More Flooded Landscape

This weekend I got to visit the river via Sutter’s Landing, interesting historically because it’s the spot where Johann Sutter came ashore with his dream of creating an economic empire on the frontier. These days it’s the scene of a capped landfill and an aluminum barn that usually echoes with the shouts and squeaks of skaters plummeting and recovering, rolling up and down plywood ramps at top speed. Just beyond the parking lot, the American river is currently running at high volume but low speed, with few obstructions coming down.

We launched easily from a spot about halfway down the trail to the summertime beach, a popular spot for swimming, fishing and small groups of people who break off to find a quiet spot under the trees.

Some people were actually jumping in where they were obliged to make their little riverside day-camps, improvised from the brush and trails that run somewhat behind the waterline. But they weren’t exactly swimming and they didn’t stay in long. Temporary lagoons and flooded banks push everything back onto a muddy narrow strip, but as we paddled upstream it was clear that a lot of people are now ready to move on to summer recreational patterns.

Looking toward the east it’s plain there is still a large heap of snow on the mountain summit, extending hundreds of miles along the Nevada border, waiting to melt and keep the rivers full.

There’s a swirling eddy that helps make going up the south bank casual, at least as far as the railroad trestle, where the current swings across. The islands that have stood there recently look to be intact, but still several feet underwater. By swinging out across the stream we easily reached the north shore, where trail access has been mostly swamped for three or four months. The levee is visible in some places, some distance away, but there’s a lot of water running through where a network of trails has led in the past from one access point to another, and to numerous hidden camps, now washed out.

We lingered under the trestle watching the cottonwood seeds emerge and snow down on us silently and with simple majesty. This quiet interlude was interrupted by the appearance of a good-sized sea lion making a deliberate downstream run. He passed us by a few yards, down the regular channel, with no sign of being disturbed or noticing us. In the fall one went near enough under the inflatable kayak to cause it to vibrate mildly, and we watched a pair of them hunt salmon, also visible in the low, clear conditions.

The large homeless encampment has obviously been driven back from the river, but we could hear voices and a man came down to the riverbank near the trestle to perform his ablutions not long after a family of hikers had stood on the same spot, reachable by following the rail right of way down from the Parkway, which is safely above water on the levee and receiving heavy use, visible as flashes of neon sporting wear through breaks in the trees.

The next time I kayak along this stretch I’m going to start collecting the trash hanging from flooded trees while it is still reachable. It was disconcerting at times to look down into the tea-brown current at flooded branches and trunks visible because of the white plastic bags streaming like alert flags.

I’m also going to bring some fishing tackle and prowl around in the temporary or vastly enlarged lagoons on the north bank between the trestle and Discovery Park.

#levee