rejectomorph (flying_blind) wrote,
rejectomorph
flying_blind

It's Like This For Now

I found a YouTube video showing the old flume along the Feather River (this flume is aka the Upper Miocene Canal), a mile or so from my house (this video has a rap soundtrack with lyrics decidedly NSFW.) There are also scenes of the river itself, and a guy washing dirt for gold, successfully. About 1:40 in, you'll see one of the popular fishing and swimming holes along the river. It's a very scenic place.

The flume is owned by PG&E, which uses the water to generate power downstream in two hydroelectric powerhouses, but I believe it incorporates parts of one of the flumes originally built in the late 19th-early 20th century for the lumbering companies, which used flumes both to supply power to mills and to transport timber. Today, the flumes offer hiking trails and some people enjoy floating down them on inner tubes.

Even earlier, gold miners used to build huge flumes to divert entire rivers, exposing the riverbeds so the miners could more easily extract the accumulated gold deposits under the river rocks. Some of these huge flumes also supplied water to the hydraulic mining gear which was used to wash away entire mountainsides to expose deeply buried gold deposits. I think those flumes are all gone, though.

Anyway, if the fire crosses the river (and the scenes of the river in the video show how narrow it is) and moves south, the canyon-side woodlands along the flume will be among the areas in its path. The flume crosses side canyons on wooden bridges in some places, and those are apt to burn, too. The metal bridges will probably just bend and collapse. The scenery will be very different around here if the fire comes west of the river.

Erosion of the exposed mountainsides during future rainstorms will probably unearth more gold and send it into the river, though, so the handful of placer miners (mostly weekend hobbyists) still working the area will benefit, at least.
Subscribe

  • 52/98-99: Warmer

    Monday and Tuesday sort of blended together and then evaporated like morning mist. I did manage to fix a decent sized meal Tuesday night, though I…

  • 52/96-97: Not Dream

    Saturday night I went to bed rather early in the evening, though I don't recall exactly when. Both Friday and Saturday had felt exhausting to me,…

  • 52/91-92-93-94-95: Lost

    It appears that I lost track of most of a week. I remember sleeping a lot, often at odd hours, and having some odd dreams, and skipping some meals,…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
  • 0 comments