Tag: carsonriver

There's kind of a puzzling scene along the Carson River. Take a look.

Here's the Carson River, as seen from Cradlebaugh Bridge where it intersects with Hwy 395 in the Carson Valley. This view looks west from the bridge, towards the Carson Range with Genoa Peak in the background. From this angle it looks like a nice, wide, fast-flowing river with plenty of water in it.

This is the view from just a few yards away. This looks to the east from the other side of the bridge, and it brings up an obvious question. Where did all the water go? All that water passing under the bridge from one side emerges as little more than a trickle on the other side, a meandering stream down the middle of a wide, dry, riverbed.

So what's the deal here? Sinkhole? Hidden pipeline to Las vegas? A troll under the bridge drinking all the water? Or maybe there's a small dam under the bridge, and what looks like a flowing river to the west is really a small pond. I don't know, it's just really weird to compare the two sides of the bridge here.

We're deep in the doldrums of summer now, as evidenced by the above picture. The snow has disappeared from even the darkest crevasses of Job's Peak, meaning that our snowpack is all but gone. This leads to the rivers drying up to little more than a trickle, and the water situation becoming more dire. Already this is causing problems to the east, with Lake Lahontan drying up to the point where it's no longer safe for boaters, and only supplying Fallon farmers with a fraction of what they usually get. Adding to the problem is the levee break that occurred in Fernley last January. The levee broke along the Truckee-Carson canal, which was built to take water from the Truckee River and send it to the Carson River and Fallon. The levee has been mostly fixed, but water flows are still restricted and will be for the foreseeable future. So the Carson River is extra low this year, the canal is running at a trickle, the lake is really low, and the farmers are looking at a short season because the water just isn't there. I'd say we could use some rain right about now. At least the fire in Yosemite is under control now, so the smoke is gone. One small consolation.

So on Friday there was a river rafting expedition for Carson City officials, starting at Morgan Mill and floating down to Dayton. But that was the second expedition. On the Sunday before, there was an expedition for Douglas County officials which started at Markleeville and floated down to Gardnerville. The Record Courier's Scott Neuffer has the story on that one, as well as video.

Both of these expeditions were put on by Great Basin Sports.

Sam Bauman in the Appeal has a trip report about rafting on the Carson River. There's also video at News Carson City.

If you're interested in rafting the Carson, Great Basin Sports are the ones to get in touch with.

Carson local Warren Wish went for a drive down the Carson River Canyon recently, and was shocked to see how much trash has been dumped along the river.

Yet all along the way, the canyon was littered with a mixture of modern-day garbage, cast-off household rubble and evidence of the past. Impossible to ignore were the graffiti-painted cliff walls. In several places, decaying cars stuck out from the middle of the river. Dotting the canyon banks were a huge assortment of domestic waste.

Eroding living room sofas and old mattresses rested near a rusting washing machine and a bullet-punctured water heater. A broken bedroom dresser and treadmill had been dumped by the side of the road. Closer to the river, they came upon the rotting debris from an encampment. Someone had once lived there and left behind bags of garbage that had scattered in the wind. Beer cans, empty bottles and ammunition shells peppered the ground in all directions.

He took several photos of the river and managed to get them published in a special article on the Nevada Appeal's website. At the end he and his artist friend Santiago Chavez wonder if cleaning up the canyon is going to be part of the V&T project, since the rails are going to be running right through that area in a few years. But in fact, cleaning up of the river, at least getting the debris out of the river channel itself, is part of the Carson City Aquatic Trail plan, to make the river safer for rafters and kayakers. The river is full of hazards, from crumbling dams to rusted car bodies, that can be lethal to anyone trying to float down the river, and the plan right now is to lessen those hazards and remove the trash. And hopefully a side benefit of the project, which is intended to get more people out on the river, will be increased vigilance along the canyon, which will lead to less illegal dumping overall. After all, not many people will dump their trash right on the side of a highway, because there is too great a chance of them getting caught doing it. If the river becomes more popular, and there are more eyes watching, that might discourage the dumpers and the vandals and send them scurrying away, which will lead to a cleaner river.

Nevada Appeal: Carson River trail plans move forward:

Work on a 14-mile Carson River rafting route is moving forward with park improvements and trail details.

The map of the Carson City Aquatic Trail has been released and two city parks along the route running from the Silver Saddle Ranch in Carson to the Santa Maria Ranch in Dayton would get upgrades under city parks department plans.

I've written about this Aquatic Trail before; it's basically an effort to clean up the river and remove obstacles so it's safer for rafters and kayakers. The final map of the new river, including new put-in and take-out areas, has been released.

