New opportunity....

Dam removal launches white water rafting revival near California border

SFGATE contributor Brian E. Clark rafts the recovering Upper Klamath River on the Oregon-California border

By Brian E. Clark

As my raft plowed into a frothy hole on the Wild Horse rapid in the Upper Klamath River’s Kikaceki Canyon, it swung sideways, shuddered and then charged on through a series of churning, boat-eating holes near the California border. 

The excitement turned to thrill when raft guide Alyssa Winkelmann — of Momentum River Expeditions — plowed into a reversal slightly off center. This flung me into the drink and left me swimming in the rushing river.

“Maybe I’d hit it more straight on next time,” chuckled Winkelmann, who grew up in the town of Shasta and has been a raft guide for more than a decade. On this newly restored section of the Klamath, she’s learning about the river like everyone else. 

For over a century, a wild ride through the Class IV cascade was impossible. That’s because this nearly 3-mile section of the Upper Klamath was dewatered, literally dried up, by a penstock diversion for the Copco No. 2 dam and its powerhouse built in the 1920s.

However, in 2024, four aging hydroelectric dams (including Copco No. 2) on the California-Oregon border were demolished in the largest dam removal project in the U.S. Since then, water has started tumbling over rocks and boulders again, opening the canyon for white water rafting and more. 

Bordered by dramatic, 300-foot columnar basalt cliffs, the trip offers intense rapids for advanced rafters and kayakers. It’s also a tour embodying an unprecedented revival of nature and human history. 

The Shasta people and other tribes — including the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Klamath — lived along the river for millennia. The dam removal allows for lost traditions like dancing the salmon home while also spawning new adventures for the outdoorsy set.

When I floated the Upper Klamath with Momentum River Expeditions earlier this summer, I encountered not only Class IV rapids with names like Caldera, Ambush and Dragon’s Tooth in a deep canyon but also gentle, soul-soothing sections of slowly moving water where merganser ducks swam with their chicks.

Otters poked around eddies dotted with yellow-flowered water lilies, possibly looking for a salmon meal. And speckling the riverbanks, we saw scarlet poppies, sticky purple geraniums and yellow lupines. Soaring overhead were bald eagles, another species that thrives on salmon. 

Even better, I got to share this trip with a decades-old friend, Mark Lorenzen, with whom I’d kayaked white water streams up and down the West Coast, Central America, Chile and Ecuador. These days, though, we live more than 1,500 miles apart. He’s in San Francisco, and I live in Madison, Wisconsin, so reunions on the water are rare.

The first evening, we pulled into our safari camp under towering ponderosa pines — with their distinctive, puzzle-like bark — sharing stories over garlic- and thyme-marinated shrimp prepared by the guides. We were later served nightcaps from the wooden “UK Bar” before heading off to our walk-in tents with decks that were spaced out along a path lit by solar-powered lamps in a scene best described as riparian magic.

A positive achievement, an unexpected problem

The Upper Klamath River’s revival is merely the latest chapter in a long and sometimes bloody dispute over who claims the water. Sami Jo Difuntorum, cultural preservation officer for the Shasta tribe, said that in the 19th century, many Shasta were pushed out of the area or killed by gold miners and the U.S. military. 

“But our ancestors struggled to stay there, and we fought to return,” Difuntorum said. “That flowing water and those lands carry their memories. They have a profound cultural meaning to us.”

Difuntorum said the Texas-headquartered company Resource Environmental Solutions worked with the tribes to lead the restoration. They are now reintroducing some 200 native plants that the Shasta harvested for food, basketry, medicine and ceremonies. That includes wild pumpkin, which is placed in fish traps to lure in and capture salmon. 

“It’s all a work in process because you don’t just take out the dams and everything is fine again,” Difuntorum said. “There is more to be done, including on the Klamath’s tributaries.”

Dave Meurer, community affairs director for Resource Environmental Solutions, added that salmon have returned to the reopened river and its tributaries much sooner than anticipated. 

“We got in there fast, and were re-seeding the reservoir footprints as the water receded,” he said. “Planting in muck, planting in 98 percent dead algae that had been accumulating for decades.”

Meurer added that so far, the “plant response has been fantastic, with fields of poppies and 100 other species growing there the first year, including shrubs and bare-root trees.”

Even more remarkable has been the return of salmon to streams that were “buried under warm slack-water and algae-filled toxic reservoirs,” Meurer said. “We were trying to do in a short time what nature would have taken decades.” 

Meurer said that a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologist predicted the salmon return might take a dozen years. “He was stunned by how remarkably fast it happened,” Meurer said.

White water where there was none

As the body of the Upper Klamath River welcomes the salmon’s return, the top of the river is calling to river enthusiasts. White water outfits were among the stakeholders supporting the effort to remove the dams. 

Pete Wallstrom started the rafting company Momentum River Expeditions more than 20 years ago on the Rogue River and the Hells Corner stretch of the Upper Klamath. He worked with the American Whitewater environmental group, public agencies and tribes to develop public access points on the river after the dams were removed. There are other outfitters — including Noah’s River Adventures and Indigo Creek Outfitters — and the cost for one- and two-day trips on the Upper Klamath ranges from $200 to $850.

“It’s been crazy — especially after years of uncertainty — to watch salmon swimming upstream soon after the dams’ removal and see how quickly the river is healing itself,” Wallstrom said. 

Recreation on a river with cultural significance may not always seem complementary, but Difuntorum said she supports it as long as people aren’t jumping out of their rafts in places that are sacred or could be a burial site.

Wallstrom said Momentum’s mission is to protect wild places by connecting with guests on an emotional level. “And to show and connect them in a way that they understand, appreciate, enjoy and feel comfortable with,” he said.

Part of that effort includes getting more people — including those who might be averse to roughing it — on the river by making camping more comfortable at its glamping-style overnight, he said. 

“I believe that rivers and public lands are best protected when a wide range of people know and love them — a mix of more ‘outdoorsy’ people and those who are not as lucky and only get to spend [a few] nights under the stars,” Wallstrom said. 

“That includes people that have never really thought about camping — or that camping is so far away from their life experience that they have a hard time considering it. And there are a lot of people like that now.”