Did you know that the Coloma Shuttle offers shuttles on Slab Creek?
Cost is $15.00 per person. We shuttle you in the morning from the Rock Creek Power House take out up to the put in. This shuttle includes your gear too. NO need to run an afternoon shuttle back up for your cars. Book your seats for this shuttle online at https://colomashuttle.com/ice-house-slab-creek/ scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Blue make reservations button. Offering shuttles 4/28-29 & 5/5-6/2018. Hope to see you on the shuttle soon.
First off thanks to Air Quality Management District for another wonderful 2-year grant to fund the shuttle program for 2018 & 2019. And thanks for all the calls & emails of folks wanting to utilize the shuttle service this winter.
Good News we will start operations this Saturday 4/14/18.
Please remember that we need 4 or more riders per shuttle to put the shuttle on the road. Don’t have 4 riders call me and let’s see what options are available for you.
Cost is still at the amazing low price of $10.00 per person and that includes your boating gear. No need to drive your car back and forth to put in & take. Stop wasting gas, jump on the shuttle and make new friends.
If you don’t see the shuttle you are interested in give me a call or shoot me an email. Most likely you won’t see it online till someone shows interest in it and ask me to turned the run on. (Nothing new here)
You can see what is currently turned on at www.colomashuttle.com/weekly-update
Check out our schedule at www.colomashuttle.com/schedule to see our spring offerings.
Or book your seats at www.colomashuttle.com/reservations
We have some exciting news about our little website. Coming soon you will be able to:
1- Create an account for faster bookings – those of you who book often will love this feature
2- Book more than 1 day in the same transaction, imagine that one payment for all your weekend shuttle needs.
3- Be able to book a full river at the cost of 15.00 per person cost from the start you will select your upper & lower portion and the system will know to only charge you $15.00 no more “Did Liz issue my 5.00 credit” question.
And some other features too, but those are the long wished for biggies. Thank you for your patience while we perform these little website facelifts. We hope to have these new options up and running shortly. Heck you might even get to be one of our test subjects.
Somethings to remember we offer discounts to groups of 12 or more. Don’t forget to ask the driver for your cafe punch card. For every 10 rides you book you get 1 free ride during the 2018 season. (discounted shuttle do not qualify for punches – sorry you already got your discount)
And always I am here to help you out, to make your day on the water go as smoothly as possible on your shuttle needs. Have questions? Call or shoot me an email.
Thanks
Liz & the Crew
Hypothermia
Don’t be afraid to speak up and take action.
With the early spring like conditions and increase of boaters and swimmers on the river this year, we thought it would be a good idea to remind everyone to be on the lookout for those that may be in distress due to the cold water and air temperatures, this may even include yourselves at some point.
This type of distress is called Hypothermia and can have very negative consequences if not treated rapidly.
The human body needs to maintain a regular temperature of 98.6 degrees F in order for all of its organs to function at their optimal performance.
If the body temperature drops below 98.6 degrees, the body will attempt to warm itself and this is known as the early stages of Hypothermia.
Early stages of Hypothermia are indicated when the person begins to jump up and down, shaking their arms and hands about or blowing warm air on their hands (trying to keep warm) and when they begin to shiver. If these warming attempts are not successful the body can rapidly advance to the next stages of hypothermia which are generally indicated by cold, pale or blue skin and mental disorientation (confusion or erratic behavior).
There are also advanced signs to Hypothermia but we do not want to bore you with too much medical talk. If you are interested in more information there are some very informative web pages or you can contact your local fire department, they would love to educate you and know that there are people out there willing to help. And for those that want to take these lifesaving safety tips even further I recommend taking a Swift Water Rescue course and Wilderness First Aid/ CPR.
If you witness anyone (especially young children, the elderly or those that have been partaking in cocktails while enjoying the river) in the early stages of hypothermia, don’t be afraid to send them a friendly reminder of the importance of staying warm (they may ignore you, but you did the right thing). If you witness anyone in the later stages of Hypothermia call 911 immediately or send someone to call, remove them from the water, and remove wet clothing and attempt to warm them in direct sunlight, with towels or blankets (no rubbing or shaking). Do not give them anything to drink and do not try to make them walk around, be very careful with the force in which you handle them as they are at risk for cardiac complications at this stage of hypothermia.
The colder the water, the faster the body cools…
Let’s all continue to do our part to, help others and keep our waterways safe and fun for everyone.