A high-res version of the map can be had at Flickr.com.

Brunswick Canyon seems to be a pet peeve of Guy Rocha's. Or rather, using the name Brunswick Canyon to refer to the wrong canyon. Rocha, who is the State Archivist of Nevada (more or less the chief historian of the state), wrote in to the Nevada Appeal correcting them on calling the canyon to the east of town, where the Carson River leaves the Eagle Valley, "Brunswick Canyon". It's a common mistake, one that probably everyone in town makes. But as Guy points out in his Myth A Month column, the canyon the River travels through is called the Carson River Canyon. Brunswick Canyon is an offshoot that meets up with it at a bend in the river.

Without renting a helicopter, probably the best view of the canyon comes from Google Earth. Here we are, at about 2,000 feet up.

The Carson River snakes through Carson River Canyon, starting at the bottom and heading off to the left. Brunswick Canyon is the one that heads off to the right, where a 4WD trails follows it up into the hills. A tall ridge divides the two. Just below the center of the photo, where the big bend in the river is, was the home to the Brunswick Mill, which processed the ore coming out of Virginia City. It's now the site of Tim Bertagnolli's gravel pit.

Here is a photo taken from the riverbank, looking at the mouth of Brunswick Canyon.

The confusion over the canyons may never end. Pretty much everybody calls the canyon the river courses through "Brunswick Canyon". This is the route the V&T Railroad used to take to get from Mound House into Carson, and it will use the same route when it's reconstructed. So I expect we'll be hearing a lot more about "Brunswick Canyon" in the years to come, even if people will be talking about the wrong place.

Every spring, the water in the Carson River rises as the snow in the mountains starts to melt. Some years there is a ton of snow in the mountains, and the river gets to be pretty high and flowing pretty fast. But some years we're coming off of a dry winter, and there's hardly any water. But regardless, every year at some point the river hits its "peak" flow, when the water is at its highest for the year. After that, the water levels start dropping again going into summer.

Now the big question is, what is the river going to do this year? We had an absolutely dry 2007, right up until New Year's, but then during January and February it's seemed like there's been a snowstorm every other day. So does that mean the river will be unusually high this spring? Or just a little bit above average? A lot of people are trying to predict what the river will do, and just to make things a little more fun, Great Basin Sports has decided to hold a little contest.

2006 Peak Flow

From now until March 15th, Great Basin Sports, which is a local outfitter of rafting and kayak tours, is accepting guesses as to exactly when the Carson River will hit its peak flow, and exactly how much that flow will be (in CFS). From their website:

Great Basin Sports is pleased to announce the first annual Carson River Peak Flow Contest. The contest is to see who will pick the date, time, and amount of the highest flow in the Carson River this spring. Over the past 66 years of record, the average date for the peak flow is May 26th with a flow rate of 1,430 cubic feet per second (CFS). However, there is a large range; in 2007 the river reached peak flow on May 1st with only 540 cfs, in 2006 the river peaked on May 21st at 4,280 cfs.

Guess the date, the time (to the nearest hour), and the amount of the peak flow in cfs.

To submit your guess, just go to their website (www.greatbasinsports.com/) and fill out the form in the yellow sidebar. Winner receives an all-expense-paid rafting trip for two on the Carson River.

In the Reno Gazette Journal: Carson River project rolls forward. It's a story all about the plans to tame the Carson River as it runs along the edge of Carson City, and make it friendly to boaters and kayakers. Right now there are some definite hazards out there in the water, like sharp rocks, old dams, rusted cars, and who knows what else. The plan would be to clean all that stuff up and improve access so it's easier to park and get to the water's edge.

A map of the Carson River and specific places that will be improved. A larger version can be found here.

The company I work for, Resource Concepts, is playing a huge part in bringing this plan to reality. Lynn Zonge specifically, who is quoted in the RGJ article, is a big part of making this happen. She's a former Grand Canyon river guide, so she knows her stuff. And she was also one of the designers on the Truckee River project in downtown Reno. She'll be giving several public presentations on the Carson River so any of you can show up, see the details, and ask questions or make comments. Here's the schedule:

* January 16, 5:30 p.m., Carson City Community Center
* January 17, 6 p.m., Community Center
* January 22, 6 p.m., Community Center
* February 5, 6 p.m. Carson City Hall
* February 7, 5:30 p.m., Community Center
* February 28, 3:30 p.m., Community Center
* March 15, 8:30 a.m., Community Center

The Carson River isn't huge, and it doesn't cut through downtown like the Truckee does in Reno, but it still has a lot of unused potential, and this project should hopefully raise awareness and get a few more people out there to the riverbanks.