Sacramento Bee- A conservation opportunity amid the wilds of Cache Creek

My first kayak river run took place in six hours over 20 miles of Cache Creek, a state wild and scenic river.

It was ever-so-scenic, with canyons, rock uplifted from ancient ocean beds in vertical stripes and curves, 1906 earthquake landslides coming down to water's edge, gray pines and blue oaks outlined against a blue sky.

And wild, too. The stream was swift and cold on Memorial Day, a challenge for this novice kayaker - and a fun, if more routine first run of the season for the experienced paddlers in our group of seven.

We put in at the Redbud Trail off state Highway 20 and made our way down the narrow north fork lined with overhanging willow branches - good for shading the stream for fish, not so good for a paddler brushing up on skills.

Brushing is right. I brushed a lot of willow before coming to the first of many rapids. Paddling energetically to avoid rocks and tree branches, I made it through several, while others navigated with a few deft strokes.

Reading a river is a skill. I tried to follow the experts - not always successfully.

An hour into the trip, the current dragged me straight to willows. I hit a low-lying tree branch that flipped the kayak and dumped me into the stream.

Our group leader pulled me into his two-person kayak and I sprawled across the middle as we rode another rapid before returning to my kayak for the next adventures.

The trip was organized by Bob Schneider, board member and senior policy director with Woodland-based Tuleyome, a nonprofit active in protecting the wilds and agriculture of the western Sacramento Valley and the Inner Coast Range. Schneider is a developer, outdoorsman and practical conservationist who prides himself on getting things done.

A major project of Tuleyome is to get National Conservation Area status for the federal lands in the 100-mile stretch from Lake Berryessa to 7,000-foot Snow Mountain. This rugged terrain has only two paved roads - state Highway 128 in the Berryessa area and Highway 20 in the Cache Creek area - and is a haven for hiking, camping, hunting, bass and trout fishing, nature viewing, horseback riding, mountain biking, motorized off-road trail riding, rafting and kayaking.

It also is a unique "geo-biopark" with rare plants that grow only on serpentine soils (like Sargent cypress), an internationally known "laboratory of plant evolution." It is an internationally studied active earthquake fault zone, too, with plate tectonics at work.

This great regional resource deserves national status, like many of the West's most spectacular landscapes - including King's Range along the Lost Coast and the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles.

National Conservation Area status would bring a number of benefits:

- A name, Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area, creating a visible destination.

- A connection, tying together the Cedar Roughs, Cache Creek and Snow Mountain wilderness areas.

- A framework, to bring together the three federal landowners - the Mendocino National Forest, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation - to coordinate management of 319,300 acres of federal land.

- A council, bringing together people from four counties (Yolo, Lake, Napa and Mendocino), state agencies and Indian tribes to make recommendations for these federal lands.

- Funding eligibility, for federal Land and Water Conservation Funds and other public funds, leveraging private fundraising.

Coordinated management and funding also would boost cleanup of leaching mercury ore mines, a legacy from late 1800s gold extraction, and efforts to eradicate aggressive invasive plants such as arundo and tamarisk.

In the afternoon, we passed a site with three barking pit bulls, a tent, tin structure and about 50 marijuana plants (value $100,000 or more).

Regional coordination might help eradicate illegal marijuana farms, too.

U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson, John Garamendi and Lynn Woolsey introduced the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area Act (HR 5545) in May.

Landowners, counties, cities and citizen groups have signed on in support, knowing National Conservation Area designation could provide an economic boost for the gateway communities. They see no downside, since designation applies only to federal lands, not to state or private land.

Certainly, passage of HR 5545 will be a heavy lift in the current polarized political climate. But no more than the bipartisan Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006 - after five years of effort by Thompson and Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein - working out key compromises with then-House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo.

My Memorial Day highlight was the long, steep, rocky Class III rapid called Mad Mike, beyond my solo skills. I rode with Schneider in his two-person kayak.

We hit big waves, but made it through - just as HR 5545 should make it through Congress - avoiding obstacles and, by the end, a wild ride to celebrate.