Another Weekend Adventure
Now that the school year is in full swing and we are all crazy busy into work, school, scouts, sports, and all the other excitement; we have decided to make a family pact and vow to go on one adventure together every week. The only rules... we need to visit somewhere new, try to get some exercise, and have fun! Like Jeff told me today, our geocaching hobby has been a great way to discover places we would have never known existed. Today was another one of those adventures.
Max had double header soccer games (in pouring rain, no doubt) in Oroville this morning so Jeff did some research before heading out. We had an entire afternoon planned and had set out to loop over The Similkameen River and down around three different lakes taking the long way home. He loaded up the GPS's with dozens of caches. We had so much fun at the first destination that we were there for two or three hours, however, and then headed home the regular way on the high way. That just leaves more to explore the next time I guess.
Enloe Dam is located just a few miles west of Oroville and near the confluence of the Similkameen River and the Okanogan River. The road down to the river was treacherous. We could have never made it in the van, so we parked and walked. Here are Jeff and the kids halfway down the hill.
Notice the building down there? We had all kinds of guesses about this place. The building was obviously abandoned. There were powerlines everywhere so it was obvious that the dam was used for power at some time. We saw an abandoned mine off in the distance and old railroads, and we even ran into a group of modern day gold miners with all their high tech panning equipment. If you want to know the whole story, this person has highlighted it well....but in a nutshell, the dam used to power several mines. It closed down in the 50s and was bought by the local PUD who plan to reconstruct it and get it up and running again.
Here are some pictures of the dam and the natural falls down below. It was gorgeous, even on an overcast day!
The highlight, however, was not the falls, the intriguing and abandoned power plant, or even the gold miners. The salmon were everywhere!! As the salmon travel upsteam from the Pacific Ocean...into the Columbia River...into the Okanogan and next the Similkameen River, their journey ends at this dam. The fish can not get up the dam, however, apparently they struggle with the natural falls just below it as well. We were hoping to spot several jumping in the air as had been described to us, however, the fish seemed content to stay put, pooled in the deep river. The biggest salmon we saw must have been at least 2 1/2, maybe 3 feet long. There were several different species also. It was quite a site. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting a clear shot into the water. If you look really closely at the bottom center between the reflections from the power plant you can see one Sockeye in this shot.
So, other than that....I've had a horrible cold all week that has seemed to get a lot better all of a sudden over the past 24 hours (finally!), started a new class (English Immersion anyone?), and I got two scrapbookpages done. I can only share one at this time because the other will be in an upcoming newsletter. Here's Max's first day of school. Full credits are available by viewing my gallery. Have a great week!
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