To reach the Navarro, take Highway 128 a beautiful mountain road twisting through the redwoods between Cloverdale and the Pacific, passing state parks like Hendy Woods and Dimmick. CalTrans closed the road in mid-January 2003 because the Navarro River was washing out campsites and they feared that it would flood the road, but the level was down to a nice 800 cfs by Sunday Jan. 19. It took about two hours to paddle the eight miles from Dimmick State Park to the bridge at Route 1 (the drift-boat takeout).

It was so different from last summer when we made the same run, sloshing in the warm water through the weed seives that the birds like so much. The photo shows the grasses and brush on the lush riverbank along with the bow of our tandem canoe. The gauge in the river showed the water level to be 3.10.

The January high water scoured the weeds away, the the pea-soup green water was free flowing and cold, registering 6.74 on the gauge. "Three feet of water makes a big difference," said Howard Schultz, the stern paddler in our canoe. There were several herons, mergansers and unusual ducks, but the big thrill was seeing river otters in two different places. Their chittering calls make them easy to find, slithering like water-weasels in the side brush.

The winter sun only lights the river for a few hours around noontime, quickly disappearing behind the high trees and coastal ridge, and the cold wind from the ocean makes you feel the waves, turning the green water to lentil-brown as it gets colder.