Posts
"I wanted to be the first to view a country on which the eyes of a white man had never gazed and to follow the course of rivers that run through a new land." ---Jedediah Strong Smith:
In 1828, mountain man, explorer, and trailblazer Jedediah Strong Smith led an expedition up the Sacramento River through the north end of California’s Central Valley. Thinking it was the Buenaventura River, a fabled waterway once believed to run from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean of what is now the western United States. In finding the river's true source, Smith believed he could link the east and the west with a water route by finding a waterway from coast to coast.
Of course, it didn't happen. As many explorers have found all water routes are more mythical than factual. Upon reaching a point on the river near present-day Red Bluff, California, the explorer determined it to be impassable and veered off to the northwest and the Pacific coast.
"April 10, 1828, I moved on with the intention of traveling up the Buenaventura but soon found the rocky hills coming in so close to the river as to make it impossible to travel. I went on in advance of the party and ascending a high point took a view of the county, and found the river coming from the Ne and running apparently for 20 or 30 miles through ragged rocky hills. The mountains beyond appeared too high to cross at that season of the year or perhaps at any other. Believing it impossible to travel up the river, I turned back into the valley and encamped on the river with the intention of crossing.” Jedediah Strong Smith
As a modern-day explorer, I can understand Smith's zeal for venturing into the unknown and discovering new places and remote sights. My wanderlust is always looking for different and unfamiliar rivers and lakes to explore. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, "Not all those who wander are lost.”
That being said, unlike Smith, the Sacramento River has been mapped, explored fished, and rafted by countless before us. Our roughly trip 25 mile trip from Anderson Riverside Park south of Redding to Bend Bridge Park north of Red Bluff is hardly the first descent. Because of its fast and lively flows, this section of the Sacramento River is extremely popular for canoeing, kayaking, and rafting. However, for everyone in our group of four paddlers, the riverway had been on a long bucket-list of one we wanted to explore.
Being California's longest river, the Sacramento offers frequent ripples, its share of standing waves and swirling whirlpools, and steady currents moving quickly in this semi-remote section of the river. Weaving southward past a few highway bridges, the river provides a cross-section of scenery along the way and able spots for camping on both sides of the river.
Likely, Smith didn't experience this section of the river. He turned off into history before exploring this section of the Sacramento River. But for the four of us, the river trip dared us for a new adventure of exploration and fresh horizon. As Astronaut Neil Armstrong said, "I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream."
