Snowmelt thrills whitewater rafters, but some rivers off limits for now
A river whose twists and turns have earned names like “Troublemaker,” “Satan’s Cesspool” and “Dead Man’s Drop” warrants respect — even when years of drought have tamed its rushing waters. This, of course, is not such a year. A winter that drenched the Golden State with torrential rains and blanketed its mountains with massive, now-melting snow has swelled California’s rivers like the American to levels not seen for years, even generations. That’s making for an epic, adrenalin-fueled season for whitewater thrill-seekers. Andres Moreno, whose 8th-grade class at Golden Valley Charter School near Folsom took a trip last week down the South Fork of the American River with American Whitewater Expeditions, had been rafting before, but that was nothing like it is now.