The Coloma Shuttle Crew
We are happy to say that we just got news that our grant was approved for another 2 years through El Dorado County Air Quality Management District. With this grant we are able to keep our shuttle rides down to $10.00 per person daily membership. Keeping our fingers crossed we are hoping to be back in service for Opening Day on the South Fork, Saturday April 7th. Thanks everyone for your continued support of the shuttle program. We appreciate your business.
Here it is October 2017 the shuttle is still up and running on days we have a flow release. You can see that information at Chili Bar Release.
During the Fall, Winter & Spring months we do have a minimum number of riders needed to put the shuttle on the road and that number is 4. So if you are looking to go boating book your seats on our shuttle at Shuttle Rerservations.
Our goal at this point is to provide shuttle thru Thanksgiving weekend. But we need you to make that happen.
Thanks everyone for keeping us going, for helping to reduce the CO2 in our little valley and for all your support for the last 5 years.
The Coloma Shuttle Crew.
This year’s gear swap is being held at Camp Lotus on Saturday, September 30th from 9am to 4pm.
Come check it out you never know what you might find there that you just cannot live without.
Drop off your no longer needed gear on Friday the 29th between 6pm & 9pm or early on Saturday morning from 7am to 9am.
If you are selling your gear the fee is 10% of the sale price will be donated to a non-profit of your choice. There are several to choose from. Just ask the folks at the gear swap and they will make it happen for you.
Thank you to all the dedicated folks who put on the gear swap each year – you know who you are and we appreciate all of your hard work on this event. And thanks to Camp Lotus for the great venue.
We have had one banger of a year here on the South Fork American. The river flowed all summer – 7 days a week. You could boat any day of the week and know that you would have water. Things are changing come September 5th, 2017.
You can find the current flow release schedule at Chili Bar Schedule
Our shuttle service will also be changing starting Tuesday, Sept 5th. We will not be offering shuttles on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday during the month of September.
Folks are asking us how long do we plan on running?
We will run through the month of September on the weekends without minimum # required. Mid-week we will still need to have 4 or more riders to put the shuttle on the road.
And in October?
We will at least offer shuttles on the weekends. However we will be back to our winter schedule where we must meet the minimum 4 riders per shuttle to put it on the road.
We here at the shuttle thank all of you our riders for keeping us going this year. We really do appreciate your business and look forward to driving you, your gear & friends in the future.
Have you lost some boating gear on the SFA this year or found someone else gear? A good source to find the rightful owner is The River Store in Lotus CA (530)626-3435. You can also shoot me an email and I will post it on our local google group. Make sure to include a detailed description, name, email & phone number.
For some fun information about the Devil’s Kettle in MN read the story below.
The Coloma Shuttle Crew thanks you for your business and your commitment to help reduce the CO2 footprint in our little valley. Have a great week.
.·´¯`·.. <º))))><`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·… ¸<º))))><¸.·´¯`·.¸., . .·´¯`·..¸¸.·´><((((º>¸¸.·´¯`·. .¸¸.·´><((((º>.·´¯`·.. <º))))><`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·… ¸<º))))><¸.·´¯`·.¸., . .·´¯`·..¸¸.·´><((((º>¸¸.·´¯`·. .¸¸.·´><((((º>
In Judge C. R. Magney State Park in Minnesota, there exists a natural phenomenon along the Brule River known as the Devil’s Kettle- a waterfall that splits in two, with one half falling about 50 feet into the river below and continuing on its merry way towards Lake Superior and the other half falling into a large hole in the ground that seems to go nowhere. In fact, local legend posits that anything thrown into the Devil’s Kettle will never be seen again. People trying to disprove this have thrown everything from boxes of ping pong balls to giant logs into the hole to see where they end up, with nothing ever seeming to emerge anywhere nearby. So, where is the stuff thrown in going?
For many years, the most popular hypotheses put forward were that the water falling into the hole either flowed into a hidden underground limestone cave carved into the rock by eons of flowing water or it flowed into a lava tube.
If you’re unfamiliar, a lava tube is pretty much what it sounds like- a large tube formed by flowing lava as it cools. In a nutshell, as the top layer cools and hardens, lava underneath potentially continues to flow for some time until the source of the lava stops. This can lead to that inner layer of lava draining and leaving behind a large empty tube in a lava rock shell.
Thus, the hypothesis is that the falling water cut through the surface rock at some point and fell into an ancient lava tube formed at the same time as the rest of the volcanic rocks in the area.
This sounds perfectly plausible, but the issue is that while rhyolite, which forms the bedrock on top of which the river system is located, is a volcanic rock, it doesn’t form lava tubes. And as for the basalt layer underneath, while this can form lava tubes, this particular type is flood basalt, which comes up from fissures, rather than flowing down from a volcano. Thus, flood basalt is incredibly unlikely to create lava tubes (more typically just creating large seepage sheets of rock) and no such lava tubes have ever been discovered in the area, despite many known lava beds in the region.
