About The Yampa

Today, the Yampa River and its tributaries remain a model of a healthy river system. The Yampa is the last unregulated river in the Colorado River system, running free for most of its 250-mile run from the Flat Top Mountains to its confluence with the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument. Many species of animals and plants co-evolved with the river over millennia and continue to thrive in the Yampa’s natural, snowmelt-driven flow regime.

Intro to the Basin

The Yampa River begins at around 11,000 feet as a small stream in the Flat Tops Wilderness. Spring snowmelt from the Gore and Park ranges rushes downstream, and for the first 25 miles it is called the Bear River. It isn’t until the Bear River meets Phillips Creek at around 7,800 feet near the town of Yampa that it officially becomes the Yampa River.

The Yampa River serves as a lifeblood for Northwest Colorado in many ways. Due to its limited reservoir storage, the Yampa retains a hydrograph characteristic of a snow-melt driven system, seeing very high peaks in the spring and low base flows in late summer, fall, and winter. This dynamic flow regime still floods its banks on big snow years, connecting the river to its floodplain and supporting rare riparian forests of cottonwood, red-osier dogwood, and box elder. Endangered fish species including the Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, bonytail chub, and razorback sucker evolved with rivers like the Yampa that flow fast, furious and cold each spring, carrying enormous loads of sediment that settle out as the river slows and warms over the summer. In a system dominated by reservoir-fed, regulated rivers, these species and many others depend on the Yampa River for their survival.

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Background

Human presence in the Yampa Basin can be traced to 7000 B.C. Starting around 800 A.D. the area was inhabited by people of the Fremont culture, but this group disappeared for unknown reasons by the 1400’s. Following the disappearance of the Fremont culture, a band of Utes known as the Yamparika Utes lived in the Yampa River valley. The name “Yamparika” is a Snake Indians word meaning “yampa eaters”. This most likely referred to the edible roots of the white-flowering, parsley-like plant, Perideridia gairdneri. Fur traders from the 1800’s reportedly mistook the word “yampa” for the Ute word for “bear”. Their references to the “Bear River” on early maps of the area may help to explain the river’s name change.

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Tributaries, Flows, & Watershed Size

The Yampa River flows north from the town to Yampa to Steamboat Springs, passing the town of Phippsburg and going through Stagecoach and Catamount reservoirs along the way. Due to inflow from tributaries including Oak, Burgess, Walton, Fish, Spring, Butcherknife, and Soda creeks, the Yampa River doubles in size as it flows through the city of Steamboat Springs. Past the city, it doubles again past its confluence with the Elk River, which carries snowmelt from the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area. Other notable tributaries include Elkhead Creek, the Williams Fork, and the Little Snake River. The Little Snake River only increases the Yampa’s flow by 30%, but it contributes 70% of the sediment that endangered native fish in the lower segment depend upon.

10,500

The whole basin including the White, Green, and Yampa Rivers is a total of 10,500 square miles.

250

The Yampa River is approximately 250 miles long.

46

The lower 46 miles of the Yampa River flow through Dinosaur National Monument.

15

The Yampa River accounts for 15% of the total steamflow that leaves Colorado.

3,000

About 3,000 acre-feet of groundwater is withdrawn annually from the basin.

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Know Before You Go

Water Usage

Due to the West’s arid landscape, only 10% of the agricultural lands in the region are irrigated. Although 70% of water diverted from the Yampa goes to agriculture, much of the land is in dry-land production including livestock, hay, and small grains. Ranchers and farmers make up a large share of the river’s stakeholders and continue to be valued partners and conservationists. Many of the river’s senior water rights, some filed as early as the 1800s, belong to agricultural producers.

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Reservoirs

While the Yampa is often called “wild and free,” modifications have been made to the river, including the construction of reservoirs in the river’s upper section. Even with these structures, the Yampa still retains a natural hydrograph that sees high peak flows during snowmelt season, and low base flows later in the summer, fall, and winter. Most of the the Yampa’s inflow occurs downstream of these reservoirs, and their total storage capacity is a tiny fraction of the river’s annual flow volume.

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