Throw Back Thursday - May 21

The river has changed quite a bit in the last 3 years. Before that it had been the same for the previous 35 years at the least. A flood or high stream flow can rearrange the river valley floor in a short amount of time.

It takes the river a while to establish a carved out channel. And every time there is high water it restarts the process of creating a channel. While rafting on the river during high water you can hear the loose rocks rolling underneath you. They are being pushed downstream by the current . The noise carries through the water and through the bottom of the raft. There is a constant cracking and banging going on underneath you as the current carries the rocks with it.

When water levels receed  many rocks are left in a position where they can move again. Either by the next high water, ice flows or just by the gradual settling of the riverbed over time. The flatter, smoother rocks are usually orientated leaning downstream. This position offers the least resistance to the flowing water.

The rocks stay in this position until the next large volume of water comes again. This stirs the rocks up, getting them rolling again and the process repeats.

The very large volumes of water can fill the valley floor. Any unstable rocks on the floor can give way to the fast current and a new path starts.

The following pictures show the valley floor from a slightly different position and altitude. The picture on the right is the river before our recent highest water. Once the high water passed we ended up with the river on the left.

 Some rapids and features are gone but as you can see new rapids have formed.

The river is always changing and sometimes those changes are amazingly large.