Salmon Stalking on the Columbia

This weekend I took advantage of a family reunion on Mt Hood to get a sneak peek at the sockeye headed up the Columbia. With the hound tagging along I couldn't take advantage of the full opportunity to be an energy nerd at the Bonneville Dam complex (1,240 MW!) but we did get to see an impressive amount of fish pushing up the ladders.

Tough to see but there looked to be at least a hundred fish in each pool (3 fish ladders, 60+ pools per ladder)

Around the time we were visiting, the fish counters (terrible job btw) were reporting an average of 50,000 shad, 20,000 sockeye, and 3,000 chinook per day. In a couple weeks I will get to try for some of those same sockeye after they swim another 400 miles to the town of Brewster.

By far the most interesting climber turned out to be the lamprey. Not sure how they manage it while looking so hideous but hundreds were coming through.

The drive back home through the I-5 traffic coupled with the knowledge that it will just be getting worse in the future was depressing but then I spared a thought for the salmon and their drastically changed commute: