Escalante River info

[RedRoxx]

Planning a mid- Mayish trip to Utah for 10 days. Thinking about a long trip down a portion of the Escalante, prolly about 65 plus miles with some side canyons. I used to have a link for river flow rates but can't seem to find it.
How is the snow pack up there??? Is there an anticipated higher than usual spring run off??
I have hiked/BP'd most of the side drainages and a variety of loops both off Hole in the Rock Rd and from the other side off the Burr Trail. Used to deep water wading and some swimming but don't want to turn this into a 60 mile float.
Have other options for my time up there and could always do this on another trip.
Also any shuttle suggestions in Escalante?? I will probably hitchhike up Hole in the Rock.
Thanks---

[jb]

As of today (only 3 days before average peak snowpack), the Escalante drainage is at 77%--about the only place in the state well below normal. Boulder Mt. somehow got missed by all the storms. And the Widstoe #3 station is even lower. (According to an old post by Pete Chatelian over on Yahoo Canyons, that's the best predictor of river flow.)

Unfortunately the USGS discontinued its Boulder Creek flow gauge, so that info is now unavailable--the only gauge on the Escalante itself is near the town, upstream of every single significant tributary in the upper drainage, so it's not very helpful. However, below is a link to the latest peak runoff forecasts for the Upper Colorado basin. Note the Escalante is forecast to peak more than 10% below average, but not yet much precision about peak timing.

http://www.cbrfc.noaa.gov/wsup/pub2/peak/peak.php?year=2008&month=4#uc

[RedRoxx]

Looks like it's on unless the weather goes really bad. I plan about 55-60 miles solo backpacking along the Escalante. If anyone sees a redhead with a large yellow Osprey pack hitching along Hole in the Rock at Hurricane TH around 16-17th I'll be needing a ride back toward Egypt.

Pic of me in a shallow area of a slot we were exploring in Az


http://www.arizonahikers.com/board/albums/albvo75/cg.jpg