Stay tuned for 2025 event info!
The State of the Yampa is an opportunity to come together and learn something about rivers like the Yampa, the lifeblood of our local environment and economy.
Agriculture and the Environment
Recreation
Community
When: Doors 6:00pm | Presentations 6:30-8:00pm | Meet the author, filmmakers, FOTY staff and board till 8:30pm
How/Where: Depot Art Center, 1001 13th St, Steamboat Springs
Help us kick off Yampa River Festival! Space is limited: register for your FREE tickets now.
Annual State of the Yampa Address: Lindsey Marlow, Kent Vertrees, Friends of the Yampa
Yampa River project updates: Maybell Diversion, Jenn Wellman (The Nature Conservancy) and Craig Whitewater Park, Melanie Kilpatrick (City of Craig)
Keynote Speaker: Matt Moseley, author of “Soul is Waterproof”
Film: “River Mamma,” fresh off its World Premiere at 5 Point Film Festival: speak with filmmaker Sarah Hamilton live!
Film: “Dividing the Waters,” a national, state, and regional award winner by Steamboat High ’24 grad Wren Capra.
Thank you sponsors Yampa-White-Green Basin Roundtable and Mountain Tap Brewery!
Donations will be accepted but the event is free for anyone interested.
Matt Moseley is the author of “Soul is Waterproof.” He has a passion for long-distance swims in sometimes treacherous waters. Whether it’s New Orleans, the Caribbean, the Colorado River, the Sea of Galilee, or points between, he dives into new challenges, and in “Soul is Waterproof” he invites you to experience the adventures along the way. As he discovers crossing one body of water after another, people can’t live where fish can’t swim. “Soul is Waterproof” offers you a coveted spot on Moseley’s support boat, so prepare yourself: Captivating stories involving larger-than-life characters unfold around every bend.
The film “River Mamma,” by Sarah Hamilton, follows Elisha McArthur— a lifelong raft guide and single mom— and her relationship with her teenage goth daughter, Charlotte, who has no interest in rivers at all. It is an intimate portrait of an eclectic family dynamic, teenage angst, and the way nature can help a mother and daughter reconnect. World premiered last month at 5 Point Adventure Film Festival in Carbondale, CO. Filmmaker will attend and participate in a Q&A about the film.
“Dividing the Waters,” by Wren Crapra, is a film on the history and lasting implications of the Colorado River Compact as a part of a pre-collegiate history competition called National History Day. It features a fast-paced analysis of the history and development of the Colorado River; interview segments from water experts Jay Weiner (water attorney for the Apache tribe), John Fleck (longtime reporter and author of the Colorado River), and Craig Childs (freelance writer and river guide); and over 100 archival images, documents, and videos of the Colorado River Basin and Colorado Compact negotiations and related scientific studies. Filmmaker will attend and participate in a Q&A about the film and its important subject.
Awards & Accolades:
Regional and state champion of 2023 Colorado National History Day
National Honorable Mention, winner of the National Park Service award at the international History Day contest.
It has been screened at the Denver Film Festival, Seminars at Steamboat in the Strings Pavilion, and in a traveling exhibit sponsored by NOAA and University of Colorado Boulder.
