Where were we? Ah yes, atmospheric rivers and the “Pineapple Express. ” Five and a half inches of rain over two days. Warm rains that melted all the snow from just the week before.
It was pretty early in the storm that I first heard from our caretaker. She wanted to warn me that our driveway was in danger of washing away. The small creek that runs under our driveway had completely overflowed and was now running down the driveway instead of under it.
Also the culvert where the creek runs under Hwy 41 had clogged. Muddy water had completely filled up the creek’s ravine and was now overflowing the road.
I called a friend who works for Caltrans to let them know about it.
They were already there.
A bit later our caretaker sent me some blurry photos from her camera, taken in the thick of it.
This is the bottom of our driveway, now with about 2 inches of whitewater rushing down it! (These photos courtesy of C.Murray)Here you can see the whitewater rushing past a Caltrans truck……and back into the creek’s ravine, where it then normally flows under the road about 15 feet below the road surface. That ravine was now filled to the brim and overflowing with muddy water.
After much effort Caltrans did manage to unplug the culvert under Hwy 41, as well as the smaller one above it — the one that goes under our driveway.
We drove up later in the week to inspect the entire property for damage. This is how it looked then:
The ravine after Caltrans was able to unplug the culvert and the water level had mostly returned to “normal.”Caltrans still had to pick up some of their toys.Looking up the driveway from close to the bottom, near Hwy 41. I took this photo from nearly the same place as the “whitewater” photo aboveThe worst damage to the driveway was just below the first switchback, near where the creek runs underneath it
We inspected the entire property, and although there was plenty of evidence of mud flows and erosion, overall it wasn’t that bad — especially considering the amount of rain that had fallen in such a short time.
Above the Trestlewood Chalet the driveway was virtually untouchedLooking down the driveway, just below the last switchback, you can see some evidence of mud flows, but no damage to the driveway itselfAt the Logger’s Retreat breezeway, again there is some erosion, but the driveway itself is still intact and functional.On the fire road near the south gate, a lot of muddy water did flow across the road, but the road itself was not damagedA good-sized boulder is now parked on the road up to the top of the knoll where we want to place our water tanks.
And north of our properties, where the creek normally flows under the fire road, it chose instead to cross here. But again, the damage is minimal.This is where the worst erosion occurred — where the path to the picnic area went past the tall Ponderosa pines, behind the garage.. We’ll be reworking this area anyway during construction
Flower Power
Hey, anyone remember these, from before the fire?
Well, they’re back!
I can’t tell you how gratifying it was to see those Daffodils come back.
Of course there are no guarantees that we are done with snow for this season — last year we even had snow in June! But even so, I think we can safely say that Spring has officially sprung at the Logger’s Retreat.
