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Just returned topside from a very interesting fishing trip in the canyon. I do endangered fish monitoring in the Little Colorado River (LCR). We survey the last 15 KM of the LCR from its confluence with the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The LCR drains an area about 1/2 the size of the state of Maine. Prior to us going in, there was considerable rain in that watershed.
When Powell first explored the Grand Canyon, he described the water as "too thick to drink and too thin to plow." That is what we encountered. A 5 gal bucket of water when settled out would have about 6" of thick mud in the bottom.
The first 2 pictures are of the same rock in the river. The first is at base flow and the second was taken this trip. With the water flowing fast, our hoop nets filled up with twigs, silt and other debris. My crew is working to get a net unstuck. In the second pic, you can see that they are getting the net out of the water. The fifth pic shows the river raging where we normally walk between the boulders and the river. Since it is almost waist deep there with calf deep mud on the bottom, we chose to climb instead of swimming. The next pic is the raging river. Here is a hydro-graph from the USGS gauging station just above the confluence. Normal (base) flow is 230CFS (cubic feet per second). As you can see, we had peak flows of 3000 CFS. Parts of our trail go through vegetation. It grew with the summer rains to make hiking more challenging even when the trail wasn't covered with water. The last pic is dessert one evening -- strawberries on pound cake with a little whipped cream. A well fed crew is a happy crew.
When Powell first explored the Grand Canyon, he described the water as "too thick to drink and too thin to plow." That is what we encountered. A 5 gal bucket of water when settled out would have about 6" of thick mud in the bottom.
The first 2 pictures are of the same rock in the river. The first is at base flow and the second was taken this trip. With the water flowing fast, our hoop nets filled up with twigs, silt and other debris. My crew is working to get a net unstuck. In the second pic, you can see that they are getting the net out of the water. The fifth pic shows the river raging where we normally walk between the boulders and the river. Since it is almost waist deep there with calf deep mud on the bottom, we chose to climb instead of swimming. The next pic is the raging river. Here is a hydro-graph from the USGS gauging station just above the confluence. Normal (base) flow is 230CFS (cubic feet per second). As you can see, we had peak flows of 3000 CFS. Parts of our trail go through vegetation. It grew with the summer rains to make hiking more challenging even when the trail wasn't covered with water. The last pic is dessert one evening -- strawberries on pound cake with a little whipped cream. A well fed crew is a happy crew.
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