When the sun's shining, scores of rafters and kayakers take to the Clackamas River with coolers, food and extra clothes in tow.

But when the season ends, those items are exactly what's left at the bottom of the river -- and even some rafts.

So for the last 12 years, volunteers have organized a major cleanup along the stretch of the river most popular with floaters. On Sunday, a group of about 400 scoured the river from Barton Park to its confluence with the Willamette River to pull as much garbage out as they can.

The sheer amount they gather is surprising. "We totaled about 3.7 tons last year," said Staj Pace, a board member of the non-profit We Love Clean Rivers, which sponsors the effort alongside the Clackamas River Basin Council.

The most common items are beer and soda cans. But volunteers also find plenty of sandals, chunks of metal, clothes, sleeping bags and garbage from illegal dumps.

More than half of the items are recycled, said Sheila Logan, a trained Master Recycler with Metro. Once the garbage is hauled from boats and onto shore, Logan and dozens others set to work on the not-so-fun task of sorting the junk. Some of the items will be turned into sculptures by a team of artists and displayed at gallery in December.

The cleanup effort begins early for a team of divers. At 8 a.m., they began filling mesh bags or throwing items to the bank. Later, rafters and kayakers floated by to collect the garbage.

Most of the volunteers bring their own rafts and boats. But a business also donates several rafts and the time of a handful of river guides, which opens up about 40 extra spots for volunteers.

Afterward, all were are invited back to Barton Park for a free barbecue and live music. Organizers held a contest for the scariest, cutest, most valuable, hardest to remove and most stylish piece of garbage found.

Each year, the effort seems to collect more and more garbage, Pace said, but it's likely correlated with an increase in volunteers actually pulling items from the water.

The river provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people, and it's home to one of the last remaining wild runs of endangered coho salmon, she said.

Last summer, the new rules allowed Clackamas County Sheriff's deputies and park staff to visually search coolers for alcohol in county parks, particularly Barton and Carver parks. Pace said she hopes the continued enforcement of these rules will help cut down the amount of garbage in the river over the long term.

"Ideally, we would not have to clean the river," she said.

-- Michael Bamesberger