{"id":33231,"date":"2023-06-27T00:40:24","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T06:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rafter-who-drowned-in-the-upper-animas-river-is-identified\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:07:15","slug":"rafter-who-drowned-in-the-upper-animas-river-is-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rafter-who-drowned-in-the-upper-animas-river-is-identified\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafter who drowned in the Upper Animas River is identified"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sara
Sara Rosecrans, 25, drowned June 10 while rafting the Upper Animas River. Rosecrans worked as a raft guide for Mild to Wild Rafting & Jeep Tours, but was a passenger on the June 10 trip. (Courtesy of Amanda Ravensbergen)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A 25-year-old rafter who drowned earlier this month in the Upper Animas River has been identified as Durango resident Sara Rosecrans.<\/p>\n

San Juan County Coroner Keri Metzler confirmed the identity of the woman on Monday.<\/p>\n

The incident remains under investigation by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife swiftwater investigation team, and no new information has been given about the accident, said CPW spokesman John Livingston.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t closed our investigation yet. Right now, it is pending reports from the sheriff\u2019s department and the county coroner,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce we\u2019re able to review those and our swiftwater investigator doesn\u2019t have any follow up questions, he can go ahead and release that report.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Juan County spokeswoman DeAnne Gallegos said the Sheriff\u2019s Office had not released any additional information as of Monday.<\/p>\n

\"Sara
Sara Rosecrans, 25, drowned June 10 while rafting the Upper Animas River. (Courtesy of Amanda Ravensbergen)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

On June 10, Silverton Medical Rescue responded to a satellite emergency notification device alert about 1 p.m. on the Animas River near Tenmile Creek.<\/p>\n

The incident involved two rafts carrying four people each who were rafting the Upper Animas River reach from Silverton to Rockwood.<\/p>\n

Previously, San Juan County Sheriff Bruce Conrad said kayakers unaffiliated with the rafts came upon the location where Rosecrans had fallen into the water. The group and the seven passengers on the raft attempted to assist her.<\/p>\n

The rescue team met the reporting party about 2:30 p.m. near the location where Tenmile Creek joins the Animas River. It was there that the team was able to locate the victim.<\/p>\n

Lifesaving efforts were made by members of the rafting group before the rescue team\u2019s arrival, but Rosecrans was deceased upon the rescue team\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

Metzler confirmed on June 13 that Rosecrans died as a result of drowning.<\/p>\n

Rosecrans was a passenger on a Mild to Wild Rafting & Jeep Tours trip on the Upper Animas and worked for the company as a raft guide. Mild to Wild co-owner Alex Mickel told The Durango Herald<\/em> on June 12 that Rosecrans was an experienced raft guide and was swiftwater certified. She had worked with the company for a little over a year.<\/p>\n

Mickel said in an interview Monday that Rosecrans was an amazing young woman and that she loved being involved with outdoor pursuits, whether it was backcountry skiing or rafting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were lucky that she chose to do them with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that her enthusiasm and positivity was contagious, touching everyone in the Mild to Wild community.<\/p>\n

She also worked as a program assistant for Adaptive Sports Association and earned a degree in Outdoor Recreation and Education from Western Colorado University, according to Adaptive Sports\u2019 website.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t matter if you\u2019ve met Sara for 10 minutes or knew her for 10 years, she had this really unique and special kind of magic quality,\u201d said one of Rosecrans\u2019 friends, Amanda Ravensbergen. \u201cWhen you met her, she had these beautiful eyes that were constantly changing colors and this perfect smile with a very sweet voice, but she was also very powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sara
Sara Rosecrans, 25, died June 10 while rafting the Upper Animas River. A co-worker said Rosecrans\u2019 enthusiasm and positivity was contagious, touching everyone in the Mild to Wild community. (Courtesy of Amanda Ravensbergen)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Ravensbergen met Rosecrans while attending Western Colorado University. The two crossed paths because Ravensbergen worked with the university\u2019s outdoor program Wilderness Pursuits and Rosecrans knew people affiliated with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe seemed like a piece of Durango and a piece of the Southwest. It felt like she just belonged in the desert and in the river,\u201d Ravensbergen said.<\/p>\n

Rosecrans was well-known for her love of the outdoors and art. Ravensbergen said Rosecrans had never skied before moving to Gunnison but picked up the sport like nothing she\u2019d seen before.<\/p>\n

Another friend, Seth Trujillo, said Rosecrans had the ability to brighten anyone\u2019s day within 60 seconds of speaking to that person. The two had dated for 4\u00bd years and moved to Durango together a little over two years ago.<\/p>\n

The two met when they worked together in the ski school at Crested Butte Mountain Resort.<\/p>\n

He said she had multiple jobs while living in Crested Butte, including working at a local coffee shop, Adaptive Sports Association and various jobs at the ski resort.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was also a really incredible artist and did lots of painting and graphic illustrations,\u201d Trujillo said.<\/p>\n

He recalled a January rafting trip in Mexico where she crafted a crown for her friend\u2019s birthday out of vines and flowers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything she did, she did with this creative spirit that was really unique to her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A memorial service is scheduled for July 22 and 23; a location has not yet been decided.<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect age for Sara Rosecrans. Incorrect information was given to the Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

accident remains under investigation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,950,28,475,1799,1562,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-rafting","tag-san-juan-county-colorado","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33231","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=33231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82116,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33231\/revisions\/82116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33231"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}