California Road Trip

Everybody loves a road trip and since things were a little slow around the office during the week between Christmas and New Years Years, Aki and I decided to make the trek down to California to visit my colleague Dave in Paradise, CA.

Of course our trip featured many stops along the way visiting rivers, dams, and hydropower facilities. The first day we drove from Seattle to Eugene and stayed with our friend Megi. Aki had a great time walking her dog Belle and may have been the first guest to actually run the dog to exhaustion. The next morning we continued on down to northern California.

Our first stop was Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue. Aki fell asleep just before we got to the dam so he didn't actually look at this one. They are installing pumps to replace the function of the dam as a source of irrigation water and will soon remove the dam itself.


We crossed over the Siskiyou Summit and into California. As you come down out of the pass you enter the Klamath River Valley. The Klamath has been the site of some of the most contentious debates over river management in the West. Elmo and Aki visited ground zero--the fish hatchery that attempts to provide mitigation for 4 hydropower dams owned by PacifiCorp.

We got to Dave and Vicki's house in Chico where a crab dinner was waiting for us. Aki stayed up to 11:30 watching "Finding Nemo" but he was up early the next morning ready for our river trip. Here he models for the Patagonia catalog as we pack the car.

Aki's first winter paddling trip on Butte Creek. Aki and I had a fun day on Butte Creek, well known as a California creek in the Sacramento drainage where salmon have been restored following the removal of 4 small dams. Aki had a good time on the river but his favorite part was the hot tub at the take-out.

After our trip down the river Aki took a long nap in the back of the car and we spent the afternoon touring the Oroville Hydropower Project on the Feather River. Dave recently signed the Settlement Agreement for this project that includes a provision to study feability of a whitewater park.

Making our way back home we made a stop at the Prospect Hydropower Project on the North Fork Rogue. Aki had a great time running down the trails (as long as dad was willing to carry him back up the hill). This is the Avenue of the Giant Boulders and although flows are normally diverted around this high-gradient reach for hydropower the recent rain meant that flows were exceeding the capacity of the powerhouse.

So that was our trip: 4 different hydropower projects, 9 different dams, 3 watersheds, and 2 dogs to chase around.