Showing posts with label Lake Valley Reservoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lake Valley Reservoir. Show all posts

Friday, September 25, 2020

KAYAK SUMMER 2020

Lake Clementine

Making storytelling photos has always been my mantra. Throughout my journalistic career to now, as I document my kayaking paddling days, on Instagram, and for my post in Outside Adventure to the Max, I want to tell you a story. Each day, I hope to capture in a photograph what the day was like and what did. Was it sunny and bright or a bit gloomy? Was I with or leading a group, or was I on a solo trek across the water?

Sunset Paddle on Lake Natoma

I love to shoot a lot of my photos in the so-called Golden Hour. I have a propensity to light and shadows and the mood it presents. I find it irresistible to let those magical moments pass without trying to catch just a part of it. I can not lie. It makes for beautiful pictures, especially when on the water. Those serene moments make my kayak tripping a bit romantic and picturesque.
Yet the storyteller in me also wants to share my so non-romantic things about my paddling days. The grittiness of the heavy kayak and steep portage to the sluggishness of sluffing boats at the end of the day at the boathouse, to the unplanned swims, Not all my paddling days are a memory of cool Kodak moments.

Summer 2020 was far from picture perfect and a bit more unalluring and unappealing than any photos can suggest. By most accounts, it was an unfocused and somewhat shaky ordeal that will be remembered more for what we didn't do rather than what we actually did.

Sly Park Paddle Rentals

For all of us, Summer 2020 certainly did not start all that well. The as the novel coronavirus know as the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly canceled and delay it from the start.
"Now we have something that turned out to be my worst nightmare," the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN in June, "In the period of four months, it has devastated the world."

At the start of the summer season, self-quarantining recommendations and restrictions became the norm. Movie theaters, indoor restaurants, and churches were closed. Events and festivals were canceled, and stacks of guidelines were imposed, calling for "social distancing" by staying at least six-feet part from one another.
Across the country, popular national, state, and local parks and beaches were either closed or were limiting access as health officials raised health concerns about large, possibly maskless, groups of visitors arriving and potentially skirting social distancing guidelines.
But as we all know, going outside is good for us, especially in a pandemic. Being in nature and the fresh air can help us relax and feel less stressed, which is what we needed most both then and even now. 

South Fork of American River

So I took advantage of my free time to head to the Lower American River and even run the South Fork of the River with a couple of guys during the early days of the summer shutdown.

As the stay-in-place restrictions were relaxed, outdoor places like state parks suddenly become important in a new way. They were safe places, but only if people recreated reasonably. Masks for many became the fashion as we looked in either bandits or doctors when they arrived a the boat launch. At Sly Park Paddle Rentals, where I worked after the delayed start, I would give all the equipment a sanitizing bath in E-san 64 after each rental. As the pandemic lingered into the middle of summer, people continued to flock to places like Lake Jenkinson, giving me a busy and brisk business as folks tried to escape the routine of the pandemic by getting on the water. 

Loon Lake

But just the same, it was not all work and no play. The after-hours canoeing and kayaking sessions in the lake helped give me a sense of normalcy. An annual trip down the Lower American River and no-frills expedition to Loon Lake with Bayside Adventure Sports, a Christian based outreach group, gave me a chance to lead a great group of paddlers. Okay, okay! That week on the was close to picture-perfect as could be, for me and maybe all them. It was the highlight of my summer.

But with every high, there comes a low. And this seemly apocalyptic summer dished out a slew of record-breaking temperatures, devastating wildfires, and ghostly orange and Martian-red skies from the shadow of smoke blowing eastward during the ladder part of the summer. A mid-September camping trip to Sierra Mountains Silver Lake was called-off due to the threat of fire danger, and my days on Lake Jenkinson were plagued with smoke and haze. It led me to get some dramatic photos, but also a realization that with climate change being unchecked this could be a prelude of things annually. 

Lake Jenkinson

It's official. No matter how I regard it, this lost summer is over, and fall has begun. Time to start planning for next year. While for some, this ominous year of 2020 can not get over quickly enough as we all deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, racial unrest, and looming contentious election. As we start the Autumn season, we search for that silver lining.

