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I don't even know where to start — I can't even think of a title!  I just got back from Salmon Hole (yes, I discovered it is actually called that) and I hope you are ready for an adventure because that is just what I did.  Let's start off with the usual analysis:
The flora and fauna were great.  No leafing out yet, but I saw more cedar waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) today than I ever have in all my years birdwatching...combined!

Get that nom nom!

Need a cedar waxwing?  I've got half a dozen.

Alright, enough of the biotic analysis — let's get to how ridiculously high the river is right now!  A couple weeks ago, I went down to the river by my spot and noticed that there were huge chunks of ice 20 feet (maybe 4 or 5 vertical feet) up the river bank, as if they had stayed there as the rest of the ice melted and the water level receded.  I thought it ridiculous that the water could have been that high, but today, I saw with my own eyes that it can be even higher.

The red outlines show approximately where the water level usually is;
the line down the middle shows where there was a wintertime ice bridge
and also where I tried to cross over to Brian's spot last week

The floodwaters were simply breathtaking this week.  Here are some pictures; hopefully you will get as excited as I was:

All of these pictures (including ones yet to come!) were taken as I circled around the Salmon Hole area.  This map shows approximately just where I went:

As I came around the old factory (the Woolen Mills Fitness Center, fun fact), I dove down into some woods and came to a spot that harkened back to the Mills' golden years.  Here are a couple pictures from the Woolen Mills:

I half expected James Bond to come out of the water, strip off his SCUBA
gear, and climb casually up those hidden stairs below the Mills

Ever wonder where your Christmas trees go at the end of the season?

This was one of the coolest places I went, by far.  I have
no idea what any of these things do, but they're really
big and cool looking!

Finally, I would like to share one more thing — the muck scraper!  What is that?  Well, I don't know if that's really what it is called but there is one lone gentleman that sits atop the dam and scrapes all the sticks and dirt off of the grate where the water passes into the hydroelectric turbines at the dam.  He sure had his work cut out for him today...

Cheers to you, Scraper Man!