slgwv's photos with the keyword: Feather River

Where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses the Middle Fork of the Feather River, in the northern Sierra Nevada, California. According to the fire maps this bridge was in the middle of the area burned off in the North Complex Fire in the last few weeks, and I don't know if the wooden planks survived.

View easterly from near Lookout Rock on the Pacific Crest Trail, in the vicinity of the Middle Fork of the Feather River, in the vague northern part of the Sierra Nevada, California. The prominent left-right trending canyon in the middle distance holds the Middle Fork, and the Pacific Crest trail more or less follows the outlined ridge to its right. The trail crossed the Middle Fork on a steel footbridge (center insert) and follows a route that ends up traversing the near ridge to the right. It comes up to the photo point. We did much of this part of the PCT as day hikes last fall. The Middle Fork is a so-called Wild and Scenic River, so is completely undeveloped, and much of the area is effectively wilderness. Or rather, this view is how the area looked last fall. Most of this area was burned off in the last few weeks by the Bear Fire, part of the North Complex of California wildfires. The fire started from lightning on Aug 17 in the upper Middle Fork canyon (see note), and didn't grow much initially. Since it was burning in wilderness and no structures were threatened, only minimal attention was paid to it--other wildfires had first claim on resources. However, on September 8 a cold front moved in from the northeast, bringing strong katabatic winds blowing southwesterly, and the fire exploded in that direction. It was reported at one point to have spread 30 miles (50 km) in 24 hours. Several small communities were obliterated, and the fire got all the way to Lake Oroville, even jumping it on the south. There were also a number of fatalities. Containment is currently around 80%, and total acreage burned is over 300,000 acres (>120,000 ha), making it the 5th largest in California history. Last July we tried to access the PCT at a point beyond that ridge on the right. We were defeated by steep terrain and lots of deadfall, and thought that the forest was seriously at risk for fire (right insert). Well, we (alas) were right. All the forest litter in that pic, as well as the trees, are completely burned off now, to judge by the fire maps. We're glad we got to see the area before it burned, but it's depressing to contemplate its current condition. I don't know at this point if the wooden planks on the bridge over the Middle Fork survived.

Carrying California SR 162 over the Middle Fork of the Feather River, now swollen into Lake Oroville here after construction of the Oroville Dam in the mid 1960s. It seems like kind of overkill for this secondary road! This bridge replaced an original suspension bridge, dating to 1855, whose site is now inundated under several hundred feet of water. The old bridge is now located elsewhere on Lake Oroville and is open to foot traffic. I would guess that preserving this thoroughfare was part of the political agreement on building the dam, and _that_ probably accounts for such an expensive bridge.

On the North Fork of the Feather River, California. The highway to the left is California SR 70; the railroad on the right is the old Western Pacific line ("the Feather River route"), now part of the Union Pacific and still in use. Unlike the Middle Fork, the North Fork is definitely a "harnessed" river, with a chain of hydropower structures extending all along it from about here to the head of Lake Oroville. The construction dates from the early-mid 20th century, and of course thoroughly trashed the original salmon run--but such things weren't much of a consideration back then. Telephoto view from the Three Lakes access road well above the canyon; the location is of the dam itself rather than the photo point.

On the Pacific Crest Trail, where it crosses the Middle Fork of the Feather River in the vague northern part of the Sierra Nevada, California. It's a rather substantial bridge for just a footpath! It's also a ways from the nearest road, so it must have been quite a chore to get the materials in to build it. The Middle Fork is a designated "wild and scenic river," so there are no dams or other control structures.

Aftermath of the Camp Fire, in November 2018, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. At a hydropower installation on the Feather River--the highway is California State Route 70 (the "Feather River Route"). Note the logger trimming the tree in the center of the picture.

In the Feather River canyon, draining west from the Sierra Nevada. The damage results from the enormous Camp Fire that devastated hundreds of square miles of the Sierra Nevada foothills in November 2018. The fire was started by sparking power lines and obliterated the town of Paradise, as well as many isolated houses and businesses. It crossed the ridge here, coming from the north (right side of picture), driven by warm katabatic winds from out of the east. The fire in turn jumped CA State Route 70 (the highway here) and even crossed the Feather River locally. The left inset shows a view of burned country extending to the north west of here. The other two insets show salvage logging in the vicinity of a hydropower installation on the Feather. Evidently quite a number of trees were scorched severely enough to be killed, but the wood is still usable. Note the logger trimming the partly burned tree in the far right insert. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the utility that owned the lines, has pre-emptively filed bankruptcy due to the billions in lawsuits already filed.

Frenchman Lake, a reservoir on Little Last Chance Creek, one of several reservoirs in the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Feather River, California. At least it had some water last year, but there should have been lots more snow around in February. This year, by contrast, the reservoir overfilled--I'll post some pix when I get some. The inset shows another view.

Sign along the flooding North Fork of the Feather River, California. Due to the extraordinary water season, the river is pretty much a continuous series of Class V rapids, except where interrupted by some small power dams.

Formed by Oroville Dam on the Feather River, California, near (yes!) the town of Oroville. (Great gold rush name, too--"oro" = "gold" in Spanish. ;) The reservoir had been extremely hard hit by the drought, and there were lots of earnest prognostications that it would take _years_ to recover, if ever. Well, it took one season. In mid-February >100,000 cubic feet per second of water (something over 2800 m^3/sec, if I've done the arithmetic right) was pouring down the Feather, and not only did the reservoir fill, it spilled over the concrete bypass spillway to the point that heavy damage ensued. The middle section (all concrete!) was completely eroded out. Fortunately, the hard metamorphic bedrock resisted further erosion, once the loose surface material was washed away, and the overflow established itself in a bedrock channel--looked kinda cool, actually, like a natural slot canyon. The dam and its clobbered spillway made national news in the US. Dunno about overseas, but there are gobs of videos all over the net; here's one of a series done by the same aerial photographer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2aD53JIDzo He also has one of reopening the spillway a couple of weeks ago, to the tune of 35K cfs: www.youtube.com/watch?v=65TMuhsKuVM&t=155s This is being done to lower the reservoir to make room for the spring runoff! The video also gives a good view of the eroded-out middle of the spillway. So, what we're looking at in this pic is the newly lowered level, from its all-time high. The driftwood on the shore below consists largely of trees eroded out from the shore by wave action at the high water level. Even now, the water level is _still_ higher than it's been in years; note the flooded tree. Note also that in the satellite view this inlet is completely dry! And there's still lots of snow waiting to melt in the Sierra--

An ill-defined set of channels, shallow streams, and ponds that constitute the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Feather River. Sierra Valley, California, USA. Looking west.

A tiny village in Plumas County, California, USA. This is the Middle Fork of the Feather River.

Westbound on the old Feather River route (Western Pacific), about 10 miles east of Gerlach, Nevada.