MIDDLE FORK AMERICAN RIVER - FERC

Middle Fork American is a river near Auburn just northeast of Sacramento, California. One of the prettiest rivers in our whitewater arsenal, we expect that we can raft the river every year. This year, our season will have some restrictions on some days throughout our calendar.

What this means in such a drastically low water year, is that we will be rafting this river. Why are we able to have water when the entire state is so dry? Well, there's this thingy called the FERC. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulates the flow for energy contracts to allow this river to have water in our 2015 season.

When the powers to be announced 7-day flow way back in January, I wondered. Then they said it again in February. I knew it couldn't be true. How? How can they allow everyday water when there was no snow pack or rain?

Now we just received an email giving us the schedule for Middle Fork American River flows.


MF FLOW DATES: all weekends plus more!

MAY: Memorial Day weekend; sat, sun, mon, sat, sun for rest of month

JUNE: sat, sun, june 30/tues

JULY: sat, sun, tues, frid, july 3

UPDATES (see below) as of 081115 / CA State Parks

AUG: sat, sun, tues, thurs, frid + 8/24 - 8/30th (don't ask, lol)

SEPT: Labor Day weekend; sat, sun +  sept 1/tues, sun9/6only, mon9/7


We will send out our announcements in our social media and also through email. I have a feeling that there will be a scramble for dates this year!

• Wanna know more? Read this: http://relicensing.pcwa.net/html/whatis/whatis.php
• American Whitewater (organization, not outfitter): https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Project/view/id/mfamerican-rubicon/

Written by Elizabeth Lopez
Blogging for W.E.T. River Trips