2013

Monday April 15th, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

It has been an interesting 6 days since I updated here last. Late last week our server company got hit with a hacker attack that lasted a few days. They kept the servers up and running, but I couldn’t log in to post. The Big Snow Page is on a different server and so I had to do my late week update there.

We were making good progress with spring last week until Thursday. The frost was coming out of the driveway and it was finally firming up. A lot of the side roads were getting thinner on the glacial ice layer from the winter.

Thursday brought some rain, followed by about 4-5″ of snow in a hard driving wind Thursday night. It was near whiteout conditions for a while. Thursday night got down into the 20s and firmed everything up a little. They didn’t plow some back roads, and by Friday night they were frozen up with 4″ plus deep tire tracks. Winter was back.

I really expected the snow and cold to lock the river back up, but it didn’t, and we started the Kosir’s whitewater rafting season Saturday at noon. We had a full trip of adventurous people hit the river, and they were rewarded with a rare view of some really scenic big ice formations on the river.

That is pretty hard core, right? Well, these guys were camping in snow, rafting in an ice maze on the river in 40+ degree temps, and walking through knee deep snow and ice to get there. Saturday night it got down to 14 degrees and solidly froze in the water, ice, and puddles from the snow, along with any footprints or tracks. Some were tent camping it in the snow.

There wasn’t any whining going on, they were partying like rock stars and making the best of the adventure. It most definitely was a very memorable opening weekend, and if you looked up hard core in the Funky Wagnal’s there would probably be a group picture or two from last weekend at Kosir’s there.

Heading up to the river to do my pictures I found that it is still full blown winter not too far north of here. The side road hadn’t been plowed, and there was 4-5″ of snow on top of the winter’s ice base. That made turning in corners kind of a suggestion, and the smallest error brought a stuck truck. The snow on the way down to the river was knee deep or better, and heavy with the ice layers and last week’s rain. I was thinking that it was a shame that they had shut down the snowmobile trails with conditions like that.

Sunday brought an overcast day and a pending storm. It snowed on radar for a few hours before it snowed here on the ground, but eventually we got an inch or so before it turned to rain about sunset. The rain was pretty cold, the roads were cold from the weekend, the sun was setting, and it was just under 32. At that point we likely had some icy roads for a while.

Later the rain came heavier, and a couple of waves could be heard pounding on the roof. Early morning brought a seriously dense fog, but it didn’t last long once the sun came up. Now we are headed for a sunny 50ish April day.

With the extended winter the Peshtigo River was just open enough to raft. The big melt hasn’t even started yet. As I mentioned above, it is still straight up winter in the watershed. It was hard to quantify the river levels last weekend because of ice on the river messing with the USGS gauge and focusing the water. Looking at the center rock at First Drop, I’d guess that it was somewhere between +6 and +9″.

As the river is breaking up it is building and blowing out ice dams. That is causing spikes and valleys on the gauge. As the big ice starts to move this week and next I would expect some really big ice dams and huge rushes of ice and water to roar down the river when they blow out. It is one of those cool and just overwhelmingly powerful forces of nature.

With the amount of ice and snow still locked up in the watershed I am really excited about the prospects for rafting this April and May. Today is the first day in quite a while that we will hit our normal high of 50, so not much has melted yet.

This week will be close to normal for the most part, so the thaw should start but not be too dramatic. There is a storm for about Thursday that could bring around an inch of rain, plus a little snow on the finish.That should perk up the river a little and bring good water levels for the weekend.

We should have good water levels for whitewater rafting next weekend and for the foreseeable future. Looking at the 16 day GFS forecast model I am seeing a pretty gradual thaw, with the first really warm (60+) temperatures coming around the end of the month.

Here are some pictures from around Kosir’s Saturday..

Thank you to all of the people that made last week very interesting!

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

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Tuesday April 9th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

We have somewhat of an unpleasant week ahead for weather. We have a big storm to our south that will bring us rain, sleet and snow off and on from now until Friday afternoon. Later in the storm it is expected to become accumulating snow, but with the rain/snow line close and cold air to the north, it could come much sooner.

This is one of about four big storms that could hit us in the next two weeks. The one for late Sunday looks like snow, and not a little of it. Think 4-6 plus.

People like me with long muddy driveways probably aren’t too happy with the wet weather at the same time that the frost is coming out of the ground and making it swampy anyway. It is definitely mud season in Silver Cliff, at least in the areas where the sun has already eaten the snow away.

This year winter held on for a couple of extra weeks. It wasn’t just the big ice layers that kept the snow around, March was colder and snowier that usual. Marinette County actually extended the snowmobile season closing date from the usual March 31 up to yesterday, April 8th. It is unprecedented in my time here, but a friend said that it happened in 1995 too.

