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Follow the Journey

This is the Tuolumne River Trust Paddle to the Sea 2010 blog. Take a moment to read about the trip, view some photos from the river and leave your comments. If you want to join us on the river for a day, sign up by clicking here.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Don Pedro Passage

Just four days after being towed into Moccasin Marina at the end of our rafting trip, I found myself getting ready again to put back onto the river. The contrast between these two days couldn't have been greater. Instead of stormy weather, the sky was clear, the wind light, and the temperature comfortably warm. Replacing my drysuit and layers of fleece were swim shorts, t-shirt, and hat, reflecting the danger of sunburn rather than hypothermia. A few miles upstream the rushing, chilly rapids of the Tuolumne were subsumed beneath Don Pedro's warm stagnate water, so I carried a fourteen-foot stand up paddleboard rather than a whitewater raft.
I had left Sausalito at dawn that morning and spent most of the drive worrying about whether attempting a 20-odd mile trip was really the best idea. I had been warned about the distance, nasty headwinds, and being run down by powerboats. But all those worries were washed away with the first paddle strokes, and except for sore muscles the rest of the six-hour paddle was quite enjoyable.
Notable experiences along the way include several osprey sightings, abundant wildflowers, a floating toilet (named the "S/S Relief"), and swimming in the reservoir's warm, clear water.
Peering over the edge of Don Pedro Dam at the end of the day I was surprised to see a steep-walled canyon at the bottom. After spending all day on the open lake, I had almost forgotten that I was paddling a flooded river canyon. Before the construction of the Old Don Pedro Dam 87 years ago, I would have been suspended above a river comparable to the wild and scenic section upriver with spawning salmon and exciting rapids. While we gained to ability to irrigate several hundred square miles of central valley farmland when Don Pedro Dam was built, it is good to remember what was lost when the Tuolumne was dammed.
I owe my thanks to George Phiripes at Surftech for loaning me a paddleboard for the trip as well as to the Tuolumne Trust's Patrick Koepele for generously picking me up after I botched my shuttle for this leg.

1 comment:

  1. Congrats on completing that section! Sounds like you had to do it alone. What happened to Andrew and Owen?

    ReplyDelete