The Brief, Mysterious World of High Water

It has been several months since the rivers came up and stayed up, sometime in January, after rising and falling in December. The meter at downtown Sacramento has been at 23 feet or more at least since then, rising a little during heavy storms, never falling lower. Great masses of wood, broken and twisted trees, brush, fences and litter can be seen in the Sacramento; the American, with Folsom and Nimbus dams to catch and filter runoff just above, runs high but clear of debris.

We got into the water at the Howe Avenue access point and discovered that the aquatic world that has been visible from the freeway bridges is quite spectacular up close and goes on for miles, between the levees along the American between Sacramento and Nimbus dam. It’s not a continuous environment, but the area around Discovery Park which is clearly visible from Interstate 5 is a good sample of what the areas where the levees stand back some distance from the bank have been like.

With record snow levels, the river will be wide and deep for months to come, spreading far into woods and fields. The streamside vegetation and wildlife seems to be thriving—anything that couldn’t stand it has long since been washed out or left to dangle from a tree.

Many a mud-encrusted tarp and piece of outdoor gear has ended up that way, in some cases with short pieces of nylon line dangling into the water to mark the current, which can emerge from otherwise solid walls of cottonwoods, far from the actual stream.

Some signs remain of homeless encampments below the waterline—ropes and old shelters, abandoned when the water rose--and there are new camps built on higher ground. Miles of streamside trails, parking lots, informal roadways sit under ten or fifteen feet of cold, murky water as well as countless dens, nests and hollow logs that will all need to spend some time in the sun before being worthwhile to anything other than catfish.

There’s a mild current several hundred yards back into the trees, around islands and down channels. Trees open wide enough to allow the kayak through, the water is quiet enough to make avoiding snags and flooded trees reasonably easy, even though passages are narrow and lined with potential hazards.

After working through a tight spot or two, we discover private little lakes unlikely to be intruded on. Wind blows carpets of snowy seed clusters down from the woods, white drifts of it gather on the still water near the trees; leaves and seed clusters are driven off sparkling open water by spring wind.

Every few yards there’s a turtle sliding off a log; a flotilla of goslings sliding along with a parent at each end; paired mergansers patrol quiet coves. Above us a pair of Cooper’s hawks cries, one of them sits in a snag while the other lifts in the wind and heads up the streambank.

Black-capped phoebes wait on the exposed vines and branches, watching for insects they can dart out and snag. Their quick pip pipping echoes off the damp bark of willows standing in ten feet of water. Western bluebirds perch here and there on low-lying branches.

At least two kinds of woodpecker work the surfaces of riverbank snags left bare in fires during recent dry years. The black, leafless trunks lurch awkwardly through undergrowth which has reached in from all sides to fill holes in the canopy.

A deer feeds in what is usually a dry furrow of earth about twenty yards from the riverbank, but is now a small island or isthmus. We pass within ten yards, gliding down a temporary slough, ordinarily a rough trail through the brush, passing through heavy vegetation on the way back to the river.

The opposite bank is contained by a levee close in: bikers and runners pass just inside the screen of briars and willows marking the parkway. In some places people have found protected spots on the bank where they can stand at the temporary north shore of the river, watching it all slide relentlessly down.

#geese #mergansers