Desolation Canyon

In the very recent past,this season, in Desolation Canyon, Joe Hutch Canyon Rapid was very much intensified by a debris flow that came down a canyon (in fact, it was Joe Hutch Canyon) from the right. There are said to be huge rocks the size of cars and trucks strewn about on the gravel fan, and apparently the first part of the rapid is now steeper. The water therefore goes much faster, and it piles up against a cliff where the river turns a little to the right. It's done that for a long time, but now the intensity of the place is way up!

It seems to me that all rapids on the river are changing in a cyclic manner. Say a rapid has almost washed away whatever obstacles stand in the way there. The rapid is therefore a mild one. But now suppose that a giant debris flow (a slurry of dirt, rocks, and water) comes bursting down the tributary canyon and really ups the intensity of that rapid! That very instant, the river starts to erode the bed of the rapid, rocks wash out, and before long, that rapid returns to the milder version of itself. The rapid is cyclic. It will endeavor to clean out its channel and become a milder version of itself. But a rapid is most often associated with a tributary stream, and this may flood again. The cycle continues...and I suspect that Joe Hutch Canyon Rapid is at the top of its cycle right now!