Washington is in its fourth straight year of drought, and many rivers are running much lower and slower than normal. This impacts fishermen and farmers. It is also a problem for outdoor recreation, as the changing conditions make some activities more difficult and dangerous.
Danielle Graham lead the way down a grass-lined dirt road, past a barricade to a popular put-in on the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, near North Bend.
The Snoqualmie’s headwaters are in a protected network of waterways that extend into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Upriver from here are the Pratt Wild and Scenic Rivers. The federally protected area is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Downriver are Mount Si and the majestic Snoqualmie Falls that draw visitors from near and far.
The falls have now recovered from raging floods and near-record highs that came with the sudden snowmelt this winter. Graham learned the basics of whitewater rafting here about a decade ago on the rapid that ran just below us. Graham said this section, called the Club Stretch, is popular with beginning rafters.
Only now, she said, it is almost impassable. The river is flowing at about half of its normal volume.
“There's much, much less water flowing, making it a little less safe for beginners to come out of their boats,” she said.
Graham is on the Board of the Mountaineers Club in Seattle. She leads courses and trips for paddling, mountain climbing and back country skiing, among others. Her latest passion is aquatic canyoning, a newer sport in Washington that involves rappelling down waterfalls. She has also served as a safety officer for the club.
Standing at the waters edge after hopping over a bunch of dry, dusty boulders, Graham looked upstream and pointed.
“Have you noticed how rocky it is?” Graham said. “You'd get stuck. And not only is it not fun to get out and push your boat, it's dangerous, because we worry about foot entrapment in these round river rocks. You could get your foot stuck, and then the current could push you down. It raises the risk of drowning.”
That danger is real. With paddling, running back uphill to help someone is not an option. The paddlers need to practice self-rescue drills. Now, many of them must learn in lakes and slow-moving pools or rivers where the flow is regulated by dams. Graham said that is kind of alarming.
“I'm 53. My daughter is 22. I thought climate change would happen in her lifetime, but it's happening so fast. The effects are happening so much in my lifetime,” she said. “That's difficult, but I think a lot of people are speaking up. They're reaching out to their members of Congress, they're reaching out to state legislators. And I think that's all important and it really matters.”
In the meantime, Graham wants people to use resources such as the 17,000 members in the mountaineers club and the many sources of online trip reports people file. She also recommended always checking the latest conditions before heading out, even to familiar destinations.
River rafting courses are not the only ones that have become difficult to teach, Graham said. Many of the club’s programs — for everything from bike-packing to mountain climbing — have had to find new locations to teach their standard curriculum because of the changing climate.
“If you're in a spot where there's overhead ice or rockfall, you want to be able to move quickly underneath it,” Graham said. “But if it's 70 degrees at Camp Muir, that snow is very soft and slushy. And crampons aren't going to help you move quickly through that section. So we have to be aware of a lot more rock and ice fall than we used to.”
Snow field trips for climbing courses have had to relocate from Snoqualmie and Stevens Passes to higher destinations, such as those on Mount Rainier. Some bike-packing roads the club normally uses have been washed out by flooding. Wildfires and the smoke they produce are additional hazards.
Right now, the trees and plants around the Middle Fork look luscious, with deep green foliage that frames the riverscape. Doug firs, vine maples and alders create a wonderfully textured canopy that provides cool shade above boulders and sandy patches for many creatures.
Clear, cold water meandered by in a pool beneath a well-known concrete bridge. The conditions were ideal for swimming; my springer spaniel Chloe doggy-paddled through to chase a stick. A common merganser, sporting a signature rust-colored crown, floated along the river's edge with nearly a half-dozen ducklings in tow, perhaps enjoying the shade beneath a bluff. A pair of fly fisherman stood knee deep in their waders near the bridge, patiently casting for trout that — if caught — they would release. Cloud cover kept the sun from scorching anyone. It was a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest.
But climate activists and outdoor enthusiasts alike fear these conditions are not sustainable. As Washington’s drought continues this year and possibly into next, they are urging people to consider what they can do to conserve, adapt and evolve with the realities of climate change.
