On May 11th, the Department of Water Resources released it’s Bulletin 120 report on the water fall and storage levels in California for 2012. While our snow pack and rain fall has been abysmal in 2012, the reservoir carryover from the 2011 water year was enough to lift us up into a “Dry” water year classification (at least for the American River runoff).
What his means is that while other rafting rivers across California might go dry this summer, we’ve been guaranteed great whitewater rafting flows on the South Fork* of the American River from at least Memorial Day through Labor Day on all but Wednesdays. And I’d predict that we’ll probably see rafting flows on about 40% of those Wednesdays even though they are not guaranteed.
*On the Middle Fork of the American River, for our Class IV River Rafting trips, we’ve been given a “handshake guarantee” of raftable water 7 days a week from May 5th through September 30th.
For the most part, we’ll be able (and have been scheduling accordingly since January) to avoid needing to count on rafting flows on Wednesdays in order to make our trips happen. However, in the rare cases where that isn’t possible, and in the even rarer cases when we don’t get that Wednesday water, we have many great alternate plans in place. These include full day inflatable kayaking trips (Fun-Yaking) at the lower flows (which are still plenty high enough for whitewater kayaking fun), Rock Climbing (if you weren’t already doing it), or exploring one of 4 different river Canyons for some incredible Canyoneering experiences.
If there is a chance that we might need to risk counting on Wednesday water for your trip, then we’ve probably already talked to you about it. Ensuring you get the highest quality trip simply comes down to you being a little flexible with Wednesdays, and trusting that we are going to do what it takes to have backup plans in place to make sure that you get the best trip possible. But if you are concerned, or just have questions, please feel free to give us a call.
Jansen Wendlandt Rock-N-Water 1-800-738-0555
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