The River Radius Podcast

The last time Lake Powell was full was in 1986; today it sits at 1/3 of its capacity and it is expected to end 2021 lower than it is today.  As this reservoir drops, it exposes more and more of the sediment dumps that have been hiding below the water.  As the Colorado River hits the dead current of Lake Powell, it drops its sediment load.  That sediment is clogging the river way and is critical to...

Source to Sea trips are the journey from a river's headwaters to where that river meets the salt water.  In 2021, The River Radius will host on river, real time interviews with various source to sea trips.  The first is the Sac Source to Sea, a journey launching on March 14 2021 down the Sacramento River.  The Sac, as this river is called, feeds a huge agricultural community in the Sacramento Vall...

When the free running Colorado River smashes into the still water of Lake Powell, it drops its massive sediment load into Cataract Canyon and the reservoir.  This has been happening since the late 1970s when Powell was approaching full pool.  And for the last 20 years, Powell has been slowly and steadily decreasing its volume because there is not enough annual inflows from the Green, Gunnison and...

This trailer for The River Radius Podcast provides a peek into a few episodes and a has a short description from the host describing what this podcast provides the listener. THE RIVER RADIUS Website Runoff signup (episode newsletter) Instagram Facebook Apple Podcast Spotify Link Tree

Do you rally up your river friends each January and coordinate your river permit dates?  Do you get permits?  Do you wonder who is behind the curtain of rec.gov and the permitting offices?  This episode asked all those questions and spoke with the river permitting "boss" at rec.gov, and the river permit offices at Dinosaur National Monument, Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho and Grand Canyon...

The first river Ellen Falterman paddled was the Amazon, upriver in a 400 lb dugout canoe for a few weeks with her brother.  But that is not the story here.  The story here is that her second river trip was a run down the Missouri River from Montana to St Louis, and then her third river to paddle was the Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.  And she kept going, along the coastal...

The Blue Nile River starts in Ethiopia and confluences with the White Nile River in Sudan to form the Nile River.   The Nile River is the longest river in the world.  The Blue Nile starts in the highlands of Ethiopia and courses through deep gorges and canyons, open country and passes by many small and larger groups of people living along the river.  This river is home to the Nile Crocodile and Hi...

A local guy from Moab, Utah was ready to turn himself in for a warrant in Colorado.  The jail he would spend time in was near the same river that ran through his hometown of Moab.  He brought his kayak with him and planned to float home after his jail time was up.  As he approached the jail, the call of the river and the "nice day" simply won out, and he floated right past the jail.  Downstream th...

After the genetically pure Greenback Cutthroat Trout was found above a waterfall in Bear Creek, Colorado Parks and Wildlife quickly worked to secure this fish, and to propagate it in its native basin, the South Platte River Basin.  Projects have included several smaller stream areas where the Greenback has been reintroduced to its basin.  Currently the largest project yet, over 30 miles of stream...

Before Manifest Destiny arrived in North America, the Greenback Cutthroat Trout only lived in the South Platte River Basin of the Southern Rockies in Colorado.  This fish was beat up as it lived in the streams where Europeans first inhabited Colorado.  It was then accidentally saved from extinction over 100 years ago by an unknowing entrepreneur who put it up high in a mountain stream where it was...

The Poudre River starts in Rocky Mountain National Park and flows through fantastic country.  Immediately when it leaves the mountains it is put to work providing water for humans in many applications.  This river even has its flows augmented by inputs that are diverted from streams on the other side of the Continental Divide.  Today, there are several Front Range municipalities and water district...

This episode digs into a key concept of waste and the philosophy of Georges Bataille that Zak Podmore uses to define waste.  The authors that have influenced his writing and given him insight into challenging topics are explored to include Charles Bowden and Ed Abbey.  Zak talks about the process of writing this book and the mentors that supported him: Amy Irvine, Craig Childs, Mark Sundeen.  Zak...

In December of 2019, "The Salad Days" film was released telling a brief story of Herm Hoops's life.  He landed his dream job as a Ranger at Dinosaur National Monument, home of Echo Park.  He boated Desoloation Canyon on the Green River again and again and again.  Possibly his last trip down Deso is documented in "The Salad Days."  This interview is with Herm Hoops, his wife Valerie Hoops and film...

While spending 25 days intentionally away from the world of technology and news and globalization, a group of friends navigated the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon building friendships, exploring the canyons, resetting their life trajectory.  In that 25 day period, a virus that started at a market in inland China has caught rides in cars, on planes and trains, and has moved to 6 continents...

For two summers, I have been able to row gear boats down the Selway to support this archaeology research.  My view has been that of the laymen, the novice archeologist, the boater.  At the end of each summer's trip, I have interviewed Jeff Adams of Interior West Consulting to hear the onsite interpretation of what was recorded over the past 8 days.  The stone artifacts tell a story.  The river and...

2020 is an important push out year for this podcast.  Target topics are discussed here, and an invitation for you as the listener to engage.  Also, some insight is covered regarding what happened in 2019 to build this podcast.   THE RIVER RADIUS Website Runoff signup (episode newsletter) Instagram Facebook Apple Podcast Spotify Link Tree

Jenny and Mike Fiebig took 6 months off from their normal working, shopping, daily life to get back to the land and the river. They hiked to the headwaters of the Green River in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and started walking, then packrafting and eventually they launched their custom dory on the Green River and went downstream, all the way to the Mexican border with the United States. Thi...

As the winter of 1983 closed out in the Western United States, the Central and Southern Rocky Mountains were covered in exceptionally deep snow. Spring was warming up and rain was falling. This combination of fast melting snow and rain timed the runoff into the Green and Colorado Rivers just perfect to create record high flows well above 100,000 CFS into Cataract Canyon. It was commercial river se...