That late winter probably will not be good news for ATV riders wanting to get started on the trails. They close all trails from March 31 until the ground firms up, usually the first weekend in May. They have held it back as late as the second weekend in recent years if conditions required it. This year probably will not bring an early start.

While riding snowmobiles around Silver Cliff or the flowages was a non-starter last weekend, they were still riding good trails 20 miles north up by the Goodman and Hwy 8 areas last Saturday. Spring is just starting to find those areas.

Normally we would have started the whitewater rafting season with Kosir’s last weekend, but the late winter put the kibosh on that for us. There were still ice bridges across some of the rapids, and since it was still winter in the watershed, there wasn’t much for melt water coming down the river.

That will change this week with the warmth and rain from the weekend and the big storm this week. The slow water areas of the river right by the bridge at Kosir’s opened up a lot Sunday alone, and the rest is starting to clear out too. The process is just starting, but it is under way, and the river is rising.

In some years in the past decade the melt has come early, and the big spring flows did too. That isn’t the case this year. As I mentioned, they were still snowmobiling on good trails up in the watershed last weekend. All of that snow and ice is still in place, and will make the river roar when it does finally melt.

There are two elements to the river’s flow, the base flow from the spring creeks and swamps, and the fast run off from melt and rain. Both look pretty good right now.

A lot of the melt has been soaking into the ground here in Silver Cliff. That is good in that it will raise the groundwater level, and increase the base flow that is always there. That bodes well for the longer term, bringing expectations of a good spring season in to May and beyond.

As far as the run off, that firecracker is lit, just waiting to go off. There is still knee deep snow layered with ice piled up in the watershed, and there are no less than four big storms in the two week forecast.

As far as the rafting goes, I think that it would be hard to pick a bad weekend to go in the next month. The river is already into the fun zone and rising fast, and it is just starting to see the first melt water. I am expecting a good weekend this weekend and some big water after that. From my chair, a fantastic whitewater rafting season is pretty much a lock.

For now we are playing in the mud. It is pretty common to see cars parked at the end or driveways because the frost out make them too soft to be passable or passable without rutting it up.

I have been seeing a lot of spring critters out already. The chippys are out, squirrels are active, there were skunks and porkys out last week, and I  even saw some sand hill cranes yesterday.

Turkey hunting is getting started, and we are not short on those. I probably saw 30+ along the road on my trip to Lakewood yesterday. I told a friend last week that he’d have better luck turkey hunting if he spread out a big tarp in the woods and painted up up like a road since that is where they all seem to be hanging out. It was funny at the time.

Well as usual the clock is not my friend, so I am off to dive into another full day. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday April 4th, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

We are slowly making the transition from winter to mud season. Winter isn’t quite done with us, but the sun is getting hot, so it is melting down sunny spots. The last 500′ of the driveway is a mud bog, but the shadowed spots still have 4″ of ice.

It will be an ugly frost-out and mud season this year with all of the snow and ice built up. I think that I counted 6 times over  the winter that we had a big rain storm that soaked into the snow and froze. While that is very exciting news for whitewater enthusiasts, it will be a little messy for the rest of you, and it will probably take more than a few weeks to melt off.

Winter has not loosened its grip on the river, so we will not be starting spring rafting on the Peshtigo River with Kosir’s this weekend (4/6). Next weekend looks like a pretty good bet.

The melting cycle has been a very slow one. The days get into the 40s and sunny and the snow gets slushy, then night time temps freeze it all back up.

Very little of it has hit the river yet. Once it does we should have some outstanding whitewater for the last couple of weeks of April and into May. Some has been soaking in, which is fine, that gives us a bigger base flow later in the spring.

We really are in for a good spring on the river. If you have ever been dragging your raft across the rocks, come and see what it is really about. The third and fourth weekend in April should be big.

The river should get started waking up next week. There is a little rain in the forecast and we might get above 50 for a change. The watershed for the Pesh runs past Goodman Park and up almost to Crandon. They had a good winter up there and are still snowmobiling. In an extremely rare move, Marinette Co kept the snowmobile trails open a week past the usual March 31 closure date.

I am going to suggest that with the enormous ice base and the slow spring thaw that we might not see the ATV trails open up the first weekend in May like they usually do. It is just a prediction, but those might open a week or two late depending on conditions.

Winter isn’t quite done with us yet, and we could see another snow storm this weekend. The forecast models have been pretty consistent about it bringing us snow until this morning’s version, which has it switching over to rain mid-day Saturday with a little snow to finish.

