I took a drive up U.S. Highway 50 last week to photograph the late spring runoff flowing down the Arkansas River. The river was running anywhere from 3,500-4,000 cubic feet per second along the upper Arkansas that day. After a short stop in Salida, I drove up just north of Buena Vista to the stretch of river called The Numbers.

Even though the river was running at high levels, given the fact it was a Tuesday meant there were few paddlers on the river. I saw seven kayakers during the three or so hours I was there, each taking about 30 seconds to bob past me as I sat along the rocky riverbank trying to make a picture.

I shot this with a Nikon Z9 and a Nikkor 70-200 zoom. The camera’s got a 45 megapixel sensor, can shoot 20 frames per second, and generates a 34 megabyte RAW file. I cropped about 80% of the file to come up the photo posted here, resulting in a nearly 13-inch wide, 300-dpi picture.