DESIREE TULLOS and Will Nuckoles clambered down a steep slope high above what used to be Iron Gate Reservoir in Northern California one mid-February morning. As they wound through buckbrush, trying not to slip on the gravelly soil, Tullos, an Oregon State University professor, lagged behind her graduate student, hampered by the boot cast on her broken right ankle. “I’m not supposed to put any weight on it,” said Tullos. “But I didn’t want to miss anything.”
As they neared a trail camera mounted on a metal stake, the view emerged: Sheer chocolate-colored cliffs slanted down to the bottom of the canyon, where the muddy brown Klamath River meandered through
