Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Where does the Sacramento River end?
The Sacramento River is the principal river of Northern California in the United States, and is the largest river in California.[9] Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for 400 miles (640km) before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay. The river drains about 26,500 square miles (69,000km2) in 19 California counties, mostly within the fertile agricultural region bounded by the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada known as the Sacramento Valley, but also extending as far as the volcanic plateaus of Northeastern California. Historically, its watershed has reached as far north as south-central Oregon where the now, primarily, endorheic (closed) Goose Lake rarely experiences southerly outflow into the Pit River, the most northerly tributary of the Sacramento.
State Route 160 begins in eastern Antioch at SR 4. After two interchanges, the highway rises onto the two lane Antioch Bridge over the San Joaquin River. It cuts north across the center of Sherman Island, reaching the Sacramento River on the opposite shore. From here to Sacramento, SR 160 never strays far from the river, first following the east levee over the 1949 Three Mile Slough Bridge (a lift bridge), past Brannan Island State Recreation Area, and across SR 12 opposite the river from Rio Vista. After passing Isleton, the highway crosses the river on the Isleton Bridge, a bascule bridge built in 1923, and runs along the west shore on Grand Island, where it meets the east end of SR 220. The Walnut Grove Bridge carries County Route J11 east across the river to Walnut Grove, and, at the north end of the island, SR 160 crosses the 1924 Steamboat Slough Bridge onto Sutter Island and then the 1923 Paintersville Bridge across the Sacramento River to the mainland, both bascule bridges.
Among other recreational options in Sacramento is Discovery Park, a park studded with stands of mature trees and grasslands. This park is situated where the American River flows into the Sacramento River.
At the end of the Capay Valley near Esparto Cache Creek runs east into Sacramento Valley, ending in a settling basin east of Woodland. If the Sacramento river is not in flood then any overflow runs into the "Tule Canal",continues as "Prospect Slough" and finally enters the Sacramento River at "Cache Slough". If the Sacramento IS in flood, then the overflow from the settling basin is swept into the Yolo Bypass and "Sacramento Bypass" flood control system, emerging directly at "Cache Slough".
A third highway heading north from Sacramento was constructed by the Natomas Company in the 1910s for along the Sacramento River levee in order to provide access to land reclaimed and sold by the company. Sacramento and Sutter counties continued the road alongside the Sacramento River and Feather River to Nicolaus, where an existing county road crossed the river on a drawbridge and ran north to the East Side Highway at Yuba City. This continuous roadway between Sacramento and Yuba City was dedicated in October 1924 as the Garden Highway.
The area that would become the city of Sacramento was initially observed by many European and American mapmakers as home to Great Plains-based rivers that stretched across the Rocky Mountains and emptied into the Pacific Ocean. Speculation at the time placed the fabled St. Bonaventura River where the American-Sacramento River complex was; mountain man Jedediah Smith mistook the American and Sacramento Rivers for the St. Bonaventura in his 1827 venture into the region, and named the Sacramento Valley the "Valley of the Bonadventure" before trekking southwards along the Stanislaus River.
From the Sacramento depot at present day Terminal Way, the SN's "North End" ran north up 11th Street to a Northern Electric-built girder bridge crossing the American River and then proceeded to Rio Linda. The line continued to E. Nicolaus, then Marysville where it crossed the Feather River into adjacent Yuba City, split off the branch to Colusa, then went on to Live Oak, split off the branch to Oroville, then to Gridley and to Chico where it terminated. In Chico there were yards and primary shops. From a junction just northwest of Yuba City, another branchline ran west to Meridian and Colusa. It crossed the Sacramento River at Meridian on a narrow combined rail and vehicle bridge. From Yuba City to Meridian the track ran alongside and north of the Colusa Highway, California route 20. In 1992 this track and unusual Meridian bridge were still in use and provided the SN with a Southern Pacific-Union Pacific interchange at Colusa. As of 2009, Google website maps still show the former SN trackage in most areas alongside Route 20.
