On a hot summer day in Steamboat Springs, the Yampa River feels like the beating heart of the city. On a recent July afternoon, its banks teemed with people looking for a cool refuge from the mid-80s temperatures and direct sun.
Local mom Alohi Madrigal was one of them. She and two friends watched their kids jump off the rocks into the Yampa’s clear water. A steady stream of relaxed-looking tubers floated by too, sprawled out on thick, yellow inflatables.
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Even at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, this little section of the Yampa looked like a postcard-perfect picture of a summer vacation in the Colorado mountains.
“It's totally amazing,” Madrigal said. “It's beautiful. It's gorgeous.”
“And free,” one of her friends chimed in.
But days like this are a precious commodity in Steamboat Springs. When it gets too hot, the city shuts down this specific stretch of river: a roughly six-and-a-half-mile section that flows through downtown, just steps away from the shops and restaurants. During the driest years, it can be bereft of swimmers, tubers and anglers for weeks at a time.
This year, it was already closed for four days in July, and may close again before the summer is through.
It’s part of an uneasy balance struck by Steamboat Springs. The Yampa is the city’s lifeblood. Its water irrigates nearby farms and ranches. The same river supplies drinking water to homes and businesses all over town. During the summer, it becomes a mecca for vacationers who flock to the resort town for a cool mountain escape. The city estimates that more than 21,000 people took tubes down this stretch of river in 2024.
But it’s also home to fish. When the river is hot and low, too many humans in the water can setress out its fish – causing lasting damage to their health or even killing them. That could create an unpleasant scene for all of those river users and throw the Yampa’s ecosystem out of whack.
As a result, the city enforces periodic shutdowns to keep the river healthy, even if it means people – and businesses that can make big bucks on equipment rentals – will have to avoid it on the days when its cool water beckons the most.
Flows for fish
It’s easy to look at the Yampa and think about the paddlers and floaters playing on its surface. It's also easy to forget about the silent, scaly residents beneath. But those fish are at the heart of the river’s summer closures.
“It pretty much all comes down to fish health,” said Emily Burke, conservation program manager at the nonprofit Friends of the Yampa. “Fish get super stressed when river temperatures reach a certain level.”
Recreational closures on the Yampa can be triggered by three things: low water levels, high water temperature or low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water. All three make it harder for fish to survive.
When the river gets low and hot, fish often don’t have enough oxygen to breathe, causing them to get exhausted. That could make them too tired to look for food or stop eating. Already stressed and drained of energy, the extra stress added by humans in the river can cause lasting harm to fish health and — in some cases — kill them.
“If you have a bunch of people splashing around in these deep pools [that] these fish are using as refuge,” Burke said, “It's really stressful for them, and it can sometimes lead to fish die-offs.”
Measuring stations along the river gather data about its water every fifteen minutes. If the water is hotter than 75 degrees for two consecutive days or flowing lower than 85 cubic feet per second, city officials will roll out a river closure.
‘A huge economic driver’
When the Yampa is teetering on the edge of a shutdown, the people watching closest are often those whose businesses depend on it. Johnny Spillane is one of them. He owns Steamboat Flyfisher, which has a back patio that overhangs the river itself.
On a recent Thursday morning, as people milled in and out of brunch spots and started heading toward tourist activities, Spillane stood behind the counter of his store.
“You can tell in the shop right now it's pretty quiet,” Spillane said. “If it was a busy, hopping day with people fishing in town, it would be a lot busier right now.”
The river was still open for swimming, tubing and paddling, but officially shut down for fishing.
“July days are our most important days as a business, so losing July days certainly hurts a little bit more,” Spillane said. “But at the same time, you know, losing the fish in the river would hurt a lot more than that. For us, protecting the fish, protecting the resource, is far much more important than getting an extra couple days of fishing on the town stretch, or selling a couple dozen extra flies.”
Spillane said the river closure doesn’t affect his business that much. Fewer people come into the store to buy equipment, but the shop’s fishing guides — who can run more than 200 trips each week — can take customers 20-30 minutes outside of town to other streams, rivers and lakes that are open for anglers.
Even owners of businesses that are inextricably tied to the Yampa’s “town stretch” share Spillane’s mentality.
Backdoor Sports sits just a short walk downstream from the flyfishing shop. It’s a powerhouse in the local tube renting scene. Backdoor moves so many rental tubes – as many as 400 a day during the peak of summer – that it has a drive-thru-style window to keep customers moving from signup to river in short order. The shop dispatches rental tubes from a literal backdoor, which lies no more than a couple dozen feet from the Yampa.
“The Yampa River is a huge economic driver for the city,” said Mike Welch, a co-owner of Backdoor. “We want to make sure that it stays that way for a lot of years to come. The closures can be tough at times, but also necessary, because it's good to protect what we have here. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing that we've got.”
While it takes some extra preparation to steel Backdoor against changing river conditions and shutdowns, Welch said communication from city officials makes it easier.
“The city has done a great job in setting those parameters,” he said. “So we know what the water is looking like and where and when those closures are potentially coming. So we can plan for it.”
Welch bought the business alongside his brother and sister-in-law this spring. The previous owner, Pete Van De Carr, was a well-known local who died in February following a skiing accident.
Another shop owner, Marty Smith, said Van De Carr played a part in getting the city to specify its plans for reopening the river after a closure.
“Every day, all the outfitters in town, we would get emails from Pete saying we need to come up with a rule to reopen the river,” said Smith, owner of Mountain Sports Kayak School. “I think that they definitely listened to Pete.”
City officials say they are trying to be more transparent about the criteria they use to reopen the Yampa for recreation and communicate directly with outfitters about upcoming changes to closures. The city consults with Colorado Parks and Wildlife before reopening the river. They consider current river conditions, weather forecasts and the amount of stress that fish may already be feeling from hot, dry conditions.
‘A tough spot to be in’
For the city officials who manage closures on the Yampa, it’s all about balance.
“We hate having to do this,” said Jenny Carey, the city’s Open Space and Trails supervisor, “Because you inevitably will hear from somebody that it's just ruining their day, their business. And that's tough. That's a tough spot to be in. We don't want to do that.”
Carey said Steamboat Springs puts up signs and social media posts to inform people about the closures and the reasons for them.
“We understand that people want to be in the river,” she said, “And so it's a difficult conversation. We do our best to educate as best we can. I think a lot of our locals are getting used to this, and they understand the reason.”
While it can be rocky trying to tell out-of-town tourists that they won’t be able to tube on a hot summer day, locals really do seem to be getting the message. In a 2024 survey of Steamboat Springs residents, 92% of people said “management of the health of the Yampa River” was essential or very important.
That’s only five points lower than the fire department. Managing the Yampa’s health ranked as more important than city parks and the police department.
“The Yampa river is considered one of the most important services that the city provides,” said Julie Baxter, the city’s water resources manager. “So we feel very grounded that we have the support of the local community members that live here in Steamboat Springs.”
Recreational closures on the Yampa are mandatory for rental shops, but technically voluntary for individuals who want to bring their own tubes or kayaks. But with so many locals on board, few people decide to take a dip.
“If there is a closure in place and you get in the river,” Baxter said with a chuckle, “You will likely have a local yell at you.”
Alohi Madrigal, who was raised in Steamboat Springs and still lives in town, watched her kids splash in a stretch of the Yampa that may be closed later this summer. She said a shutdown wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“There's a million things to do here,” she said, proceeding to list off a handful of other swimming spots. “We have to take care of the river, or it won't be here for long.”
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.
