Malode Boys Ride the Elusive Middle Yuba

Its cold and raining…again. We definitely could use the rain after these last few years of drought, but it's hard not to long for the warm spring months ahead when the rivers run wild, and boating conditions are at their best.

We had some great runs in the spring last year outside of the American River, my favorite of which was probably our descent of the Middle Fork of the Yuba. The Middle Yuba is a tough stretch to plan for because the dam just above doesn't schedule regular releases, so most of the time the water is too low to boat on, trickling down at a few hundred cubic feet per second (cfs). And even when the releases do happen, the flow is often still not enough for river running. However, one of the biggest spring storms brought so much water down the watershed that water spilled over dam, creating a one day window for us to hop in a raft and ride the rapids down to Oregon Creek.

When I say "a raft", I mean a singular raft. Unfortunately, since it was such short notice and also because it was raining and flows were unpredictable, we had several last minute cancelations from the Malode crew. Suddenly, our eight person trip was down to just three of us. The flows the day before had peaked at 9000 cfs, and from what we'd gleaned from guidebooks and internet guides, the optimum flows were supposed to be between 1500 and 2500 cfs. Right before we left for the river the next day, the flow was 3000 and falling, which was perfect. Even though there were only three of us (Lindsey, Seth, and myself), we knew it might be a long time before such ideal conditions would happen again on that stretch of river. So off we went.

When we got near the put in, the gate to the dam was locked, so we parked and started feverishly changing into our river gear and pumping up the raft. We had about a half mile to carry the raft on our heads and didn't know how fast the water level was dropping, so we were in a hurry. The river gods must have been with us that day though because just as we were about to start carrying the raft, a huge crane-truck came down the road and unlocked the gate. The driver, with his smiling, saint-like face, offered us and our raft a lift.

When we got to the dam, we asked the driver if he wanted to ditch his job for the day and come with us, but he graciously declined. Water thundered down the hundred foot wall of concrete. We hauled the raft down the slippery slope of granite and started down river.

We all took turns guiding. The first few rapids were nice warm up class III rapids, and quickly dropped into a gorge filled with larger class IV rapids with slalom routes, and sticky holes that tried to keep and surf our small raft. The the two paddlers continually had to reach way out and pull the raft out, while whoever was guiding in back would be sunk sometimes up to the waist. Lindsey was launched from his guide seat into the front and crashed into the first aid box, gashing open his chin. The rain relented at times and we relaxed during the sparse bits of slack water, enjoying the lush, deep canyon walls. We pulled over at a tributary creek and hiked up among the neon moss, saw beaver tracks and the whittled stumps of willow it had snacked on. We scouted when we could on the larger rapids and were feeling like our run couldn't be more perfect. We successfully ran a couple large class IV+ rapids, one of which was relentless and must have been at least 3/4 of a mile long. Another required a precision route around two giant boulders while lining up to blast through three big holes along the way.

After that one, we thought we were done with largest rapids; we'd read in a guide book that there was one class V on the run and thought that was it. Imagine our surprise then when we found ourselves suddenly and furiously paddling to eddy out above a huge roar of whitewater. We nearly made an eddy on river left and were fighting the boil line for what seemed like eternity, but we were slowly losing ground and eventually rode up on a boulder. Lindsey was still holding on to a willow upstream. Seth and I lunged way out, trying to get our paddles into the eddy. We all saw the boat start to wrap against the boulder and quickly jumped on the high side. The boat slid back down and pivoted slowly into the main current of the class V rapid; we'd just have to read and run it. We squared up to two big holes and then back paddled into a channel on the right, which looked like the only clean way to go despite a near vertical chute that crashed into a churning hole. As our boat came free of the last hole, we all looked at each other for a moment in disbelief before howling with joy and piling on top of each other.

Experience El Dorado and ABC Channel 10 Go Green at MaLode

Todd Stanley Productions located here in Coloma is very busy making a name for itself as a source of excellent ideas and quality video and editing. After winning an Emmy Award for their work on the Discovery Channel's series “The Deadliest Catch”, Todd and his wife Janice, Ben Zupo, Corey and their entire production team continue to produce new ideas.

“Experience El Dorado” is one of their latest concepts, a series appearing one Sunday a month on ABC’s Channel 10 featuring the extraordinary variety of quality experiences available in El Dorado County. Their “Green” segment featured businesses that make a point of reducing their ecological impact.

The Mother Lode River Center was a natural choice for this segment and multiple aspects were featured on the program. These included American River whitewater rafting using the ECOBus (our 100% waste vegetable oil powered shuttle vehicle), food from the permaculture garden, solar heated water, solar generated electricity, and finally our Sustainable Practices educational programs for youth and adults which use the Solar Exploratorium.

The full footage is archived on Experience El Dorado's website. You can view Mother Lode’s segment on our home page. By the way, did you see yourself California whitewater rafting on the South Fork of the American River? If you did, give us call and win a prize!

2009 Rafting Flows Confirmed!

Rafting Stimulus Package: Recent Storms Guarantee Great 2009 Rafting!

