# CA drought revealing long lost rapids



## dafewillis (Jun 21, 2014)

What an incredible man. Any books on Dubois I should read?


----------



## HPMG (Nov 2, 2008)

I ran that section of river on Tuesday. Spent the entire night before reading everything I could find on the net about the rivers history. Was a good experience, though hard to imagine now how it was in it's previous glory. 

Some Youtube worth watching:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ-UM6Gzz7c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7LT05BpUwE


----------



## soggy_tortillas (Jul 22, 2014)

Found this archive too... some pretty interesting stuff. Stumbled upon a fun poem about a fossil-tossing brawl.... some cool pictures, articles, memories, etc.
The Stanislaus River Digital Archive
Makes me wonder what's been drowned out in all of the other reservoirs.... wonder what lies beneath Stagecoach.... wonder what the world was like before we started consuming everything we could and building over anything we couldn't consume.


----------



## 2tomcat2 (May 27, 2012)

Thanks for the posts...river history must live on!


----------



## yetigonecrazy (May 23, 2005)

I think some really large and powerful big water rapids on the Gunnison River were lost when they built Morrow Point Reservoir, just downstream from Blue Mesa. 

My dad is a big train buff (a foamer for those of you in the know) and he's got some movies that have old footage from the 1940's and 50's of trains rolling through the upper Black Canyon (some of them in color) and some of them were during high water, and you can see some large, powerful big water rapids in the river below the train. Not unrunnable cascades like in the Big Black, but rapids like you would see in Gore (but less blast rock).

The section from the current Blue Mesa Dam to the Cimarron confluence isn't as steep as the big Black downstream, and it was shot before the era of any dams, so the Gunny in flood at that point could have been pushing 4k to 7k, or more. Pretty incredible to see! I've got those movies on my hard drive at home, next time I cruise home for a visit I will try to upload some of them. The rapids look big and powerful but certainly runnable, and if the dams didn't exist it would be a run that flowed year round. Definitely a big loss.


----------



## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

I am going to try and get on the section this Sunday after the, "Not So Gnar Fest." 

The flow table is a bit concerning though: American Whitewater - Gauge - Stanislaus At Camp Nine


----------



## salsasean (Apr 20, 2005)

Those videos are great. Thanks for showing them. I had ther oppurtunity to paddle the Stan this summer whiloe out in Cali working on the T. What a waste New Melones is.


----------



## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

Below is a photo I shot of the take out of the run. Check out the high water mark at on the tall bridge pillar!


----------



## Dave Frank (Oct 14, 2003)

That bridge in the foreground must make a nice strainer it a the wrong levels. 


Sent from my iPhone using Mountain Buzz


----------



## elkhaven (Sep 11, 2013)

Dave Frank said:


> That bridge in the foreground must make a nice strainer it a the wrong levels.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Mountain Buzz


When the water was that high, it wouldn't have been flowing much - I was thinking it would have been rough on power boats. Imagine towing a skier and hitting that thing when it was 6" underwater - driver meets windshield - skier meets transom.


----------



## sarahkonamojo (May 20, 2004)

buckmanriver said:


> Below is a photo I shot of the take out of the run. Check out the high water mark at on the tall bridge pillar!


My father took a photo of himself standing at the base of that high bridge... He was a civil engineer. Even though he was not a fan of the Army Corps of Engineers, he thought the dam was cool. Even as a kid, I couldn't understand what was so good about it. I think he'd even been on raft trip on the Stanislaus. Parents can't be everything we want them to be.

Sounds like an unnecessary and useless project. The (temporary) reappearance of the river is an important reminder of the damage and loss that can be created by such a project.

SarahD


----------



## yetigonecrazy (May 23, 2005)

buckmanriver said:


> Below is a photo I shot of the take out of the run. Check out the high water mark at on the tall bridge pillar!


Dang. I remember driving over that bridge in the early 2000's and it was almost full. Thanks for sharing buckman.



elkhaven said:


> When the water was that high, it wouldn't have been flowing much - I was thinking it would have been rough on power boats. Imagine towing a skier and hitting that thing when it was 6" underwater - driver meets windshield - skier meets transom.


I don't know if you would be water skiing through there, many of those tall snags look like the are a bit higher than the bridge......Waterskiing through a forest of dead trees?


----------



## yesimapirate (Oct 18, 2010)

Playing the "what if" game. What if the dam project were spun up today? I would think the power of social media would factor in heavily.


----------



## HPMG (Nov 2, 2008)

Perception can definitely change over time. When I was young, I remember watching the helicopters running survey crews for the Clavey dam project and thinking that it would be so cool to have another lake down the street from my house. That section of the Clavey/Tuolumne were pretty much inaccessible to me, and therefore I felt little connection to it. Now the Tuolumne it is a very important part of my families life, and imagining running a silted Clavey falls because the resevoir has receded in a drought puts the Stan more into perspective for me, I can imagine how heartbreaking that would be.



And for those who are concerned.....somebody is looking out for those water skiers.........


----------

