TABLE OF CONTENTS
Stopping Global Warming
and Saving the Eel River
Letter from SCWA to Santa Rosa
A photo Tour of the East Rim
Text by Nadananda
All Photographs by Wes Edwards
www.edwardsphotonet.com
The first weekend in October 2006 I traveled the east rim of the Eel River headwaters with professional photographer Wes Edwards. These next five pages are all his photography. We left from Garberville, traveling more than 300 miles, took two and a half days and never left the watershed. We started documenting our journey at the look-out just above Round Valley where the new plaque tells the story of the native peoples who lived there. As we climbed Spanish Ridge we looked back toward the Yollo Bollys catching this rainbow.
The view below is the grand sweep of the western flank of Spanish Ridge, part of the watershed for the Middle Fork Eel River.
We tried to get to Hull Mt. before sunset but became confused when our one road suddenly became three. Oh yes, we tried all three and decided to just stop and take what we could with the wonderful light. Not sure exactly what this knob is called but we were facing west.
Friday, October 6, 2006, we camped below the top of Bald Mt. traveling the ridge towards the east to Hell’s Half Acre, on Mendocino National forest Road M6. Wes caught this wonderful full moon raising as the world sang its wonderful evening song.
The following morning we headed out to M3 which follows the rim of the watershed to the east through ever changing forests and open only where burnt. Wes’s photos show these specatacular views.
By Sunday we had traveled the rim to the south where we got photos of so much water along that area.
Although we had found a lot of water, we also saw heavily burnt over land. Note the varied plants and trees in this area that drains part of Rice Fork, on the right.
Below is a wonderful photograph that shows the Eel’s southern fork winding down into Lake Pillsbury and that there is still water in the Eel on October 8th, even before the rains arrive. This river bend is in the area known as Thistleglen.
Fuel for Fire
Photos and narrative by Nadananda
Fire is a major problem for this part of the watershed. Burnt over many times it’s predicament is exacerbated by the brush that comes right after a fire.
Surprisingly abundant with water the area is struggling without a plan for reforestation.
I took these photos as we traveled the drainage along M3, close to the still running Rice Fork.
The middle photo is of M3 where you can barely see our white camper on a view point where we camped on Saturday night, waiting for more moon shots.
Below, Hull and Bald Mountains loom in the backdrop.