A wise old river rafter once told me that the snow pack in the Sierras is largely built by three major storms each season. One storm more or less often determines whether a particular season is normal, below normal, or wet in nature. Attempting to predict the outcome is therefore a risky business. It is wiser to relax and just see what happens. It isn’t over ‘till it’s over.

Once again this observation has proven true. While just a few weeks ago the concern was about critical drought conditions, now, one big storm later, the snow pack that feeds the American River is at 101% of normal. Once quiescent, all three Forks of the American River are swollen bright red with runoff. In fact, the North Fork briefly peaked at 11,000cfs. That’s three times safe boating flows.

Bottom line: It is going to be another great season for rafting on the American River! It is time to get out your river gear, Spring boating has arrived.

American River rafting trip options

This is another example of why drought conditions in California as a whole do not prevent rafting on dam-controlled rivers such as the South and Middle Forks of the American River. The South Fork, for example, has multiple reservoirs upstream of Chili Bar that are controlled by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and are collectively referred to as the Upper American River Project (UARP). Because of the FERC re-licensing process that ended in 2007 with the acceptance of the Alternative Proposal, the South Fork was guaranteed to have good rafting flows this season, even before this recent storm. In fact, this agreement now provides for predictable recreational flows for rafting for the next 50 years.

Now here is the truly great news, while climate change may diminish snow pack levels in the future, and population increases will undoubtedly increase demand on dwindling water supplies, even in “super dry” years there are 5 days of guaranteed water flow for boating on the South Fork. That means Thursday through Monday, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, we can count on good flows that begin and end at specific times of the day, even in the worst drought years ever recorded! Furthermore, 90% of boaters would choose the period in which the flows are guaranteed anyway. That means that even in the worst of times, boating is great on the South Fork of the American. This river has the most reliable water flows of any Class III whitewater river in the West!

One more remarkable fact: The total volume of water that flows down the river is not affected by rafting. No one will go thirsty as a result of your boating the river. The only effect of this agreement was to alter the timing of the release of a relatively small amount of this water, approximately 2% of the total, with the result that a huge amount of recreation results from a relatively small change in the release regimen. This is a win, win situation that benefits recreation, fish, wildlife and also SMUD itself by building a reservoir of valuable community support. Thank you SMUD! We all hope for a similarly favorable outcome on the re-licensing of the Middle Fork of the American, which is currently under way with PG&E.

See you on all three Forks of the American River this season,

Scott the River Doc and the MaLode Crew

Firsts on Cherry Creek

On these rainy days in the office on the American River, we (the few who spend the winter here) often start to think about the adventures of the past seasons. And while we had many spanning through the spring, summer and fall, the peak of adrenaline and challenge was (for myself and several others) undoubtedly achieved on the Upper Tuolumne River, also known as Cherry Creek. This 8.6 miles class V run is considered by most as the most difficult commercially run stretch of river in the country. With an average elevation drop of 105 feet per mile include the "miracle mile," which drops 200 feet, it's easy to see why.

The leader of our group was Aaron Root, a solid class V boater with fantastically wild lampchop sideburns that would easily win the blue ribbon in any county (if there were such a category at the fair; I wish there were). In his boat were three of the Malode ladies; there was Sarah Shakal (aka, The Shock) who had only been on the run once before; Colleen Hardiman and Mary Maliff, who had never been on the run. Kayaking along with us was Suzie Jaques, and it was also her first time kayaking Cherry Creek. In my boat were a few of the Malode dudes: Lindsey Gulyas and Kyle Gordon (The Texan), as well as Angelo Munoz Rios (a Chilean guide newly arrived in California), all of whom had never been on the run. Oh yeah, I had only been on it once before too, and had never guided it.

The first time I rafted Cherry Creek few years before, our boat ended up flipping twice and flat-wrapping once so badly that we had to bust on the ropes and pulleys, so I already had a little anxiety going into the trip. When we woke up the morning of the trip at Meral's Pool and our other guide still hadn't shown up, my stomach shrank as I realized I'd have to guide it. As we began the routine of rigging though, I began to feel less nervous and actually started anticipating the opportunity. Then I got nervous again as we rigged the flip lines. Then calm again. Then scared. Then Excited...ad infintum, until we slid the boats down to the river's edge. Then it was time to, as the battle-cry of the summer went, "Fire it up!"

The first few miles of Cherry Creek are sort of a warm-up, with some decent class IV drops and boulder gardens. Aaron would look over his shoulder and holler directions if he felt it necessary, and then we'd plunge into the rapid. We all felt good and for the most part in sync with one another so far; woots and paddle high fives galore were happening everywhere, as well as more personalized celebrations. Angelo made a habit of sticking his tongue out really far and then shaking his head from side to side so fast that his tongue jiggled, all this while still excitedly wooting. Lindsey's celebration was to rock in his seat like a psych patient and beat on his knees with his fists still white knuckled and gripping the paddle blade. Kyle, recently having become obsessed with the movie Into the Wild shouted, "I'm Alexander Supertramp!" twenty-seven times that day.

