A River Runs Through it

The dam, that is!

But this is actually a photo of the John Day dam, the next one upstream from the Bonneville dam, and dam access road from the last post.

There is a Corps of Engineers park along the river below the Bonneville dam, but it was signed and patrolled as day use only.

 

So we did that. We hung out on the river bank, and watched the tugs and barges fight their way up the very strong current to the locks at the dam.  At first I didn’t realize that there were actually two tugs pushing this group of barges, and even so, they were barely making headway against the strong currents below the dam.  When they got the barges safely into the lock, the second smaller tug unhooked and went back downstream.

As well as various bird life along the river, I caught occasional glimpses of a sea lion feasting on the fish, and way across the river on the Oregon side, and way up on this cliff face, I spotted this black bear sow and her two little brown cubs.

In the morning, we went to the dam visitor center and had a look at the power plant and the fish ladders and counting facility.

Some of the fish from the hatchery have rfid ‘pit’ tags inserted in them.  These monitors in the fish ladder record their passage upstream.  As well, all the adult fish are directed past this window, where a real person sits, and counts all the fish by size, species, and whether the fish is  wild or hatchery stock!  It was fairly slow the day I was there, so I was able to chat with the fish counter lady.

Some of the fish are fitted with radio collars.  Well, not collars actually, but transmitters inside that are monitored by these detectors on the river banks.

When she wasn’t ‘driving’, Hailey kept a sharp watch on the river as we drove between dams.  Until she got tired!

Next, ‘barging’ at John Day dam …