Happy Spring!
SKIING & SNOWBALLS (not the good kind):
Since we had a ski season and have gone without for several years, after the holidays Steph announced it was finally our time to play.We had pretty big work plans at our Trinity River cabins after the Ski Park closed in early spring, so I agreed with him.We moved our menagerie north to our Fish & Ski Haus in Dunsmuir and skied almost all of the days we were there. It was a pure kick in the pants and then it was time to tackle our spring projects. Everything was more or less set when we experienced the well-known snowball effect, as you will see.
THE BIG SPRING PROJECTS COLLIDE WITH THE BIG RELEASE FROM THE DAM (and how it grew):
We still really want to sell the Thistle Lane cabins and semi-retire, running just 3 vacation rentals: Sow's Ear by us, the Birdhouse on Steel Bridge Road and the Haus in Dunsmuir. However, Alpen Glow's old deck was proving too much for prospective buyers to contemplate replacing. We did get an offer and went it into escrow, but the buyer backed out for this very reason, so we decided to do the job ourselves
(I use this term loosely), as well as removing a smaller deck upstairs that nobody used and replacing it with a window. But just as Steph had set up a carpenter he likes to work with, we got the news we'd have a very large river release, right about at the start of the deck job. Every spring, there is a release of water from Trinity damto flush the river of accumulated debris (which it definitely accomplishes) and to improve fish habitat, along with various projects carried out with this goal in mind (ask any 10 people whether this is successful or not and you'll get 10 different answers). A major concern centers around how much water should be released and this year, following a severe, multi-year drought, the opinions have more heat than usual.
This has been deemed a wet year and so more water will be released than on a regular or dry year, even if it leaves places at the northern end of Trinity Lake high and dry. But the quantity of the release is decided by the feds and they said let her rip, so she is.But the forecasted maximum was quite big and in previous years, they've even released more than was planned, which does little to ease one's concerns. The picture above was our view just a few days ago. It shows the Trinity River at over 10,000 CFS (cubic feet per second from the dam; I think it got up to 10,400). Can you imagine the force of that water spewing out at the dam? It could cut you in half.
We had two of these high pulses and in between it's still been high enough to jump our bank and climb some of our stairs. The faster and higher river loosens logs that were wedged in somewhere upriver over the past three years, if not more. It's not uncommon to look out the window and see an entire large tree go zipping by.
Many things just downriver of us and above our bridge out of Bucktail (several hundred yards from our place) have changed since we had a 10K CFS or higher release. An overflow area that was built to channel water away from the bridge and back into the river below the bridge was sabotaged by a detour pipe that was way too small for the job, so instead of easing the pressure above the bridge, it made it worse. The river came to within 6" of the surface of our patio and we had a moat worthy of a Scottish castle around our pump house. Inside the moat were two sump pumps. Those pumps ran 24 hours a day for many days, and every few hours around the clock, Steph or I would fire up the fire pump and drain the interior.
Following that year, the engineers redesigned the bypass and after that project was done, we didn't have another wet year or big release. This meant we couldn't count on how high the same amount of water would come. Even though we thought it wouldn't impact our pump house, we couldn't be sure, so it was sandbagging time instead of construction time on Alpen Glow's projects, which have to be finished before Memorial Day weekend. Steph filled a bunch of sandbags and arranged them around our pump house. That is heavy and tiring work; again, I was of no help. Then he set up sump pumps and staged our fire pump nearby, but we hoped the pumps wouldn't be needed.
There is a bit of an uneasy feeling as the water rises over several days and grows louder with each day. That would have been enough to hold all of our attention, especially at night as the dam released more water (on several occasions they have announced after the fact
that they let out more than they meant to!), but just as the high flow hit, Steph was up to his ears on Alpen Glow's 50' by 13' deck, which was completely replaced and wonderfully changed. (I thought a wide set of stairs to the lawn and river would really add to it, and we wanted to open up the view as much as possible, so Steph planned to run stainless steel wires horizontally instead of the vertical wood balusters.
See the pictures at the bottom of this newsletter.)
The job stalled repeatedly but eventually, with the help of two pro carpenters at various times (Brian Vaughan to start and Scott Dias to finish), Steph managed to be at Alpen Glow to work and here to take care of our place as the high flow hit. Our pump house was wet at the bottom, but the electrical components were safely above the water. And the guys have done a beautiful, if exhausting, job on the deck. Today, Steph and Scott are finishing the downriver side of it and the overall accomplishment is nothing short of extraordinary, as you'll see below.
Note I haven't been included in this project, a fact I can barely stand to type. One of the things we put off last winter, figuring spring would be an ideal time for it, was my getting a new knee. The one I had operated on last December was simply shot and outrageously painful, but it didn't keep me from skiing. I got pretty good at drilling in hard on right turns (which mostly works the left knee) so I could take it a bit easier on the left turns, which were just bone-jarring for the right knee. (Ironically, Steph said I have never skied better than this season.) Add the occasional washboard-textured icy run and you can picture the grimace on my face trying to dig my skis into the impenetrable surface. But then there were those sunny days and sleek runs devoid of other skiers, and days when we met interesting people from all over, mostly as we all played in the snow with our dogs. Neither of us (nor our dogs) would have sacrificed our ski season for a prudent, midwinter knee replacement.
