The Smith River is one of the world's finest remaining examples of a low-elevation coastal watershed. But many Californians do not know where it is or why it is so special.

Those familiar with he Smith River know it as a gorgeous turquoise-blue vein pulsing along U.S. Highway 199 from Crescent City, California to Grant Pass, Oregon. Rocky outcroppings and numinous ancient forests greet each turn in the road. Below, fishers haul in some of the biggest and healthiest salmon, steelhead and native cutthroat trout found in California. Because the Smith's fish habitat remains so pristine, it's the only California river where fishers can actually keep a steelhead (as opposed to the catch-and-release rule of all other watersheds).

But the Smith River is more than just a lovely sight along the road or a fisherman's playground. It provides great opportunities for camping and rafting, drinking water for over 25,000 people, and habitat for wildlife.

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	Groundwater Contamination

Why the Smith?  

Dave Pitts of the Oregon Angler Magazine catches a 55 lb. Salmon on the Smith with Row'n Rick's Guide Service.

A watershed that compels superlatives, the Smith River provides the core habitat zone in is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and World Biosphere Reserve - a global benchmark for clean water - and is the longest federally designated Wild and Scenic River in the United States (300 miles in Wild and Scenic zones). Remarkably, it is also California's only major undammed river.

Rafters and kayakers appreciate the Smith River's 145 miles of navigable whitewater, including some of the most challenging and beautiful class IV and class V stretches in the state, while hikers enjoy nearly 100 miles of trails. Then there's swimming in 30-foot deep, absolutely clear and clean pools.

At the mouth of the Smith River is Tolowa Dunes State Park, one of the finest remaining examples in California of native coastal dune habitat. Moving upstream visitors find, on Mill Creek, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. Together these preserves contain more than 12,000 acres of ancient redwood forest. Not coincidentally, Mill Creek is the Smith River's most productive anadromous fish habitat, illustrating the importance of native forests to aquatic species.

Not far from the redwood parks is 305,000-acre Smith River National Recreation Area, a verdant wildland whose 35,000 acres of private "inholdings" are the subject of protection efforts by the Smith River Project. The National Recreation Area contains long reaches of all three of the Smith River's main branches - the North Fork, the South Fork and the Middle Fork - and includes portions of the 153,000-acre Siskiyou Wilderness. The National Recreation Area features several protected botanical areas, including the 31,000-acre North Fork Smith River Botanical Area, which contains the highest concentration of endemic plants in North America. (For a list of species found in the North Fork watershed, see http://www.northcoast.com/~cnps/lssmiriv.htm)

The Smith River and its estuary are home to California's healthiest populations of anadromous fish (salmon and steelhead, which migrate from fresh water to the ocean and back), and every spring the entire population of Aleutian Canada geese (now 40,000 strong) alight on fields of the Smith River Plain.

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