In 1869, a group led by John Wesley Powell explored the Green and Colorado rivers, eventually becoming the first white people to travel the entire Grand Canyon by boat. Today, much of the system that propelled the men on their 1,000-mile journey has been dammed and drained. To experience how things have changed firsthand, a team from the University of Wyoming, the U.S. Geological Survey, and several Native American tribes re-created Powell’s trip on its 150th anniversary in 2019. The differences were immediately apparent: Where the Green River carried Powell for the expedition’s first 60 miles, the modern-day rafters were blocked by what’s now Flaming Gorge Reservoir and had to be towed across its still surface. See the transformation for yourself at the Boulder International Film Festival (March 2 to 5), which will screen A River Out of Time, a documentary about the voyage co-produced by Durango filmmaker Ben Kraushaar. And to discover what can be done to conserve the waterways’ endangered flows, read “The Search for Solutions to Colorado’s Water Crisis“.