“Our main job as artists is to make the art that only we can make, right now in the times in which we are living,” wrote California College of Arts Dean of Fine Arts Allison Smith to her students this past year. “The art you are about to make will be a source of survival, and it will change us all for the better,” she concluded. 

So in these crazy times, I look back on my summer 2020. I certainly will cherish all my photo moments, both good and bad, all the friendly faces, and all the memories of my time on the water. To help me and maybe even you cruise through to till next summer, I picked out some of my favorite images I created over the past few months to help recall the past season like no other.

Here is a look at some of my favorite images from this past summer.

Loon Lake with Bayside Adventure Sports

Lake Jenkinson

 
Sly Park Paddle Rentals

Donner Lake

Lake Jenkinson

Lake Valley Reservoir

North Fork of the American River
 
The American River Parkway

Lake Jenkinson

Lake Jenkinson

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Friday, July 29, 2016

OVER THE BOW: LAKE VALLEY RESERVOIR

The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, - so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be. -- Henry David Thoreau 

A smokey haze floated over the water and mountains at Lake Valley Reservoir. A forest fire was raging down in the hills and the smoke was blowing our way. So much so, I even questioned my decision to paddle here. The smoke fogged our view of the Sierra, burned out eyes and throat a common occurrence during California's fire season. Setting off across the lake, I just hoped the wind would change and the smoke would clear.

Lake Valley Reservoir is at about 5,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada Mountains located just off Interstate 80, south of the Yuba Gap. About 2 miles long, the Pacific Gas & Electric lake offers a variety of shoreline from rocky to tree-lined banks, perfect for a day of exploring. The Sierra lakes and reservoirs have water in them this season, and Lake Valley Reservoir is no exception. The water lapped against the glacier-polished granite along the southern shoreline offering an inviting spot for a summer swim.

My wife Debbie and I had other ideas as we paddled to the peninsula at the far end of the lake. There a small island juts out into the lake and raised wall looks over the lake. It provided us with a perfect spot to picnic, swim and watch two courting eagles hang in the sky. The smoke had cleared and the day was neared perfect. We paddled back lazily along the sunken tree-line in what seemed like an ancient world.

"Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons." wrote paddling guru Sigurd Olson,  "It is what we leave behind that is important. I think the matter of simplicity goes further than just food, equipment, and unnecessary gadgets; it goes into the matter of thoughts and objectives as well. When in the wilds, we must not carry our problems with us or the joy is lost."

Over the Bow is a feature from Outside Adventure to the Max, telling the story behind the image. If you have a great picture with a great story, submit it to us at nickayak@gmail.com

Friday, June 27, 2014

Record Pace...My First 6 Months of Kayaking


Paddling day #1 Jan 1, Folsom Lake


My California paddling portfolio after 73 days of paddling so far in 2014. Each day has brought an escape and adventure.  These are just some of the beautiful places I have kayaked this year.


Paddling Day #10, Jan 31, Lake Clementine

 Paddling Day #19, Feb 25, Folsom Lake
 

Paddling Day #27, March 19, Lake Natoma

The two best reasons to buy a kayak rather than just renting are sunsets and sunrises. -- Thomas P. Jones

 Paddling Day #31, March 25, Folsom lake
Paddle Day #36 April 6, The American River Parkway

         Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
        A. A. Milne, Pooh's Little Instruction Book   

 
Paddling Day #37, April 8, Folsom Lake

Paddling Day #60 North Arm of Folsom Lake

Rivers must have been the guides which conducted the footsteps of the first travelers. They are the constant lure, when they flow by our doors, to distant enterprise and adventure, and, by a natural impulse, the dwellers on their banks will at length accompany their currents to the lowlands of the globe, or explore at their invitation the interior of continents.

- Henry David Thoreau

Paddling Day #69 June 18, Lake Natoma

    The Sun shines not on us but in us. The Rivers flow not past, But through us.   John Muir

Paddling Day 71  June 21, Lake Natoma

The first river you paddle runs through the rest of your life. It bubbles up in pools and eddies to remind you who you are.
- Lynn Noel, Voyages: Canada's Heritage Rivers

Paddling Day #73 June 26, Lake Valley Reservoir