The highs and lows of a river

Some of you might recall all of the photography that I did during the record flood events of this past January 2009. The Snoqualmie River crested nearly foot higher than it ever had been recorded before, SR 202 was washed out and homes destroyed just east of Fall City, schools were closed for three days, and for some local residence in the Valley the impact is still being felt today.
Thankfully I went down to similar locations where I normally photograph the river flowing through Fall City the week before Labor Day Weekend to capture some of the river before heavy rains over the weekend brought river levels up a bit. The late summer river is the lowest I've ever seen it! The extremely dry weather we have had since May combined with snowpack that melted out fast during the July heat means not much left is coming down the creeks and rivers of the Snoqualmie Basin (and all other river basins in the region). The result is a river you can wade across in many areas, huge logs left high and dry on gravel bars. It was pretty neat! The large log in the river by town floated away sometime over the holiday weekend.

It is fun to compare the river between these two events: flood vs. dry summer. All happening in the same year too!