/ Tubers float the Yampa River through downtown Steamboat Springs on July 1. Thousands of tourists travel to this mountain town each year to visit the river. At Backdoor Sports on Yampa Street, dozens of people from Wisconsin, Kentucky and Illinois were lining up this month to rent river tubes days before the waterway closed because of drought conditions. Peter Van De Carr started the business 35 years ago with 10 tubes and a single limousine to ferry people back up the river when they were done. This year, he has a fleet of vans and long lines. “There's days where we'll put 600 people on the river,” Van De Carr said. “Last year, we did about somewhere between 15,000 and 16,000 people. And that's probably like 4,000 or 5,000 above just an average summer.“