{"id":27369,"date":"2024-06-02T17:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T23:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/one-man-dead-one-missing-after-a-rafting-accident-in-upper-colorado-river\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:58:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:58:30","slug":"one-man-dead-one-missing-after-a-rafting-accident-in-upper-colorado-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/one-man-dead-one-missing-after-a-rafting-accident-in-upper-colorado-river\/","title":{"rendered":"One man dead, one missing after a rafting accident in Upper Colorado River"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A passenger train in November 2021 passes through Gore Canyon along the Colorado River. A proposed new railroad in Utah could direct heated oil trains on the same tracks through the remote canyon. (Jason Blevins\/Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

One man is dead and another missing after their raft flipped Saturday on the Colorado River below Gore Canyon near Radium.<\/p>\n

Grand County Search and Rescue responded to the river after a 911 call around 3:40 p.m. Saturday reported a person was not breathing. Another report using a satellite-connected Garmin device indicated there had been a rafting accident and bystanders were administering CPR to a man.<\/p>\n

The man, a 56-year-old male from metro Denver, was pronounced dead by emergency responders.<\/p>\n

Searchers used a drone and railroad truck provided by Union Pacific Railroad to search for a second man, a 61-year-old from metro Denver, who was missing after their raft capsized.<\/p>\n

The Grand County Sheriff\u2019s Office said it appeared neither of the men were wearing a personal flotation device, or PFD.<\/p>\n

A third person with the two men was able to get to shore.<\/p>\n

Searchers said there were three PFDs located with the overturned raft. The raft flipped around Yarmony Rapids in a stretch of whitewater below the Pumphouse Recreation Area. The Colorado River was flowing around 3,200 cubic-feet-per-second, or cfs, which is considered a medium-to-high level. The main rapid in Yarmony \u2013 which is also called Eye of the Needle \u2013 has a hole that can flip rafts around 3,000 cfs.<\/p>\n

The accident marks the second fatality of the 2024 whitewater season in Colorado. A woman on a commercial rafting trip died May 30 on the Poudre River west of Fort Collins after the raft struck a bridge pylon. Last year at least 23 people were killed in Colorado\u2019s rivers, creeks and streams.<\/p>\n

The Yarmony Rapid is one of the more challenging rapids on the Class III stretch of the Upper Colorado above State Bridge and below Gore Canyon. Last year a 51-year-old Steamboat Springs woman drowned after her raft flipped around the Harmony Rapid with flows around 5,200 cfs.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Land Management planned to search for the missing man Sunday and encouraged river users to report any sightings.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Searchers say neither the 56-year-old man who drowned nor the missing 61-year-old man were wearing PFDs in the second fatal whitewater accident of the 2024 season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28,976,1799],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines","tag-outdoor-recreation","tag-rafting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80039,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27369\/revisions\/80039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27369"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}