The American River Parkway is a 23-mile stretch along the American River and includes about 5,000 acres of embankment between the Nimbus Fish Hatchery and where the American River and the Sacramento River converge. The Sacramento City Regional Parks owns most of the land that is operated by the American River Parkway. This area serves the citizens of Sacramento and visitors from away with access to the river and parks, picnic areas, biking and jogging paths, trails for hiking, and habitat for fish and wildlife.[35]
The Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is just over . The main stem Feather River begins in Lake Oroville, where its four long tributary forks join together—the South Fork, Middle Fork, North Fork, and West Branch Feather Rivers. These and other tributaries drain part of the northern Sierra Nevada, and the extreme southern Cascades, as well as a small portion of the Sacramento Valley. The total drainage basin is about , with approximately above Lake Oroville.
Below Rio Vista, the lower Sacramento River is rejoined by the Deep Water Ship Channel and the Yolo Bypass and curves southwest along the base of the Montezuma Hills, forming the border of Solano and Sacramento Counties. This part of the river is dredged for navigation by large oceangoing vessels and averages three-quarters of a mile (1.2km) across. North of Antioch and Pittsburg, the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers join at the head of Suisun Bay, marking the official end of both rivers. The combined waters flow west through Suisun Bay and the Carquinez Strait into San Pablo Bay and San Francisco Bay, joining the Pacific at the Golden Gate.[10]
Georgiana Slough, is a slough within Sacramento County, California. It is located in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, and links both the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River above their confluence in the Delta near Pittsburg, at the head of Suisun Bay, through its connection with the Mokelumne River. The entrance to the slough on the Sacramento River is just below Walnut Grove, at and runs between Tyler Island and Andrus Island to where it has its confluence with the Mokelumne River at northwest of Bouldin Island just above that rivers confluence with the San Joaquin River.
With its new status and strategic location, Sacramento quickly prospered and became the western end of the Pony Express. Later it became a terminus of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which began construction in Sacramento in 1863 and was financed by "The Big Four"—Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington, and Leland Stanford. Both the American and especially Sacramento rivers would be key elements in the economic success of the city. In fact, Sacramento effectively controlled commerce on these rivers, and public works projects were funded though taxes levied on goods unloaded from boats and loaded onto rail cars in the historic Sacramento Rail Yards.
Most of the Sacramento Valley is below 300 feet (91m) in elevation; in its lower course, the Sacramento River drops only about 1 foot (0.30m) per mile.[10][31] Between the bajadas or alluvial slopes extending from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, are the low floodplains of the Sacramento River. The river flows at an elevation somewhat higher than the surrounding terrain due to deposits of sediment over millennia that created raised banks (essentially natural levees). The banks separate the river from the lowlands to the east and west that once served as vast overflow basins during winter storms, creating large areas of seasonal wetlands. Since the 19th century, artificial levee systems have been constructed to enable farming in the fertile flood plain. Today there are 2,000,000 acres (8,100km2) of irrigated farmland in the Sacramento Valley. Due to the reduction of the floodplain area, the speed of flood flow in the Sacramento River has increased, creating a significant hazard for the farms and towns along its course. By the early 20th century engineers had realized not all the floodplains could be safely reclaimed, leading to the intentional creation of flood bypasses where development is limited to annual crops and recreational uses.
The Pit River, by far the largest of the three, begins in Modoc County in the northeastern corner of California. Draining a vast and remote volcanic highlands area, it flows southwest for nearly 300 miles (480km) before emptying into Shasta Lake near Montgomery Creek. Goose Lake, straddling the Oregon–California border, occasionally overflows into the Pit River during wet years, although this has not happened since 1881. The Goose Lake watershed is the only part of the Sacramento River basin extending into another state.[11] Unlike most California rivers, the Pit and the McCloud Rivers are predominantly spring-fed, ensuring a large and consistent flow in even the driest of summers.[11] At the lower end of Shasta Lake is Shasta Dam, which impounds the Sacramento River for flood control, irrigation and hydropower generation. Before the construction of Shasta Dam, the McCloud River emptied into the Pit River, which joined the Sacramento near the former mining town of Kennett, submerged when Shasta Lake was filled. The Pit River Bridge, which carries Interstate 5 and the Union Pacific Railroad over the reservoir, is structurally the highest double-decked bridge in the United States (although most of the bridge piers are submerged under Shasta Lake when the reservoir is full).[12] The Upper Sacramento River canyon also provides the route for I-5 and the railroad between Lakehead and Mount Shasta.[10]
Among other recreational options in Sacramento is Discovery Park, a park studded with stands of mature trees and grasslands. This park is situated where the American River flows into the Sacramento River.
