O. Box 129, Drummond, MT 59832, has finished at Missoula. Raised
on a Montana ranch. Rich Keeland, 5509 Mainview, Missoula, MT 59803. Studying petroleum
engineering at Butte.
Orville Daniels and Olleke Rappe-Daniels, 1810 Riverside Dr., Missoula, MT 59804. He is retired
chief of Region 1, USFS, which includes fourteen forests in Montana, Idaho, Dakotas. She is still