As my raft plowed into a frothy reversal on the Wild Horse Rapid in the Upper Klamath River’s Kikaceki Canyon, it shipped sideways, shuddered and then charged on through a series of churning, boat-eating holes.
Up until two years ago, that wild ride through the Class IV Wild Horse cascade wouldn’t have been possible.
That’s because this nearly three-mile section of the Upper Klamath had been dewatered, literally dried up, by a penstock diversion for the Copco No. 2 dam and its powerhouse built 100 years ago.
But in 2024, four aging hydroelectric dams (including Copco 2) on the California-Oregon border were demolished in the largest dam-removal project in the U.S.
Since then, water has been tumbling over rocks and boulders again, making the canyon a prime attraction for whitewater enthusiasts.
Bordered by dramatic, 300-foot columnar basalt cliffs, it offers advanced rafters and kayakers intense rapids.
Moreover, salmon — sacred to the Shasta people and other tribes (including the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Klamath) who lived along the Klamath for millennia — have returned.
Meanwhile, thousands of acres of bottomland drowned by reservoirs for decades are being restored and returned to the Shasta Indian Nation.
The removals have opened access to more than 400 miles for salmon and steelhead trout, helped restore tribal sovereignty and improved the health and water quality of the river.
The dam removal allows for lost traditions like dancing the salmon home to return to the upper river while also spawning new adventures for the outdoorsy set.
When I floated the Upper Klamath with Momentum River Expeditions earlier this summer, I not only encountered Class IV rapids with names like Caldera, Ambush and Dragon’s Tooth in a deep canyon, but also gentle, soul-soothing sections of slowly moving water where merganser ducks swam with their chicks.
Otters poked around eddies dotted with yellow-flowered water lilies, possibly looking for a salmon meal. And speckling the riverbanks, we saw scarlet poppies, sticky purple geraniums and yellow lupines. Soaring overhead were bald eagles, another species that thrives on salmon.
Even better, I got to share this trip with a decades-old friend, Mark Lorenzen, with whom I’d kayaked whitewater streams up and down the West Coast, Central America, Chile and Ecuador. These days, though, we live 1,500 miles apart. He’s in San Francisco and I live in Madison, Wisconsin, so reunions on the water are rare.
The first evening, we pulled into our safari camp under towering Ponderosa pines — with their distinctive, puzzle-like bark — sharing stories over garlic- and thyme-marinated shrimp prepared by the guides.
We were later served nightcaps from the wooden “UK (Upper Klamath) Bar” before heading off to our walk-in tents with decks that were spaced out along a path lit by solar-powered lamps in a scene best described as riparian magic.
According to the American Rivers environmental group, dismantling the dams was a decades-long effort instigated by Indigenous grassroots advocates and supported by conservation groups, whitewater enthusiasts, federal agencies and the states of California and Oregon.
“The lands those reservoirs flooded were our home, so our journey and that of the salmon are very much intertwined,” said Sami Jo Difuntorum, cultural preservation officer for the Shasta tribe.
“Like the salmon, which we celebrate in ceremonies calling them home, the Shasta people were displaced when the dams were built. They were kind of the nail in the coffin.”
In the 19th century, she said many Shasta were pushed out or killed by gold miners and the U.S. military.
“But our ancestors struggled to stay there and we fought to return. That flowing water and those lands carry their memories. They have a profound cultural meaning to us.”
Difuntorum said she is pleased by how the river and surrounding landscape have recovered in the past two years.
“I think it’s going quite well,” she said. “It’s really exciting, especially in the springtime, to see all of the new growth.”
She said Resource Environmental Solutions (RES), working with the Yurok tribe, is leading the revegetation efforts. They are re-establishing some of the 200 traditional plants that the Shasta harvested for food, basketry, medicine and ceremonies. That includes wild pumpkin, which is placed in fish traps to help lure in and capture salmon.
“It’s all a work in process because you don’t just take out the dams and everything is fine again,” she said. “There is more to be done, including on the Klamath’s tributaries.”
Dave Meurer, community affairs director for RES, agreed with Difuntorum. He said salmon returned to the reopened river and its tributaries much sooner than anticipated.
“We got in there fast and were re-seeding the reservoir footprints as the water receded, planting in muck, planting in 98 percent dead algae that had been accumulating for decades,” he said.
The reservoir lands were located behind the Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2 and J.C. Boyle dams.
Meurer said the “plant response has been fantastic, with fields of poppies and 100 other species growing there the first year, including shrubs and bare-root trees.”
But even more remarkable was the return of salmon to “high-priority” tributaries with names like Camp, Scotch, Beaver and Jenny Creek that are being restored, he said.
“Those streams were buried under warm slack-water and algae-filled toxic reservoirs,” he said. “We were trying to do in a short time what nature would have taken decades.”
RES brought in about a thousand root wads from large dead trees to create instant habitat, and the salmon came back the first year, he said.
“The root wads slow the water down, spread it out, give places for fish to find cover and nooks for insects to reproduce and provide a food source,” he said.
Meurer said one NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) biologist he spoke with predicted the salmon return might take a dozen years.
“He was stunned by how remarkably fast it happened,” Meurer said.
Pete Wallstrom, who started the Momentum rafting company more than 20 years ago on the Rogue River and the Hells Corner stretch of the Upper Klamath, said his outfit supported the effort to remove the dams.
Momentum also worked with the American Whitewater environmental group, public agencies and tribes to develop public access points on the river after the dams were removed.
“It’s been crazy — especially after years of uncertainty — to watch salmon swimming upstream soon after the dams’ removal and see how quickly the river is healing itself,” he said.
Difuntorum said she supports recreation on the river “as long as people aren’t jumping out of their rafts” in places that are sacred or could be burial sites.
“That’s something they shouldn’t do,” she said.
Wallstrom said he respects that wish.
“Momentum’s overall mission is to protect our wild places by emotionally connecting our guests to the wild areas that we love and call home,” he said.
“And to show and connect them in a way that they understand, appreciate, enjoy, and feel comfortable with.”
Part of that effort means getting more people — including those who might be “roughing it” averse — on the river by making camping more comfortable at its glamping-style overnight Safari Camp, he said.
“I believe that rivers and public lands are best protected when a wide range of people know and love them — a mix of more ‘outdoorsy’ people and those who are not as lucky and only get to spend (a few) nights under the stars.”
“That includes folks who might have never really thought about camping — or that camping is so far away from their life experience that they have a hard time considering it (and there are a lot of people like that now).”
As for the rest of my two-day ride down the UK, as guides affectionately call the Upper Klamath?
It was a delight. Despite getting bounced around in a bunch more Class III and IV rapids, I managed to stay in my raft.
(Except for Wild Horse, where raft guide Alyssa Winkelmann plowed into the reversal slightly off center and I ended up getting bucked into the drink and swimming.)
“Maybe I’d hit it more straight on next time,” chuckled Winkelmann, who said she, too, has been elated to watch the river and surrounding landscape recover.
“It’s a wonderful thing to see evolve,” added Winkelmann, who grew up in the town of Shasta and has been a raft guide for more than a decade.
For more information on rafting the Upper Klamath, contact Momentum, Noah’s Rafting Adventures and Indigo Creek Outfitters. The cost for one- and two-day trips on the Upper Klamath ranges from $200 to $850.
