It was a warm Saturday on August 9, 2008 when Paul, Dave and I arrived on Ziebright Road at 7:55AM. Jim Coleman was already there briefing a group of volunteers on the history of Granite Bay Flycasters’ Bear River Restoration Project (see the original project article here). 

 

A total of 18 volunteers were on the scene to help with the 2008 repair project.  After the briefing, we all piled back in our vehicles and caravanned into the meadow near the area where we would be cutting down the trees needed to reinforce the river bank.  We separated tools by the locations where they would be needed.  We took everyone and the tools down to the river to see the areas where we’d be working.  We then split into three groups – loggers, haulers, and installers.  The loggers and haulers then headed back to the trees to get started while the installers used loppers to clear a 4 foot area of willows as a point of entry for the logs that would be floated down river to be installed.  It was amazing how much higher the water was from just four weeks previously when Jim Coleman and I were there!  It was up at least a foot, if not more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The loggers used chainsaws to fell the trees, and the haulers used their pick-up trucks to bring them across the meadow and down to the entry point on the river.  Installers wet-waded the 58-degree water to float the 12-16 ft. logs down to where others were waist deep in the river to cable the logs to the rebar left from the original installation GBF started in 1994.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It really didn’t take as long as originally thought since we had so many volunteers to help out, although a couple of us ended up a little wetter than originally intended, either from losing footing or having to dive for dropped tools. We were even able to install reinforcement and plant new willows on a new section of river bank that desperately needed it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A huge thank you to Frank Stolten for volunteering to go into Truckee to get the extra stakes, cable and clamps to do this extra work!  Thank you to Paul Egan for being our “on the scene” photographer, and Jim Coleman for being our advisor.  And, finally, thank you to ALL our members who stepped up and volunteered for this repair project.  As the saying goes, “Many People Make Light Work”!

 

 

Robin Egan

VP Conservations

Granite Bay Flycasters