Yuba, Middle Fork, California, US

C) Our House Dam to Route 49 (Our House)

Gauge Information

River Description

American Whitewater is partnering with Nevada Irrigation District (NID) and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to identify a preferred range of whitewater boating flows on numerous reaches in the Yuba and Bear watersheds. Information obtained from surveys completed by boaters will help us identify flow preferences for whitewater boating. Flow preferences determined from boater surveys will be used to evaluate possible effects on whitewater boating from Project operation and help define flow needs.

Boater input is very important to this process. Please help us, yourself, and your friends by filling out a survey if you paddle any part of this reach. The survey is located at:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB227LJ27QED4

Other Information sources:
AWetstate.com

A GUIDE TO THE BEST WHITEWATER IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, HOLBEK & STANLEY, 1988

Cornbread wrote on Boof.com: "... about 3 years (2006) ago we did the run at 3500 cfs along with some rafts from Trib and most of our group was in playboats. It actually was a great level and everything was run (even the last one). That year we were consistently running it in the 2000-2500 range and also thought you could go a decent big higher than our trip at 3500."

Albert also commented: "We ran Ourhouse, oh, something like in the late 70s. We were on our ways from the Bay Area to the North Yuba when we crossed the MF Bridge and we slammed on our brakes, surprised to see water in a riverbed where we had never seen anything boatable before. The flow was around 3000 cfs.

We had absolutely no idea about the difficulty or anything so ... we phoned John Googins at his home and he assured us that it was a class III section. From the top of the dam at the put in that looked about right...

Needless to say, we were somewhat wide eyed at the "Class III" nature of the MF at 3K. I clearly remember going into the last big rapid (Class V) without scouting, in my 4 meter fiberglass Lettmen Mark V (a World Championship winning slalom race design), going over one of the ledges and into a big hole, my whole boat went under and was held under for what seemed as way too long while making a 180 degree "eddy-turn" all the while my boat was still completely buried by the big hole. That was the last straw for river running in that particularly shaped Mark V, after that rapid I had enough of its low volume ... it was instantly retired.

So, yeah, the MF had been run previous to the last 3 years.

Albert"