October 12th
1 - 3pm
I went for a bike ride along the river and then locked my
bike up close to where the path stopped. I decided to walk up along the side of
the river where it said the trail was closed. The banks became higher and you
could see where the run off in the spring eroded the trail and the banks of the
river. Trees hung leaning over the river and roots sprung out of the bank. On
the large banks on the side you could see how high the water level had reached.
As I walked back towards my bike I ran into a local lady who explained to me
that the whole river would flow over the trail in the spring when the snow was
melting above in the mountains. The whole area that I usually ran would be
submerged in water. The path was no more then a couple feet above the river. I
knew that the river ran towards downtown so I wondered if it ever affected any
homes closer to the downtown when the river flooded. As I biked towards
downtown the trail was much higher then the river. I was no longer two or three
feet above the river. I was twenty to thirty feet up and away from the river.
The banks looked man made like they had channelized the river to stop flooding.
As I kept biking I saw the marks on the bank from the high water level and
realized they had made the bank significantly larger to protect the homes that
were close to the river. The river changed from a small narrow natural river to
a much wider man made river, as it got closer to the city. The banks and river bottom looked like
they were designed to help during the spring when the river levels are much
higher.
In this picture you can see the roots of trees and plants growing out of the bank because the bank has been eroded by the water.
In this photo it shows the tall banks that are closer to downtown Kelowna to prevent the river from flooding in the spring.
On the clay walls you can see how high the water level reached the past year. The darker clay shows us how high the water reached the year before.
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