General News Blogs

This is a miraculous story! Dick’s Apple laptop flew off his motorcycle on the freeway last week. We all considered it gone and took it to the Apple Store to see if a “Genius” could get all of the data off of the hard drive. At the store, Zach pressed the on key and the laptop turned on as if nothing happened. Everyone at the store couldn’t believe it actually worked.

Everything works (including DVD drive, monitor, and hard drive) except for the built in keyboard and mouse. This computer is still being used, but is just a little less portable.

A new web page look for the 2006 season was launched today. We hope that the new page is easier to use, has a better feel, and the fonts are easier to read.

In October, we will update the blog page as well as information about our International trips for 2006.

We’ve just finished our 2006 calendar and have set the dates and prices for our 2006 river trips. You can view them at: Rogue Availability, Tuolumne Availability, and Middle Fork of the Salmon Availability.

Special trips in the works are the ever popular Wine, Bluegrass, and DeRiemer Kayak trips as well as a Gourmet Food trip with the Master Chef and Owner of Citron Restaurant in Oakland.

We are currently running our last Tuolumne trip of the season and are winding down our last few trips on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. There are currently fires near the Rogue River which have caused us to modify some trips, but we are expecting to run trips on the Rogue through September and there is still availability on these trips.

One of our best trips of the season is a yoga retreat on the Rogue River with Dennis Eagan. Dennis is long time ECHO guide and now devotes his life to yoga instruction in wild places.

A river trip this August will have an additional special attraction. MARS will be the closest it has been to EARTH during the last 5,000 years. It could be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. THE RED PLANET WILL BE SPECTACULAR AND WILL BE EASY TO SPOT, especially in the wilderness areas of our Tuolumne, Rogue and Idaho river trips.

The encounter between the two planets will culminate on August 27th, although you will be able to watch MARS grow progessively brighter and brighter starting at the beginning of August. No human being has seen this in recorded history. No one alive today will ever see this again. WHAT AN AWESOME OPPORTUNITY!!

Cold temperatures in the high Sierra and spring snowstorms have prevented California’s snowpack from decreasing this spring. As of May 1 2005, the snowpack for the Tuolumne River is 179% of normal and the snowpack for the Merced River is 187% of normal. We are looking forward to a week of cold weather and precipitation so these percentages may still increase.

This means that we are expecting very high water at the end of May when the temperatures begin to rise and that the high water should last through June. We may also see the fun medium flows on the Tuolumne through the middle of July. Those of you looking for a unique and rare high water experience in hot weather should consider trip in June and those looking for more of a mellow trip should consider a late July or August trip.

We’ve developed a new photo page that will allow ECHO customers to post their pictures as well as view pictures from the ECHO digital cameras. The new site, www.echopics.com, went live last week and we are now using it to share pictures from our recent guide school.

For privacy reasons, only invited members are allowed to view pictures from a particular trip. Once your trip is over, you will be sent an invitation to share pictures and thoughts about your recent trip. One of the special features that we have included is an RSS feed that will send a message to a “newsreader” when pictures are added by other members.

California’s enormous snowpack has rafters excited about high water trips this spring in the Sierra. This looks to be the best water year since 1998 when California had extremely high flows through July on most rivers.

The best high water trips in California are the Tuolumne, Merced, and Kings Rivers. This is because they have wide canyons that can safely hold a large amount of water. The high water makes for big waves and strong hydraulics or “holes.”

“Spring trips on the Tuolumne will be amazing due to the high water and spectacular wildflowers,” said raft company owner Joe Daly. He continued, “This will be an outstanding season because of above average runoff. The higher water will be exciting and will extend the river running season.”

The Tuolumne is a Class IV river about 3 hours from the San Francisco Bay Area. Some one day trips are available, but most people choose to run the Tuolumne in two days. The Merced and Kings Rivers are one day Class III trips.

When running high water rivers, be sure to pick a reputable outfitter who has experienced guides. The web site www.c-w-r.com has a list of outfitters for each rafting river in California. You can learn more about the safety of the outfitters by calling them and asking about the qualifications and experience of their high water rafting crews. One such company is ECHO River Trips which has a strong record for safety for over 30 years.

Season’s greetings from ECHO world headquarters in Oakland. We’ll be in and out of the office (mostly out) for the holidays until January 3rd and will be checking our email frequently.

We’ve recently decided to do a whitewater school during the last week of March on the Rogue and Tuolumne Rivers that will coincide with UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and Stanford spring breaks. Dennis Eagan has also decided to do another Yoga trip September 9th, 2005 on the Rogue. We’ll add more specifics about these trips as we finalize the details.

Dick just adopted two Jack Russel Terrier puppies currently named “Spot” and “Buddy” after trying on the names “Spike” and “Sparky.”

Over the weekend I was passed on an article about the Seven Life Lessons from White Water Rafting that I thought was interesting.

There is nothing else new except that we’ve had some interest in a whitewater school and are considering the last two weeks of June. Any feedback or interest will help us mold this project!