Thursday, June 09, 2005

American River Flows

Wacky weather this week! Flows were bouncing back and forth on all three forks of the American River. North Fork American dropped from 3,000 cfs down to 1,200 cfs in just a few days. The cooling trend made the runoff slow down, which is really nice because that means we will have an even more extended season. Today, after a brief storm yesterday, the flows came back up to 3,000 cfs! By this weekend, it should be around 1,500 to 2,000 cfs. We love the NoFo!

NoFo paddlers last weekend were past customers who had done a gazillion rafting trips with us over the last ten years. A group of gentlemen who had done low water South Fork American during the heat of the summer, high water South Fork American River during spring runs and Middle Fork American during summer and fall. This year, they had booked a Middle Fork American and because the MoFo was running too high, they opted to do the Class 4+ run on the NoFo. They loved it! And one of their comments was "We had a great time and everyone was pleased that we had been "moved up" to the North Fork. Both Justin and Saul were terrific--they made everyone feel comfortable. We'll do the North Fork again next year for sure. It wasn't as scary as we had been led to believe over the years." Clark from Northern California; June 2005

Now, of course, the river wasn't scary because this group was well-prepared for the technical demands of this river rafting trip. It wasn't scary because the guides were excellent and knew how to make this rafting trip safe. We know sometimes that we can go overboard with caution when we book our reservations with our paddlers, but W.E.T. River Trips really wants our paddleheads to have the best time on the river and not riddled with bad memories of flips, wraps and/or nasty swims.

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