Near mile 2, we came to our first class V rapid, Guillotine, which we stomped through fairly easily. Up next, was corkscrew, which has a huge undercut rock near the exit on the left. Now, guiding in a raft full of raft guides is great in a lot of respects, don't get me wrong. But there are some downsides. All guides want to be in control; in fact, it's sort of their auto-pilot mode. So having to listen and then actually carry out the commands coming from another person, even if it's someone they know and trust, is sort of, well, impossible. What I'm getting at is, Angelo was starting to freelance, to throw in his own strokes that I wasn't calling out. It ended up helping us on this rapid, and we cleared the undercut with no problems, so no one said anything. But up next was Jawbone, a more technical boulder garden with some decent drops. We were all still juiced and made the moves we needed to make, but it was a fight. Then we pulled over to scout one of the most difficult rapids, Mushroom.

Getting a good vantage point we watched Aaron take his boat through, but not easily, bumping along the guard rocks at the top and just barely making the move far right before ferrying as hard as possible back to the left toward a huge upstream pillow coming off the mushroom rock, which they ended up riding up on, tipping the boat like a bath toy, but not flipping it, and all of them were able to stay in the boat. By this time, two other boats who had been running with us entered the rapid, one of which got swept to the far left and pinned in the guard rocks. After a lot of shifting bodies around and tugging, they got it free and made it over the pillow, their guide getting launched all the way into the front seats and landing on the back of one of his paddlers. We ended up going through last. We decided after we watched the third boat to back-paddle through the move to the right so we'd be facing the left hand shore and wouldn't have to spin the boat to make that move. It ended up working beautifully, and we got all the way across to the far left of the mushroom rock. We were nearly dancing in our boat after we exited the final drop smoothly.


Almost immediately after Mushroom, is another big class V rapid, Toadstool. Aaron was yelling the directions to us but it was getting hard to hear him because he was actually losing his voice. We decided to just follow them as best we could. After sliding through the first hydraulic though we saw to our horror that they'd been sucked into a strong eddy just above a big drop into a huge muncher of a hole. It might have been a bit easier to get out of that eddy if there was only one boat in there, but with us following Aaron in, there was hardly room to maneuver, every time we tried to exit the upstream end we be pushed into his boat stubbornly. Finally on the fourth try we made just far enough back into the current so as not to be sucked back into the eddy. The problem was we rode up the boulder on the left side of the drop sideways. All of us leaped to the high side. The boat stood completely vertical on its right tube. We felt it wobble in it's precarious balance, like a child learning to ride a bicycle, as it slid down into the hole. It happened too fast for me to think about if we were actually going to swim and what the swim in that monster hole would be like; all we really know is that we landed right side up. We looked up and heard cheers and holy expletives. I could hardly believe it.

We rode our triumphant wave through the next big rapid, Catapult, and then found ourselves quickly heading into the "Miracle Mile". Aaron's voice was almost completely gone by now, and all he was able to say was, "keep it up, it's read and run for the next mile." Everyone paddled their hearts and lungs out through Gar's Lunch, Blind Faith and Coffin Rock. I cursed the bluest streak imaginable trying to steer our boat through some of the boulder gardens; all my friends on the raft agreed that I must have temporarily summoned some ill-fortuned sailor from beyond the grave. By the time we reached the next eddy above Sky King we were exhausted but happy and swigged as much water as we could in preparation for the next set of rapids. Sky King went much better than the last time (this was where our first flip happened on my first visit to Cherry Creek), and we headed into the next set, where one boat wrapped badly in the first boulder garden, and our boat nearly ran over a friend who was kayaking at Christmas Tree Hole.


The next big rapids were Airplane Turn, where just after the drop, another of the boats running with us wrapped. Lewis' Leap, which has a huge drop in the center of the rapid that you have to ferry hard left while passing around a set of shallow wrap rocks. We made the move and made the drop, which I thought felt like the biggest drop on the run. By this point I was so tired that I wanted to trade out guiding, having finished the hardest rapids, but everyone wanted me to keep going; Angelo said it best, "todo o nada."

We completed the portages of Flat Rock Falls and Lumsden, the latter of which Aaron made much easier by solo-paddling all four boats down, only one of which flipped; what a beast!

We bumped and grinded down the remaining class IV section, to the end of our run at Meral's Pool, where camp and a well deserved rest awaited us. We gave one more exhausted cheer as we pulled into the eddy. As we lay in the boat after changing out of our sweaty dry tops and thermals, we were already talking about coming back to run Cherry Creek again.

Big Day on the Chilibar

Another Big day on the American River as 60 incoming Freshman to St. Mary's in the bay area decided to join us for some whitewater rafting on the Chilibar run. The group arrived the night before to enjoy a scrumptious dinner and camp out under the stars.



Waking up bright and early the next morning, they packed down a breakfast of our scrambled eggs, pancakes, fruit and sausage to make sure they had plenty of energy for their adventure!



The group also enjoyed riding out to the river on our Waste Vegetable Oil Eco Bus, and then of course an exciting and amusing day on the river. We heard the phrase "best field trip ever!" several times throughout the day.