Mornin,
Interesting pictures of the American. Right now depending which fork you are on the water is flowing around 2000 cubic feet per second. I've tracked it for many years and therefore know that it hits 20,000 cfs every now and then and likely higher when I was not looking. It was good that you wrote about Putting Boulders back even though you'd never touched them. I'd posted some pictures last year of a site I was working as well as pictures of how I'd reclaimed it at the end of the year. I'm Very interested to get back in there to see what the site looks like this year!
I noticed that the water in your pictures looks clear, is that correct? I've been in on a sierra river in February during a rain storm and the river was roaring and extended from wall to wall. Trees had been ripped out of the ground and were floating quickly down river and the water was milk chocolate brown. This sort of Natural removal of trees, boulders, plants, tons and tons of dirt and such is NORMAL for all spring runoff rivers that have a reasonable tilt to their downriver flow but I've never heard anyone in the forest service talk about what the rivers look like when it is just mother nature causing it. What little additional erosion is caused by our small time mining activities is a joke to what occurs naturally but we do not hear about that. BUT it is wise for us to reclaim our sites when we've finished with them as well as to have photographic proof of the reclaim work that is IMHO.
Regards and good luck with the search, 63bkpkr