As with Steph and his knee replacement, I had the surgery at Fairchild Medical Center in Yreka because they have a very low infection rate. Too many friends of ours have experienced devastating infections and replaced replacements. One dear friend was bedridden for almost two years from an infection during a hip replacement and that operation is usually a piece of cake compared with a knee. Fairchild has a great track record, but they also have very strict rules. One tiny scratch on the right leg and I'd have been out. But before we went north, there was a mountain of old decking to haul up to the truck, load, be driven to our place and unloaded. Almost every piece of wood had screws, nails or a twisted, ragged joist hanger. The guys had enough on their hands with the deck, so I called dibs, put on my knee brace and went to work.Man, was I careful! Even so, my total involvement was doing the spring mowing and loading and unloading several truckloads of old deck. It adds up to practically nothing compared with Steph's accomplishments.
We spent a few nights at our Dunsmuir place after the operation and then came home with me in a goofball origami position in the back of the Escape so I could keep my right leg elevated. Surgery is painful, of course, but the real work comes with the physical therapy. Steph put me through the paces from the exercise sheet provided by the hospital, and it was several days before I went to the physical therapist in Weaverville. Mark, the owner, ran me through the various exercises and gauged how well I could flatten and bend my knee. Those two factors are the ballgame. He kept glancing at Steph as I worked and after several minutes of quizzical looks, he announced, "Ridiculous. You're two months ahead of the norm." At the next week's appointment I was four months ahead. Last week, on my third session with Mark,I apologized that I was having a down day. I had gotten caught out in the heat hauling hoses to water up and down the hillside at Sow's Ear and it really took it out of me. " Nobody
would be hauling hoses anywhere after a couple of weeks," Mark said. I'm figure I'm done with pro PT, but keep it up at home between handling reservations, hauling hoses, weeding, working on the dreaded accounting and stuff like this newsletter.
I credit Steph for much of my PT success because he is so diligent and has been here every day at 4 PM, despite all of the projects he has going on at Alpen Glow. Who rushes home from a day of grueling work, grabs mats, his clipboard and weights and then spends the next 40 minutes supervising his wife's PT? Also, I got lucky. Some people have both knees done and one goes well while the other doesn't.
My gratitude is boundless.
GREETING TRINITY VISITORS:
We often have guests who come to Trinity because of fond childhood memories, but we had an unusual twist a couple of weeks ago when the Hages came to Sow's Ear for a week. Greg and his wife brought his mom who is in her 90s. She and her husband had a place in French Gulch, which is just off 299 down near Whiskeytown Lake, but they never came up here!
Better late than never, they came, explored and sometimes sat by the hot tub while enjoying a beer in the afternoon, watching the river rise and all of the birdlife that has burst to life. In one afternoon, we had the ospreys who nest just upriver of us put on quite a show close by overhead, including a fly-by with a fish in one's talons; ravens hooting it up in the pine and oak trees by the hot tub; a large number of Canada geese swam by with a flotilla of fuzzy chicks; and a bunch of the male mergansers that will be long gone by the time their chicks hatch rode the eddy upriver on our side.
Not to be outdone by the birds, our dog Scupper joined Greg and his mom on one of their afternoon beer sits. As evidence of his affection for visitors, Scuppie ran inside for a toy and proudly brought Purple Bear outside and over to them. Purple Bear lost his stuffing years ago, right after we found him alongside the road. Then he looked brand new, with a plucky little bow tied around his neck.
But Bisco, our lab/border collie, has a thing about stuffing. It doesn't belong there. So she ripped poor Purple bear open and out came his puffy filling which I immediately stuffed back in and securely stitched shut. So Bisco gutted him again. I stuffed him again. We did this dance maybe 4 times before I saw Bisco's wisdom; Purple Bear wasn't meant to be stuffed. But he remains one of Scupper's fond friends and it was endearing to see him pass by newer and fancier toys to get Purple Bear and take him out to greet the guests.
FOR SALE: GREAT INCOME PROPERTY ON THE WILD & SCENIC TRINITY RIVER
We continually hit a couple of snags with our attempts to sell the Thistle Lane property complete as Trinity River Adventure Inn. People loved the property, the different cabins and the river view. I'm pretty sure every one of our fishing guests would love to have this property (who wouldn't want to live where steelhead fishing is in wading distance?). But even with my promise of strong, ongoing training and support to take over TRAI, they were intimidated. Most wanted to live in Alpen Glow. One couple had older parents they'd have put in the Carriage House, while others thought maybe they'd rent the Carriage House full-time. Almost everyone either considered renting the Miner's Cabin as it is now, or keeping it as a guest cabin. But aside from the dreamers who really weren't serious shoppers, few wanted the full-time demands of a full-time business, especially if they planned to live in Alpen Glow.
So we have removed the business from the listing and now the property is offered for sale as income property. The price has been substantially reduced to $624,900.00, despite the expensive new work on Alpen Glow.That will be a lot simpler than running the entire vacation cabin and river adventure business, but if a buyer wants to continue renting some or all of the cabins, I'll train them. And of course, Steph is here to guide them on the (great) multiple water sources and other items new owners need to know. So just in case you, or someone you know, is looking for a great place on an outstanding stretch of the Trinity River, send them to Terri Townzen, our realtor. Her cell # is 530.524.6801.