With a name like Whitewater Creek, easy access off a major HWY, spring flows and no beta we should have known it would be a suffer fest.
I was planning to paddle the creek on my own so that the suffering was applied to the fewest people possible. In the end I decided to invite Willy Dinsdale as he had mentioned wanting to check out this creek before.
Willy and his brother Ben met me after work and we drove on up towards Detroit.
The result was pretty predictable.
It started out on a steep tributary with very little water, like a luge course just wide enough for a boat, dropping 250' in half a mile or so. Eventually we decided it was more convenient to leave the track and walk our boats through the woods to a confluence. From this point on the wood increased substantially and there was enough push now to make it hazardous. The Dinsdales are capable boaters, and appear to lack fear. Following them down this stream was about as uncomfortable as I had ever been on a creek up to this point. We knew light was going to be an issue and these guys took that to heart. I was following them under and over logs, ducking only to turn a blind corner and do it all again. There were probably a dozen corners I would have scouted if these guys hadn't just kept cruising around them. After watching how well they worked together, I became quit confident if things went wrong they would be able to take care of whatever situation came up.
This proved true when they both boofed a sketchy looking log and I followed. I was following too close so when one of them got hung up I needed to slow and back paddle (push against the gravel) in order not to run into him, as I had passed by the last eddy. Once he cleared the log I didn't quite get back up to speed as I approached the manuever. Boofing the first log, I landed on the second log as a third log became dislodged and I slid back into the gap between the two original logs. I leaned into the downstream log and within a few seconds the front half of my boat was shoved under the log, and while my head was well above water I was pretty well stuck and couldn't see over the large log I was wedged against. Before any plan to escape had come to mind Ben had ahold of the tail of my boat and yanked me out of there. By the end of the day we had all gone through something similar to that.
I was continually impressed by these guys as they would paddle straight at log jams, yanking their skirt just before contact and leaping onto the jam before turning and pulling the other guy out, shortening the length of each portage. I generally took out a few yards upstream of these situations, and resigned myself to the extra portage distances.
At one point Ben got pinned and swam, his boat lodged itself under a log. It was in there pretty good and completely submerged, being that it was nearly dark, I was looking around for the easiest way up to the road to bail out of there. After 30 seconds or so I looked over and the brothers were jumping up and down on the boat in the middle of the creek/logjam. I decided I clearly had a thing or two to learn from these guys, as I wouldn't have considered what they were doing as an option worth pursuing. And sure enough, 15 minutes later the boat was out and we were back on our way. The catch was by this point the sun had set and we were no longer able to see well. After what felt to me like some sketchy log maneuvers in the dark they bought into my plan of hiking along the bank for a bit, but it was slow going and Willy had a busted foot, so after a few minutes he decided to get back in and continue on in his boat. Ben hiked with me for awhile longer, but it was starting to become futile, on one 30 yard section literally took us 5 minutes. A couple times I would get my boat stuck in a tree and couldn't figure out how to get it unstuck (because I couldn't see it). In the darkest parts with the most tree coverage, I was unable to see my hand in front of my face.
Ben made a case for putting back on, at least out there we would get some refracted light on occasion. I didn't like the idea, but agreed that hiking wasn't turning out to be fruitful. So we put back on and in two separate occasions I crashed into an unseen log at chest level. Both times I was able to work myself free without flipping over, butI was clearly working with credit on the luck front. Eventually I was just no longer willing to risk the river and though Ben was more interested in floating into the logs rather than walking into them, he was willing to hit the bank one last time. Turns out we were pretty close at this point and within ten minutes we reached the bridge!
Ben and Willy headed off to get the shuttle vehicle and I waited with the gear. Making a fort with two boats and Ben's drysuit, I was able to fall asleep a couple times but was getting pretty uncomfortable by the time the brothers returned. The put in road had been so small Willy had walked right by it on the way up!
By the time we got back to the main HWY it was 11:30pm.
So now Iv'e got some fond memories to reflect upon each time I cross Whitewater Creek while taking Hwy 22 to Bend.
-Jacob
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