After the weekend the two week reach of the model shows an active pattern with a couple of rain storms and some warmer weather. I think that is when we will see thing start getting a little messy with the mud, and really big on the rivers.

We have a couple of events coming up this weekend. This is the poster for the Town of Stephenson VFD fundraiser..

The Hidden Bear ATV Club is having a fun day this Saturday to raise money to sign the Town of Riverview roads to make ATVs and UTVs legal..

HIDDEN BEAR ATV CLUB – FUN DAY

SATURDAY APRIL 6, 2013   1pm – 6pm

Riverview Town Hall, 15408 Highway 32, Mountain, WI

(Just North of the Halfway Bar)

Meat Raffles – 50/50 Raffles – Food – Beverages – Chili – FUN

$2 Cans of Beer

Proceeds from this event to offset the cost of ATV signs that will be needed to open all Riverview Town Roads for ATV/UTV Travel beginning May 1st, 2013

**** Come Enjoy ****

I usually take a little time off from blogging once the snowmobile trails close, but I doubt that I will stay away long this year. April offers some great prospects for the rafting.

For now have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Wednesday March 27th, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

It has been a heck of a winter this year and we are in for some incredible whitewater this spring. That is what this post mostly deals with.

We had a wet fall with a lot of rain after Labor Day, but we started off the winter slowly with little frost in the ground and almost no ice on the lakes in mid-December. We had a couple of good storms that got us onto the snowmobile trails in time for Christmas but there was still very little frost in the ground.

After the holidays the snow melted down, and we had a really cold spell for a couple of weeks. That gave us a good frost in the ground and a lid on the lakes.

The snow came back and was ample, and then a big rain storm hit with an inch plus of rain (more like 2″). That all soaked into the snow and froze like a brick. We got more snow on top of that, and it all happened again. And again. We have a heck of an ice base and a lot of water being held in it between the ice and snow.

We had a wet fall, and had 8″ of rain between September 1 and November 7th when they shut down the USGS gauge for the winter. The ground was pretty soggy going into winter, and the wetlands were pretty well full of water.

There are four elements to the Peshtigo River’s big spring flows. One is the base flow from the little spring creeks that is always there. That flow varies with the groundwater aquifer, and is a long term variation. It takes a while for the water that soaks into the ground to raise the aquifer level and show up in the creeks.

The upstream wetlands are a big part of the Peshtigo’s flow, and the flow from those again varies, depending on rain. Those are like a shock absorber, and are intermediate term base flow producers.

Short term runoff is the snow melt, the rain, and the snow that makes it to the river in a week or less.

The fourth element is the catalyst, the frost in the ground. That makes the snow melt water and rain flow directly to the river instead of soaking into the ground, collecting in wetlands, or being absorbed by trees and plants. That frost in the ground is what makes the river get really big in spring.

The way that I see it the coming spring rafting season is pretty close to ideal on all four elements. The wet fall both charged the aquifer for the spring creeks and filled the wetlands. The base flow of the Pesh hasn’t gone under zero since mid-October with two exceptions, and those were probably when it was freezing up.

We should have a good base flow to start with, and as I mentioned that is a long term element. Even if we had no snow melt, no rain, and no frost in the ground we would probably see above zero to +6″ water into May just from base flow.

We have an ample snow pack with a good amount of ice layered into it. I see that as plentiful runoff. After a couple of warm days or some rain water from it will probably hit the river fast running off across an icy base. The ice will also slow the thawing of the ground, so we will probably have the frozen ground fast runoff catalyst for a while too.

The only way that it could get better is if it rains a lot this spring. We have had a decent amount of precip over the winter, there is no reason for it to stop now.

Winter has been lingering long this year. It is March 27th and I could go ride the snowmobile on decent trails this afternoon. That is very unusual. At that point we haven’t lost any of our snow melt yet to early thawing. The two week forecast is for more of the same.

Right now my best guess is that we will have very good water levels from when the river opens up right into May, and a good chance of some really outstanding weekends.

I just saw on TV last night that they came out with the early summer long term forecast. It was for wetter than normal and warmer than normal. That sounds good to me.

Anyway, I have been watching the Peshtigo River for a really long time. This spring will be a great one for whitewater even in a worst case scenario.

Right now the biggest question in my mind is how soon the river will open up. There isn’t a lot of warm weather on tap over the next week or two. There are a couple of storms that could get it moving in the longer term, but it looks like a slow start right now.

Well that is my pre-season whitewater update. I will be back in a week or two once I wrap things up on the snowmobiling page.

RJB