American River Trip Report 2007

by Kit Hewitt


December is the cruelest month. You take a California dry season and make it drier and the Russian River is too low for paddling and there are too many people who want to ride in the van and use POST boats so the plan gets changed and we are on our way to Rancho Cordova to put in at Sailor Bar and run the American River to Gristmill.

The list is long, we have Kit, Charlie and Alice, Don and Karen, Vince and Shauna and Tegwin and Rio (2 dogs, more on that later). We have Dave and his wife Debbie, and Catherine and her partner Bryan, Dan and Jan, Peter, Jono (new guy) and one other boatload I am forgetting at the moment but I know there were ten boats and this makes nine. By the way all the pairing is just to keep track of the boats, I am not implying there is anything more between the couples other than an ‘and’. (I only mention that because once someone was embarrassed when I wrote “Bill and Kathy” because it looked like they were “together” and they weren’t. Now they are married with 2 kids, but what did I know?) There is also a pair missing. The trip leaders, Jim and Barbara, after all their work organizing, taking and making calls and emails, just couldn’t come at all. Jim had gone on several long distance work related trips and got home Friday late and felt so wiped out that they decided to stay home. They got all the worst part of a trip, the emotional roller-coaster of planning a trip without water or parking and none of the fun run down the river. Thank you guys for all your hard unsatisfying work.

The POST van collected gear and passengers at Brickyard Cove Yacht Club, which is turning out to be a fine spot for the POST. It’s a bit windy but our hours are not sailing hours so we pretty much have the parking lot to ourselves, day or night. We can make as much noise as we want and there’s a key to the bathrooms which after years of stifling ourselves at Bill’s house is a great relief.

We were on the road within ten minutes of our plan and made it to the put in at 9:25 when we were due at 9:30. Stopped for gas on the way.

Filling the tank on the van was $83.00!

Then the adventure began. All the vehicles took off on shuttle and we settled down to wait. Shauna, had bought Rio, a dog I was unfamiliar with. Alice, my 16 year old daughter, was enlisted to take Rio for walks around the park. I didn’t pay much attention, Alice loves dogs, someone offered her an opportunity to walk theirs, no problem.

Does the dance scene in Romeo and Juliette where they see each other for the first time and sparks fly, bring tears to your eyes? Picture that.

Alice and Rio, making eye contact across a barren parking lot. Rio giving a slight wag of his tail, Alice cooing and calling to him, eventually convincing him to get into the cockpit of her kayak with her.

Mrs. Montague, that is ME, is eventually informed that Rio is an orphan in search of a home. A huge advertising campaign is put forth. Everyone on the trip puts in their two cents: What a good dog Rio is, he is already house trained, he is calm, he is not timid, he rides happily in the boat. The list and the ribbing go on all day. I am adamant, we just can’t have a dog. We all work, we don’t have a closed in yard or even the possibility of a closed in yard. The poor guy would spend all day inside with two hostile cats, it just wouldn’t work. No one believes me because it is clear that Alice and Rio are getting along famously. I feel guilty for saying no because Rio is an excellent dog and if (it’s a big if) we could have a dog he would be perfect. Have I gotten it across what a wonderful dog he is? I guess even I am a little in love with him, which makes it all the harder to keep saying no. Sensing my ambivalence no one can let it rest. Sadly for our family this story does not have a happy ending. Alice and Rio are parted. Rio might be going home to live with Dave and Debbie and Peter. Although from the looks of how Vince daddied the dog, Rio might just be staying with him. Rio was sitting in the bow of Vince's boat and at one point Vince made a pile of gear in front of himself so that Rio could recline and yet still see over the gunwales. This dog charmed everyone on the trip.

Boating.

This is supposed to be a trip report and I have to tell you that the most challenging thing on the trip (for me at least) was having to say no to the perfect dog. My experience of the American River as it wanders through Rancho Cordova is not the same happy one I feel as I paddle along the Trinity or the Eel. It is a very urban river as it is followed closely by a bike and hike path for its full length and many times is crowded by large, imposing multi-million dollar homes. I always ask myself why would anyone build a house or even a shed on the floodplain of a river, even a dam controlled one? Dams fail, there are catastrophic floods. Yeah, yeah, I live about three blocks from the Hayward Fault and can’t imagine living anywhere else. I could pay $25,000 a year for earthquake insurance, but I don’t. I takes my chances, too,and its worth it.

Boating.

Ok, I’ll try to stay on the subject. So the American River is a Class I.

In this case that means that it is a lake with just enough current to almost upset our beginners who haven’t quite figured out how to go straight yet. There was one rapid, San Juan, which was easily run by all. The couple of chutes were done without trouble too. Arden was passed without comment.

The weather was cool, but not miserably so. The sky was bright and the sun dazzled us when it bounced off the water. There were hundreds of Turkey Vultures and seagulls along the shores scavenging the dead salmon. From the looks of it, the gulls were not doing well, the vultures had all the big pieces. There were a couple of places where there would be ten or twenty vultures in a bare tree looking like something out of a horror film. But then one could conjure up Snoopy from the comic, Peanuts, doing his vulture imitation. Wish I could remember more about that.

Due to the cold weather, there was no bad smell from the salmon an improvement over past years. It was good news that they were there at all since when we ran the Tuolumne and the Stanislaus in November we didn’t see very many salmon at all. On the American I heard several cries of delight as the huge salmon flashed through the gravel beds, escaping the boats as they came through. Being sweep we miss most of that action.

I don’t know if this section of river always looks blasted by the season but I can’t ever remember ever being there when it felt lush and beautiful. In the summer, one is blasted by the 100 degree heat and the trees and bushes look parched. In the winter all the leaves have fallen so the trees look cold and miserable. In spring, which is probably the prettiest time of year for this section, the flow tends to be too high and there are other more exciting rivers to run, including the mountain sections of the different forks of the American.

I am not making this sound like much fun, am I? It was lots of fun.

Charlie and I are still figuring out how to work the Caper, our tandem play-boat. It is one of those boats that will do almost exactly what you tell it to do, but it will also do exactly what the river tells it to do. One has to pay attention and never just coast along. We were sweep and there was a couple who needed some instruction so we were busy with them for a while before lunch. They got sorted out and we didn’t see them much after lunch. Peter, a teenager, was in a solo IK and started getting pretty tired towards the end so we kept him company. We got to meet Jono, our current Newguy. (HA! I just remembered who the other boat was, Dan and Jan! OH no, I already listed them! Who was in that other boat???? I keep hoping that as I go along I’ll remember.) We were unwilling to break up the party so we stopped for dinner at Pietro’s #2 in Vacaville and I stuffed myself on Chicken Picatta, my favorite dish there. Others had salad and pizza, someone had pork chops, there was lots and lots of pasta and thereby tons of left overs. We were home by 9.

Kit