White Salmon River sand bar

wakeup · Since 11 Sep 2005 328 Posts always Obsessed

one more.

apctjb · Since 19 Aug 2007 438 Posts Obsessed

Great photo! If only we had that much beach today...

Looks like once upon a time there was a white salmon sand bar...

moondog · Mon May 23, 11 9:35 pm

The first photo actually shows a sandbar on each side of the mouth of the white salmon, that is very cool! I will take a depth finder out there next month and see how deep the water is. Last time I checked I remember something in the 30-60 foot range, which decreases our chances greatly. In Minnesota we had a ice out contest every spring. This year let's have " will there be a sandbar" contest this fall!

Dern · Since 11 Jul 2010 545 Posts Vancouver, WA Addicted

The coffee stains on those old pics add a nice touch. Pretty cool photos.

pdxmonkeyboy · Tue May 24, 11 2:49 am

Those are cool photos for sure. There used to be huge expansive sand bars all up and down the river. Think beacon rock.. That was when the Columbia was still a river though, not a series of pools. Dams mess a whole lot up but one of the biggest impacts is the disruption of sediment transport.

When the day draws near and they are actually going to blow condit (I heard they still have an out if they choose) I think it would be fun to have a how big is the sandbar and how long will it last. I say two weeks tops. The swell will eat it pretty quickly as the columbia is surely sediment starved and as others have said, the deepest part of the channel runs right in front of it.

Stagecoach · Since 07 May 2009 88 Posts

Really cool picture, but post-Bonneville dam... its a different world. And one defined by millions of dollars invested by the corp. But, it can be amazing what a little nudge could do to get the corp of engineers interested in a public access project. If you had a contact person with the corp it would be certainly be worthwhile suggesting the community benefits of constructing a jetty to manage this once-in-a-lifetime event. Unfortunately there have already been three years of legal battles over Condit to get to this point so the ball is rolling. But it could benefit fishermen, kiters, beachers, etc. There is unarguably limited access on the Washington side. It seems unlikely but you never know...