Looking for Change

It is another windy day...such is autumn.  I went up above the Shelton Dam, putting in at the Eagle Scout launch. With the wind is out of the north at 15 mph with gusts as high as 25 mph, this narrow valley of the river will be about as good as it gets, with a lot of the smaller rivers and creeks running pretty shallow. I have not been in here since the flash floods that blew out a part of the access route, although that was above the launch site.

The launch site is on a small creek that only has enough water to float a canoe for the last 50 yards. There is a strong, low autumn sun, and as I settle into the canoe, it causes the sand on the bottom of the creek to shine golden. I paddle out through a floating carpet of orange and yellow leaves. My outlook on the day soars.

I head upriver into the wind.  I've been wanting to check this section of the river to see the effect of the floods. It is a bit of a grind into the wind, but only for short spells. Just as often, the forested hillside absorbs the breeze and I end up moving along quite well. 
The first sign of the floods is near the Shelf, a bank to bank cobble bar that I am more than familiar with. The current is accelerated as it passes over the Shelf, and in high water it can be impossible to get up past it. A large pile of drift wood and whole trees is on the river left bank. It is a good ten feet high, and there is a large tree, roots and all, in the yard in front of the nearest house.

I continue up noting a good number of trees that washed down and were caught by the edge of the forest. It looks like the water in this narrow section might have been six or eight feet higher, and it would certainly have been a torrent.

The rapids section comes next. This is a minor class 1 (if that) rapids of maybe 200 yards in length. From shore it would look the same as it always has, but from the canoe it is different. The water has fewer eddies or pillows, the area around the boulders that cause the disturbances being filled in with gravels and sand, at least for the short term. A hundred yards into that and I can see the cause. There is a new metal bridge, which looks temporary to me, on RT 34. A ravine that I never before noticed flooded and blew the entire road away leaving piles of sand with large fragments of asphalt next to the river. A shadow overtakes me, and I look up and watch a Bald Eagle head upriver to a perch. There is a second Eagle nearby.