Went on a "short" hike yesterday afternoon that ended up lasting until after sunset.
The Missouri River flooded something fierce last summer. Went to hike on some public ground that had been pretty much entirely underwater at the height of the flood. The river now is waaaaay down, so it's the perfect time to go explore and look at how the area is recovering from the flood and how the channel and sandbars have changed.
During the flood, this is what the area looked like. I hiked up toward the cottonwood grove in the upper right part of this picture.
Strangely I haven't gotten any pictures from that particular spot recently. Might go back up there this weekend and get pictures of what the sandbars look like now just for the record.
Anyway, I started near the riverbottom campground (also got flooded) and headed upstream.
The main current used to run along the bank here. It has moved to the other side of the river now, and there's just this little channel running along the bank.
Plenty of animal tracks in the freshly blown sand
One of the more interesting finds of the day. A message in a bottle!
Unfortunately water had gotten into the bottle and the paper was mush. I did find evidence of some writing on it though.
This channel used to be one of the "backwaters" areas. Several years back they dredged out a bunch of stuff back here to make some slack water areas in the river as wildlife habitat, restoration area, etc. During the flood the river cut a channel through them and the upper ones are more or less drained or cut off from the main channel now.
The main channel at the upper end of the grove is really cutting into the bank here, lots of trees are falling into the river. There used to be a kayak/canoe launch here, and where I am standing is where the happy kayakers would have paddled around in the "backwaters".
Poked around inside the groves a bit. It's mostly fingers of cottonwood trees with tallgrass prairie in between. You can see the root bunches from the grasses if you look closely here.
After that I took to the sandbars. Lots of interesting animal tracks here too.
This fridge had been painted with rustoleum (the can was still there) and some branches dragged around it, I guess to make it less of an eyesore or something.
Headed back after the sun dropped behind the bluffs.
Next time I will take a different camera and try to get pictures of all the eagles hanging out in the groves.
The Missouri River flooded something fierce last summer. Went to hike on some public ground that had been pretty much entirely underwater at the height of the flood. The river now is waaaaay down, so it's the perfect time to go explore and look at how the area is recovering from the flood and how the channel and sandbars have changed.
During the flood, this is what the area looked like. I hiked up toward the cottonwood grove in the upper right part of this picture.
Strangely I haven't gotten any pictures from that particular spot recently. Might go back up there this weekend and get pictures of what the sandbars look like now just for the record.
Anyway, I started near the riverbottom campground (also got flooded) and headed upstream.
The main current used to run along the bank here. It has moved to the other side of the river now, and there's just this little channel running along the bank.
Plenty of animal tracks in the freshly blown sand
One of the more interesting finds of the day. A message in a bottle!
Unfortunately water had gotten into the bottle and the paper was mush. I did find evidence of some writing on it though.
This channel used to be one of the "backwaters" areas. Several years back they dredged out a bunch of stuff back here to make some slack water areas in the river as wildlife habitat, restoration area, etc. During the flood the river cut a channel through them and the upper ones are more or less drained or cut off from the main channel now.
The main channel at the upper end of the grove is really cutting into the bank here, lots of trees are falling into the river. There used to be a kayak/canoe launch here, and where I am standing is where the happy kayakers would have paddled around in the "backwaters".
Poked around inside the groves a bit. It's mostly fingers of cottonwood trees with tallgrass prairie in between. You can see the root bunches from the grasses if you look closely here.
After that I took to the sandbars. Lots of interesting animal tracks here too.
This fridge had been painted with rustoleum (the can was still there) and some branches dragged around it, I guess to make it less of an eyesore or something.
Headed back after the sun dropped behind the bluffs.
Next time I will take a different camera and try to get pictures of all the eagles hanging out in the groves.
