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It’s early December 2020, our Fall salmon season has wrapped up, it was good while it lasted. With not much to do, we decide to go explore the Elaho River, a main tributary of the Squamish River system.
The Elaho River is about 70 kilometres in length, building steam as it meets with the upper Squamish River, parallel with the town of Whistler. The Elaho isn’t a system we spend a lot of time on. It’s a fairly good drive from Squamish and although home to a population of resident rainbow and bull trout, there’s not a ton of other fishing opportunities. |
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It had been a number of years since we were quite high up into the valley, so we fuelled up the truck and went for a drive. We wanted to see some of the river enhancement work done in 2017 and check out the expanse of the Elaho forest fire that occurred in 2015. Here’s our guide Vlog from the day…
ELAHO RIVER ROCK BLASTING
In the 1960’s as logging activities expanded throughout the Squamish River valley, so did the need for access. The Elaho Valley was rich with timber and getting to it was of high priority. But accessing the upper Elaho River valley, were wide expanses of Douglas Fir and Western Cedar were plentiful, wasn’t so easy. They needed to carve a logging road through the steep Elaho canyon. As the road was pushed through, huge sections of rock was blasted, finding its way to the valley floor. In some places these rocks created impediments to migrating fish. Salmon, returning to spawn, could simply not pass these new obstructions.
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