President’s Column
Summertime fun on the Klamath
On the seventeenth and eighteenth of June, Donna and I joined two visiting friends from England to raft down the upper Klamath River between Boyle and Copco dams.
We rafted the upper two thirds the first day, and the lower two thirds the second day. We repeated the middle third with the Class IV-V rapids.
Although fun, it was an outing of contradictions. We were on a “Wild and Scenic River” on which we waited to be turned on to have enough flow to raft. We were told the river was healthy, but algae along the rivers edge smelled like a day old cow patty. The Bureau of Land Management “manages” the canyon in this area but there are essentially no improvements left not vandalized.
The birding was good: Four Bald Eagles, two Golden Eagles, a dabble of Dippers, gobs of Black Headed Grosbeaks for a morning chorus, Yellow, Wilson’s and McGillivray’s Warblers herons, cormorants, mergansers galore, a nice nighthawk camp fly-through. kingfishers, flickers, woodpeckers and more.
I asked our guide if his outfit did birding oriented trips, and he thought it might be a good idea.
I wondered what the natural flowing river might be like if its main source of nutrients were the volcanic rock through which it flows, and how big a fish our assistant guide might have caught instead of a ten-inch trout.
What I did most though is enjoy the ride and have fun. A good experience in a place can help re-commit to protecting and restoring it.
Go forth and have fun!