Tag Archives: river

Unnamed Waterfall

I took a wrong turning as we went over Stevens Pass and, instead of going where I had intended, we took a back road which was probably once the main road across the mountains. It twisted through the woods, never getting too far from the current highway, but being far more enclosed and far narrower. Fortunately, not much traffic was coming the other way, so it was easy enough to navigate. We crossed a small bridge which was over some falls. I can’t be sure but, judging by the map, the water seemed to be called Martin Creek so maybe the falls are of the same name?

Index Road Bridge

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I mentioned the bridge in Index in a previous post and I thought it deserved its own post. The bridge is relatively new having been built in the late 1990s. The road to the town in on one side of the river and the town is on the other so the bridge is pretty important! There is a rail bridge too, but the road is the way for most people since the trains don’t stop anymore.

It is an arch structure. The roadbed is suspended from the arch by a selection of cables. These come down in pairs from the arch and into the bed of the bridge. The structure is steel and, whether it was assembled on site or elsewhere, you can clearly see how the sections were assembled with the bolts through plates at each of the joints.

The arch shape is attractive and the symmetry of the bridge when viewed from the end is also very nice. Because the area is not too busy, they have not cluttered things up with too much fencing to segregate the pedestrians from the traffic so the whole thing has a simple look to it. A nice job by some engineers!

Otters on Speed

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Otters are known as being playful. However, having watched a bunch of them at Woodland Park Zoo, I have to think that they are on some serious drugs. The speed with which they flew around the enclosure, wrestled with each other, lay in the water getting blasted by the water jets and generally acted like hooligans, you would think this was a vast waste of precious energy for a creature in the wild. I think they must metabolize something in their food to create something like cocaine or speed. What other reason could there be?

What Happened to the Old Bridge?

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Walking across the bridge from the overflow parking to the top of Snoqualmie Falls, I looked down the river to the top of the falls just beyond the barriers to stop errant boaters getting too close. I also noticed something in the water below us. For a while I was trying to work out what it was. Then, courtesy of polarizing glasses, I could see through the reflections and make out the shape of some structure.

It looks to me like this was a previous bridge. It sits just below the current bridge alignment and looks like it would have been the right size and shape to be a bridge span. I wonder whether it collapsed or whether, when the replacement bridge was being built, it was simpler to dump the old span into the river than to take it away. There could be another explanation of course and maybe it isn’t even part of a bridge. However, it clearly is something man-made sitting on the bed of the river.

Snoqualmie Falls

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Our exploration of our new territory included a trip up into the foothills to see Snoqualmie Falls. The town of Snoqualmie is quite a way from the top of the pass but it is still a nice increase in elevation from the more populated areas to the west. The views are very nice from up there. The water running off the mountains has already formed a pretty decent sized river by this time.

Because of the time of year, I was not expecting a very heavy flow over the Falls. They provide a guide to when the flow is strong and when it is light and we were not visiting at a time of year when it is expected to cover much of the lip of the Falls. However, some heavy rain in the preceding week had obviously resulted in some run off and things were actually looking pretty forceful.

We had lunch in the hotel overlooking the Falls and got a window seat that provided a great view. Then we walked around the ridge to see the Falls from different angles before taking the trail down to the river level. Things look very different when you are level with the base of the Falls and they feel far more powerful. It was a warm day and the climb back up to the top made me feel rather toasty. It was certainly worth it though.

Amtrak Over the River

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Having watched a guy walking across a narrow railroad bridge over the Alameda Creek in Fremont as you can read about here, a train was now coming across the bridge. The train was a Capital Corridor service heading to San Jose. I am currently working on a project to acquire new locomotives for Caltrans that will see service on the Capital Corridor and will replace borrowed Amtrak locomotives. This train was being hauled by one of these Amtrak locomotives. All being well, this will soon no longer be a regular sight.

Are These for Gauging the Flood?

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This post is a question for whoever might be able to help me out. I was walking along Alameda Creek and I saw various sets of these devices along the levee banks at different locations. I was curious as to what they could be. They looked like they would float so I wondered whether they are designed to start at the bottom of the track and then float up as the water levels rises. Perhaps this then reports back to some control location so everyone knows the level of the creek? However, that is just a guess. Does anyone know the real story?

Dangerous Ways to Cross a River

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The trail along the Alameda Creek takes you under a couple of bridges. One is a road bridge and the other is a rail bridge. I walked under the rail bridge and, as I came out of the other side, a guy walked past me and up to the bridge deck. He was carrying a couple of containers as if he had just done some shopping. He then turned and walked on to the tracks. I stepped over the rail and headed along the track on the ties (sleepers for those of you in the U.K.)

I was rather surprised by this. The bridge was only a single track width and it did not appear to have any spare space at the edges. He also didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry. I had to watch what was going to happen. I had no idea how busy the line was but this did not look like a good plan. He strolled across the river. As he was getting towards the other side, I thought I could hear a train horn. Sure enough, an Amtrak train appeared ahead. The engineer obviously saw him and was sounding the horn. The guy kept strolling but was clearly going to get across in time. He eventually stepped over the rail and down the slope on the opposite bank as the train came closer. I don’t know whether he knew the schedule but, if he had been in the middle rather than where he was, this could have ended very badly.

Eagle Falls

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The great thing about snow covered mountains (well, one them) is that all of that snow has to go somewhere when the temperature warms up. The melt waters result in powerful river flows and, since we are talking about mountainous areas, there are chances for big waterfalls. On the southwest side of Lake Tahoe is Emerald Bay and above the bay are Eagle Falls. These are some pretty substantial falls when the water is running off and we got them at a great time of year.

The top of the falls is up near the highway. They crash down the hillside and run in to the lake near Vikingsholme. Since we hiked down to the lakeside at this place, we were able to see the falls both from below and from above. They are spread out over a reasonably wide front and make for a dramatic view. Whether you are close in (and you can get ride to the edge of the falls at the top), looking at them from a distance or staring up from the bottom, they look impressive. I don’t know how long they run for at strength but I imagine they diminish quite soon. We did well to be there at the right time.

Squaw Creek in Full Flow

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Squaw Valley has a river running through it. This river goes by the name of Squaw Creek – you wouldn’t have guessed would you? It is a short walk from the center of the resort to get to a series of falls that the creek goes over. A trail winds its way up into the hills a lot further if you are feeling energetic taking you to a lake (if it is early enough in the year for it not to have dried up). We didn’t explore all of this. It was the falls that were of interest.

The water was flowing quite nicely with the meltwater run off from the mountains. It would split around obstacles and take various paths down the hill but ending up together again as it descended. The falls were in some nice tree cover so it was a cool temperature as you climbed up the trail.