Today was the first ever, Auburn River Festival, and my wife and I decided to take the stroll down to the river to check it out. Work was performed on the Cool side of the river to allow vehicle access for this event, however, we decided to walk down from the Auburn side.

I know nothing about river kayaking, other than to recognize that it's an interesting sport that's practiced by some equally interesting characters. And there were an abundance of those folk at the river today.

When we arrived there was a race concluding that had started up-stream at the middle fork confluence. After a while that race concluded and the "rodeo" began. I don't know exactly what the object of what these folks were doing in the river, but it looked like a challenge whatever they call it.

We took a picnic lunch and accidentally met some people we know, so there was some good visiting that also took place, and then we started to walk up and out of the canyon.

We hadn't traveled more than a quarter mile when we met a State Park Ranger in a white truck as she was driving down the hill toward our location. She was there to inform us that we needed to leave the area. Now, I've been down to the river on that road more than a few times and I've never noticed any signs forbidding passage to the river via that road. But today it was explained to us that we had no business in that area. OK, so we were just leaving anyway.

The people participating in these river events today were doing a great job of showing us why kayaking in the river rapids is exciting.

They're going at it again tomorrow and we might just drive up to Cool and take the newly graded road down to the river to watch some more of this event.

Kudos to the organizers.