WinstonConfluentus

Oh ya, here's the third quad in my bedroom I was talking about on page one. Some of them seem to be pretty carefull about it, not this bunch. They seemed to think it was fun to wreck my neighbourhood?!

I was up Hidden Creek and the Oldman above it yesterday and ran into one of my kiddos, he wasn't looking so good.

Hi again, thanks gang for your concern. It’s nice to know some of you really care about what’s going in my neighbourhood, but it’s not so nice to see how mean some of you get with each other. It’s not somebody’s fault, it’s everybody’s fault! Please don’t spend all your time worrying about who said what to whom, where the pictures are, or how did this happen? Right now we need you to stop all this dirt from coming in every time it rains!

I rubbed my nose raw trying to find my way home this year, but this weekend was the worst! You know, I haven’t seen some of my buddies since the flood and at this rate I don’t know if I ever will again. We got the stuffing knocked out of us in the flood and we really need your help now if we’re gonna make it through this. I finally made it up above Hidden Creek the other day and what do I find when I get there? Quads in the River!!! This is the second one spinning its wheels in my bedroom! See the dirt trail from the first one? I came up here hoping there may be a spot where we could spawn and, some of the water looks pretty good, but these guys have got to get out of the river! Our eggs are so delicate that we really need the water to stay clean all fall and winter to give our babies any chance at all. It takes so little sediment to suffocate an egg and if one of these guys actually hits a redd, gasp! I don’t even want to think about it. Come on gang, please help! I know the rain wasn’t your fault, but the rest of it… It didn’t have to be this bad.

Thanks for the honest, heartfelt post. The upper Oldman (my spiritual and often literal home), is in similar condition. The headwaters of both the Highwood and Oldman zig-zag between the peaks and this was the area that received the greatest amount of rain. The devastation is utter and complete in some areas. If you really want a bad day check out the area on Google Earth; its not too hard to correlate the ferocity of the event with the clear cuts. Pasque, Cataract, Dry, Savanna, Wilkinson they are all nothing but gravel, silt and logs now. Hidden Creek, my natal stream, is in big trouble too. Between the clear cuts last fall and the flood this spring we still dont know if there will be anywhere to spawn. I dont know if anyone has noticed, but the Oldman continues to run dirty; its all coming from Hidden Creek as every other trib has cleared. If fish could cry