Hi Shawn,

Glad to see you're all right and the gear left outside wasn't washed
away. Those bare rounded rocks you parked on are probably part of the
river bed, or at least they used to be.

It's a very good idea to be careful parking in a flood plain when
there's rain forecast. Some rivers can rise in a hurry and they can
often bring large items with them that can block a road or damage
your vehicle or gear. There's a shallow stream near here (NE Toronto,
within city limits) that will often rise more than 6-8" after a heavy
rain, and I've seen it rise more than two feet after the sustained
rains of spring and fall. The stream will be down to a trickle for
weeks at a time but when it rains it rises and falls quite abruptly.
There's a bridge with a sandbar under it that I use as  a gauge for
judging whether to try canoeing the river... if the sandbar is
visible then there's not enough water in the river to make the trip
worthwhile.  When the banks are full it's a really wild ride.

Happy trails,

Greg Potts
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

1973/74/79 Westfakia Conversion **Bob the Tomato**  LY3H
1977 Sunroof Automatic L63H/L90D
1988 Vanagon GL 8-passenger Automatic
http://www.pottsfamily.ca/westfakia
http://www.busesofthecorn.com

On 22-May-05, at 7:32 PM, Shawn Wright wrote:

> Here's a few pics showing what happens when you camp too close to a
> river when heavy rains are forecast ;-)
>
> http://members.shaw.ca/wright_family/May2005/
>
> (the river was about 30 feet away last night...)
>
> Shawn Wright
> http://zuiko.sls.bc.ca/~swright
> '85 Jetta D
> '88 Westy 2.1L, soon to be 1.6TD 5 speed
> (see progress at http://members.shaw.ca/vwdiesels)
> '82 Diesel Westy
>