Picture of the week

Cosumnes River Sunset

An aerial view of the Cosumnes River winding through the oak studded grasslands east of Rancho Murieta.   Captured near sunset late in the season as water levels have dropped off to their minimums.  The Cosumnes River is technically claimed to be one of the few undammed rivers of this size in California, but also one of the more difficult for access due to the amount of private land that tends to surround it. 

The claims of its wildness due to being "undammed" is somewhat meaningless for a couple of reasons: 1) Just a couple of miles down stream a 20' weir does exist to divert some of this water to a small reservoir for the golfing community of Rancho Murieta. 2) Due to the overall number of diversions along this river (including many down on the valley floor), by the time it reaches its confluence with the Mokolumne River at Cosumnes River Preserve, it temporarily dissipates into a riparian marshland.  For these reasons it is not navigable by any boat for its length at the lower half, while the three forks of the upper half tends to be quite rugged and hazardous with very few public access points.