Saw this video taken on the Cache la Poudre river west of Fort Collins last week. The water starts out looking ok but quite dark, then a bit downstream it changes its character dramatically thanks to a rainstorm higher up, yuck!
I can't imagine any fish or other aquatic life surviving for quite a ways downstream after that. Very sad!
Posted by Todd Caudle on July 13, 2012 at 12:45 PM
That's incredible! What fortuitous timing.
Posted by Pam Colander on July 13, 2012 at 1:34 PM
Nasty. If that's a result of fires doesn't water + wood ash = LYE? The look on the rafters faces say it all.
Don't worry about it. Blowouts on that scale happen all the time in Idaho, on streams like the Middle Salmon that are pretty comparable. It's nobody's favorite condition, but the ecosystem gets by, and the places are mostly just as beautiful a year, or even a couple weeks, later.
I worry more about the burn areas down here in NM and AZ, where a tiny stream two feet wide can turn into this: http://youtu.be/Fr_Xwb5R41Q. But even there, it's kinda part of the long-term ecological game. Native fish, amazingly, can survive debris flows even on that scale, where non-native trout get pulverized. Bandelier National Monument's main canyon is still a very nice place even after last year's big floods. I certainly don't enjoy this sort of thing, but I've seen a lot of burns and floods in beautiful areas over the years, and the land and the beauty endures.
Discussion
6 replieshttp://vimeo.com/45409052
Saw this video taken on the Cache la Poudre river west of Fort Collins last week. The water starts out looking ok but quite dark, then a bit downstream it changes its character dramatically thanks to a rainstorm higher up, yuck!
I can't imagine any fish or other aquatic life surviving for quite a ways downstream after that. Very sad!
I worry more about the burn areas down here in NM and AZ, where a tiny stream two feet wide can turn into this: http://youtu.be/Fr_Xwb5R41Q. But even there, it's kinda part of the long-term ecological game. Native fish, amazingly, can survive debris flows even on that scale, where non-native trout get pulverized. Bandelier National Monument's main canyon is still a very nice place even after last year's big floods. I certainly don't enjoy this sort of thing, but I've seen a lot of burns and floods in beautiful areas over the years, and the land and the beauty endures.