As for the other popular hypothesis, this is that there perhaps is a large underground limestone cave or river system the water drains into. However, the nearest limestone deposits to the park are hundreds of miles away and rhyolite is much too hard of a rock for such a cave system to likely have formed in it.
Despite these two-hypothesis thought to be unlikely by most, they were long the best guesses simply because nothing anyone ever threw into the hole ever came back out. So, it must be going underground somewhere… And as the saying goes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
On that note, over the years scientists and common-folk alike have conducted dozens of experiments to determine where the water was going. These experiments have ranged in sophistication and scope, but mostly boil down to the age old “chucking an object into the hole and trying to find it later”. One of the more famous such experiments involved pouring hundreds of ping pong balls into the hole onto which a phone number was etched with a message that anyone who found one and called in would be given a reward. Not a single ball was found by the experimenters and nobody ever called in to say they’d stumbled across one.
Similar experiments that likewise ended in failure have involved throwing in everything from dye packs to GPS trackers. One person even dragged a bunch of large logs to the top of waterfall and threw them in; a few days later a couple were observed floating around inside the Devil’s Kettle and the rest had, seemingly, disappeared.
This isn’t even mentioning the countless random objects thrown into the hole by tourists. (For the record, people are asked not to do this, but it doesn’t really stop them.) Along with the items you’d expect, like loose change and twigs, there are local legends suggesting that people have thrown televisions, refrigerators and even a car into the hole. However, given the general inaccessibility of the area, these more fantastical stories are mostly thought to be apocryphal.
On that note, contrary to rumors floating around on the internet, we couldn’t find a single known example of someone either falling into the Devil’s Kettle or of somebody dumping a dead body into it.
So what exactly is going on here? It turns out a whole lot of nothing. Early in 2017 the mystery of the Devil’s Kettle was finally solved when a hydrologist working for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Jeff Green, and retired Minnesotan professor Calvin Alexander deciding to do something that had apparently never occurred to anyone prior despite it being a ridiculously obvious thing to do in investigating the phenomenon- they measured the volume of water flowing in the river immediately above and below the waterfall.
What was the result? They found that at the top of the waterfall the river flowed at a volume of 123 cubic feet per second, while at the bottom it flowed at 121 cubic feet per second…. While this isn’t technically the same, Mr. Green notes “In the world of stream gauging, those two numbers are essentially the same and are within the tolerances of the equipment.”
And for those who would prefer the numbers line up perfectly, we can at least definitively say from Green and Alexander’s measurements that nowhere close to half the water can possibly be disappearing into a big hole to nowhere. All evidence would seem to indicate it’s simply disappearing into a hole briefly before coming out the other side to rejoin the other water.
This might all have you wondering then where all the stuff thrown into the hole went. Well, Alexander’s hypothesis is that
The plunge pool below the Kettle is an unbelievably powerful system of recirculating currents, capable of disintegrating material and holding it under water until it resurfaces at some point downstream.
In other words, stuff thrown into the Devil’s Kettle doesn’t get dragged to a mysterious underground cave or lava tube- it just gets obliterated by thousands of tons of falling water smashing it against rock, or otherwise doesn’t resurface until well down stream, effectively making it seem to disappear.
In order to silence the remaining doubters, when the flow decreases this coming fall, Green and Alexander plan to dump a whole lot of dye into the river above the waterfall. Unlike previous attempts at this, they plan to use a dye that is visible at 10 parts per billion. Combined with the decreased flow, this should be readily visible on the other side.
Check out these photos from this weekends rains. If you are heading out to boat please be careful and boat with friends.
Slab Creek over the dam
Good Evening Everyone-
My goal of 4000 riders (currently 3700) is a long shot and I know that. But one can hope can’t they? Anyway below is some very important shuttle info so keep reading.
1-The shuttle will run each weekend in November as long as we meet our minimum number of 4 paid riders. So far that has not been an issue even on the rainy days.
2-November 27th will be our last shuttle for 2016. If you have a punch card with a free ride for this season remember it expires at the end of this year.
3-I am hoping to resume shuttles in February or March depending on weather and of course the request for rides.
4-Click here to see our current shuttle offerings https://colomashuttle.com/weekly-update/
5-Head on over to our reservation page to book your seats at https://colomashuttle.com/reservations/
Once again thanks for your continued support of the shuttle program and we hope to see you soon.
