Drought in the West A Photographic Essay     
Reno/Truckee Meadows
Interactive Cartograph: Clickable place names, horizontally scrollable.
Bucks Lake ↓ ↓ Whites, Thomas Creeks & Alexander Lake
Webber Lake Cold Stream/Sierraville Creek → Sierra Valley (Alfalfa) → Feather River (North Fork) → Lake Oroville Brown, Davis & Franktown Creeks
↘ ↗ ↓
Little Truckee River
Little Truckee River
Steamboat Creek ← Washoe Lake ← Ophir Creek ← Tahoe Meadows
Independence Lake → Independence Creek ↗ ↘
↓ Davis/Davies & Merrill Creeks Lake Tahoe ↓
↙ ↖ Rock Lake ← (Upper) Price Lake
Stampede Reservoir → Little Truckee River 3 → Boca Reservoir → Little Truckee River 4 → Truckee River ← Donner Creek ← Donner Lake
↖
Prosser Creek ← Prosser Dam
Little Truckee River: 3.2015
All content, including images © Billy Howard, 2015. —All Rights Reserved— High resolution versions available upon request to witness@diresituation.photos. Larger.
The Little Truckee River flows out of its Webber Lake headwaters, meandering through the northern High Sierra in four segments: from Webber Lake to the Cold Stream Diversion Slough which diverts fresh water for irrigation of alfalfa farms in Sierra Valley.

Just east of the diversion slough Independence Creek becomes a tributary to the Little Truckee River which headwater is the natural, High Sierra reservoir of Independence Lake.

The Little Truckee River continues its course to the man-made Stampede Reservoir (1970, ostenisbly for fishing opportunities), outflows for 3¾ miles and into Boca Reservoir (man-made, 1939 for water storage which had begun in that area before 1900) and finally flows a short distance into the Truckee River.


This stand of aspen seemed to be under duress in late Winter in the High Sierra not far from the Webber Lake headwaters of the Little Truckee River.
All content, including images © Billy Howard, 2015. —All Rights Reserved— High resolution versions available upon request to witness@diresituation.photos. Larger.
In a remote area of the High Sierra, the Little Truckee River looks well below bank level in late Winter, 2015 as it flows downstream toward Stampede Reservoir.
All content, including images © Billy Howard, 2015. —All Rights Reserved— High resolution versions available upon request to witness@diresituation.photos. Larger.



VIDEO:

Looking upriver, west, toward its source of Webber Lake, the Little Truckee River in the High Sierra should be under feet—if not yards—of snow on 3.20.2015.



Little Truckee River looking east, or downriver after the Cold Stream diversion and before Independence Creek empties into it.