The first steamboats operating above Sacramento on the Sacramento River were the 52-ton "Linda" and the 36.5-ton "Lawrence". Also steamboats operated on the American River, tributary to the Sacramento River, up to Norristown, smaller boats as far as Coloma. On the Feather River they steamed up to Yuba City, and on the Yuba River to Marysville, both also tributaries of the Sacramento. Others steamed farther up the Sacramento river as far north as Red Bluff and the 42-ton steamboat "Jack Hays" reached Redding the head of navigation on the Sacramento, during the spring flood on May 8, 1850. It then began regular service up river: 
This list does not include MLB players who were in Sacramento on a rehabilitation assignment while on the disabled list.
The Capay Diversion Dam, west of Capay, diverts water for distribution throughout Yolo County using a network of canals. At the end of the Capay Valley, near Esparto, Cache Creek runs east into Sacramento Valley, ending in a settling basin east of Woodland, the overflow of which runs into the Sacramento River through a flood control canal.
Since the 1940s, various groups have lobbied for the construction of a Peripheral Canal to redirect water flowing from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers directly to the federal aqueducts that draw water from the southern end of the Delta. Currently, freshwater entering the Delta has to flow through a maze of river channels and sloughs before entering the Clifton Court Forebay north of Tracy, where water is pumped into the California Aqueduct and Delta-Mendota Canal. In addition, large numbers of Delta smelt and other endangered species are killed by the pumping plants that provide water for the aqueducts.
In 1903 the Sacramento Solons a minor league baseball team began to play. The Solons played intermittently in Sacramento between 1903 and 1976, with a continuous stretch between 1918 and 1960. After the end of the Sacramento Solons franchise in 1976, Sacramento went without a minor league baseball team until 2000 when the Sacramento River Cats began playing at Raley Field in West Sacramento.
About 20 miles (32km) further downstream, the Sacramento River reaches the Tisdale Weir. During floods, water overtops the weir and flows east into the Sutter Bypass, the first of two major bypass channels that temporarily store and move floodwaters downstream to reduce pressure on the main channel of the Sacramento. The Sacramento River and the Sutter Bypass flow parallel for over 40 miles (64km), rejoining on the border of Sutter County and Yolo County near Knights Landing. The Feather River, the largest tributary of the Sacramento, joins from the east at Verona directly below the Sutter Bypass. A second flood control structure, the Fremont Weir, diverts flood waters from both the Sacramento and Feather Rivers into the Yolo Bypass, which parallels the Sacramento River down the west side of the valley. Cache Creek and Putah Creek, two major tributaries which formerly joined the Sacramento River from the west, are now intercepted by the Yolo Bypass via man-made channels.[10] The main channel of the Sacramento flows south, forming the Yolo–Sacramento County line.
The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, or California Delta, is an expansive inland river delta and estuary in Northern California. The Delta is formed at the western edge of the Central Valley by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and lies just east of where the rivers enter Suisun Bay. The Delta is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy. The city of Stockton is located on the San Joaquin River on the eastern edge of the delta. The total area of the Delta, including both land and water, is about .
Sacramento experienced several severe floods prior to construction of the bypass. During wet years, the bypass can be full of water. The main input to the bypass is through the passive Fremont Weir, where water spills over into the bypass if it reaches the crest. Downstream, the Sacramento Weir, just north of the city of West Sacramento, can also be opened to divert additional waters if needed. The bypass ends a few kilometres north of Rio Vista in the Liberty Farms area, where the bypass joins first Prospect Slough and then Cache Slough adjacent to the connection of the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel. Cache Slough then reconnects with the Sacramento River just north of Rio Vista.
The western section of Business 80 begins in West Sacramento at Interstate 80, where I-80 leaves the West Sacramento Freeway onto the Beltline Freeway (which travels north of the Bryte neighborhood, over the Sacramento River, and into the Natomas area). This interchange in West Sacramento is also the current west end of U.S. Route 50 and the west end of the unsigned I-305.
The Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel was completed in 1963, and was built to facilitate navigation of large oceangoing ships from the Delta to the port of Sacramento. The channel bypasses the winding lower part of the Sacramento River between the state capital and the Delta thus reducing water travel times. It also serves to discharge floodwaters from the lower end of the Yolo Bypass. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the canal is 43 miles (69km) long and is maintained to a depth of 30 feet (9.1m).[88]