This is part of a series of stories by Eco Adventurer Meade Fischer, author of Cosmic Coastal Chronicles, about Kayaking around the California Central Coast. Links in this series: Kayaking Central Coast - and - Looking For Whales - and - Still Life With Birds - Kayaking Elkhorn Slough - Kayak Monterey Bay - - Kayak Big Sur
Up an Ancient River
By Meade Fischer
On impulse I pushed my kayak into the Salinas River just above Highway 1. I'd once put in there and headed down to the beach, and I remembered the huge colony of pelicans on the sand bar by the river' s mouth. However, this time I decided to head up the river.
"River's mouth" is not, in this case, the most accurate term. Apparently, once the river meandered down to Moss Landing and exited to the ocean at the mouth of Elkhorn Slough. There is some geological cause and effect connection between this river and the massive underwater canyon that spreads out from Moss Landing.
The Salinas River must have been a sight to behold before humans tamed it. Even now, after major rains, the river floods and shows a sample of the power it once had. These days little of the historical flow reaches the sea. We have too many straws along its course. The Salinas nourishes our thirsty cities and farms.

Now, during summer, one can paddle three or four miles up river before running aground on a sand bar. In those few miles I found myself transported back at least a century, to a time when wildlife was still thick and not a rare visual treat. With farms starting just beyond the narrow riparian corridor, bear, deer and mountain lions no longer come down to the river to drink. However, the Salinas is still a mass of birds.

A trip up the Salinas would certainly thrill a bird watcher. Unfortunately, I'm not a bird expert and could only identify a few of the many species I encountered in my two hour trip.

Gulls and pelicans abound in the area, as do the stately white egrets, which were almost as thick as the gulls. What struck me was the astonishing number of great blue herons. On most paddles, you might see two or three scattered along the way, but in my short paddle up the Salinas, I saw dozens of them. Black-necked stilts along the Salinas River.

I saw many diving birds that appeared to be loons and cormorants, and there were those small gray members of the duck family that insisted on trying to get away from me by flapping ahead in the same direction I was going, dooming themselves to a self-inflicted four mile chase.

In the sections where the riparian vegetation had not been removed, the farms were out of sight, and seeing the water and the trees thick with avian life gave me the momentary sensation that this was still a wild and free river. Somehow, although pressed on both sides with modern agriculture, this narrow band of blue and green has preserved a taste of what California's rivers once were. And, for a moment, I imagined myself in the nineteenth century, paddling a birch bark canoe up these waters, and I sensed how incredible it once was.

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