Briggs Creek: Middle

 BETA

2.7 mi hike and paddle, no shuttle.  Class III-IV(IV+)

Stream: A short, quality hike-in run not too far from the Rogue Valley.  After hiking in, boaters decide whether to tackle the put in rapid or not.  The top of the rapid is fun, a set of narrowing ledges.

The second part of the rapid is a hallway with an undercut boulder blocking most of the water, the line appears to be to the right of the boulder, but I walked this part when I paddled the creek.

Downstream the creek enters a boogie section with a few fun ledges that pop up amidst the boulder gardens.

When the creek steepens slightly the next notable rapid appears at an island and should be scouted.  The left line is a fast flume that pillows off the left wall, and a right channel that is runnable at higher flows.  This pushes quickly into a small ledge best run left.

Downstream the whitewater continues with read and run, and another ledge or two down to the confluence with Red Dog Creek.

Below Red Dog Creek it's class II-II+ down to the take out.

  

Flows:  Like a lot of the small creeks in the area, flows can be hard to nail down.  Here are the 3 data points I have, using the two most common proxy USGS gauges in the area.

-Yellow bars are dates that were just barely floatable, too low for a repeat trip.  

-Blue bar was from the friendly medium flow day.

Chetco @ Brookings USGS gauge

Illinois @ Kerby USGS gauge

There are some more flow musings on the Lower Briggs report.

Access:   

Put In:  42.40131014049408, -123.73591864665532

Take Out:  42.37701161080251, -123.76343377340532

It's good to mark the take out when dropping the vehicle.  Then, cross Soldier Creek and start following the old road uphill and upstream, a map is nice for the first quarter mile.

Once moving upstream the hike along the road is easy-going (you could drive it with an ATV if you can cross Soldier Creek), eventually reaching a slightly open area and the road starts to drop to the creek.  Don't follow the road, instead head off to the right and find the trail. 

 Follow that trail upstream another mile or so and you will pass the obvious put in rapid.

If you walk another 100-200 yards, a trail will head sharply uphill to the right, stay left and put in when the trail reaches the creek in less than a minute.

Watch out for poison oak, it can be avoided but is often present.

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Story/Notes
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I had run lower Lower Briggs Creek years ago, and while that last section before reaching the Illinois River is the obvious whitewater run, my eye had drifted upstream on Briggs Creek as well.  Up there the gradient was lower, and the access less obvious.  I had written it off as likely class III with wood.

Fast forward a number of years and I'm more interested in class III-IV than I once was, and while visiting Priscilla's parents in Grants Pass decided to have a look.  The first time we checked it out, we thought flows would be too low so just went for a hike.  Turns out the flows looked ideal, and we should have given it a go.

Yann on the scouting trip, shortly before his dog found a discarded diaper full of diarrhea, which the dog found delicious.

The next time we were in the area, we weren't going to miss another opportunity, so when the Illinois gauge (the default gauge for an area without many gauges) showed higher flows than our scouting trip we set out with an ambitious plan.  The shuttle was very roundabout and would have been 2 hours one way, so instead of spending many hours in a car that day, we drove to the put in, with the plan to hike back up the trail from the take out.  I did as much searching the internet as I could to ascertain the condition of the trail, but it seemed people hadn't reported hiking it straight through in many years, so I was worried about the middle section being overrun as many trails in the area are not maintained.

We put on to lower water than we had hoped from, and drifted downstream. 

 The first bit was pretty and intimate, but lacking much whitewater.  There was a log portage or two, but nothing problematic or annoying.  In fact, the first few miles were rather unremarkable whitewater-wise, so we just enjoyed the setting; an unmolested forest with clear water and pitcher plants.

Eventually, we reached the middle section of the run, which turned out to be the good part.  This is the section described on this page in the "Stream" section, and the part I would return to with the better logistical situation and better whitewater.

We worked our way through this section, which I thought was high quality intermediate whitewater with a couple more notable rapids that Priscilla walked and I paddled through.  We wished that flows had been at the level of our scouting trip, but it is often the case that our exploratory trips are done at low water and I'm ok with that.

We reached Red Dog Creek and while we could have started our hike back upstream here for a shorter hike, I wanted to paddle down to the more logical take out "for the sake of completeness" as Pete G would say.

After the last mile of boulder bars we set up our packs and began the 5-6 mile hike back up to our vehicle at the put in.  The first couple miles were easy, and we had done it before on our scouting trip (this is the hike recommended for the run, starting at the take out, and hiking up to the intersection with the Phone Trail).  Once we passed the put in for the middle section, I ferried across the creek to see if the trail still existed on river-right as shown on the maps.  It did not.  So we took the backup option which was to climb steeply uphill on the Phone Trail, we crossed our fingers it connected like it showed on the map and grunted out the 800' vertical gain over 1/4' mile and were glad to see it meet up with a marked road. 

High above the creek.

 It was here that I worried the trail would not continue, but I felt relief to realize that it did, so back down we went as the trail headed upstream, and we completed the bypass of the discontinued section of trail, reaching Briggs Creek near the Courier Mine and Onion Creek confluence.  Here we descended a little further than we should have, and Priscilla did not walk to retrace or route, so we hiked up the banks of the creek for 45 minutes or so until the map showed that the trail was not too high above us and we headed up the hill and regained the trail. 

Orange dots show our detour route.

 It was in a burned area, so we would lose it at times but eventually, we were out of the recent burn and the trail became easier to follow.

The trail became a two-track mining "road" for ATV's at some point, and crossed the creek a couple more times.  We made it back to the put in with light to spare, tired and beat, but satisfied.  

We headed out along Taylor Creek, instead of the Onion Valley route we had come in on, and checked the Taylor Creek gauge as a reference for next time.

Too low for Taylor, too low for a repeat of Middle Briggs.

We had a cool adventure, but I'd recommend any boaters with interested in these parts of Briggs to stick to the middle or lower sections and avoid the upper half of what we did.

Big Bend Creek

  Photo: Priscilla Macy






BETA

Stream: Ben had found this creek some how or another a few years ago while driving around, then saw it had this mention in the back of Soggy Sneakers.  We had made a couple goes at it over the next couple years, but whether it was snow or logs across the road we had not made it to the put in.  

We were finally able to get on the creek near the end of 2019, and found the Soggy Sneaker description to be perfectly adequate. 

  Photo: Priscilla Macy

It had been a dismal Falls as far as water levels go, so we went for it even knowing it would be very low.  The one class V rapid (or it would be with decent flow) was steep and bouldery, lasting a couple hundred yards.  Each segment of the rapid could be broken down into individual drops at the flow we had.  Most segments we ran, a couple we portaged.

  Photo: Priscilla Macy

Below the confluence with Bulldog Creek, the creek matured a bit and the rapids were a little more quality.  Most of the run was bouldery read and run, with the occasional tease of bedrock. 

  Photo: Priscilla Macy

We had a handful of quick portages, all at water level.  In fact everything could be handled at river level.  

In this instance, I was able to hold up a log while the other two went under.

That's about all you need to know if you want to check out the creek, you might consider paddling down Steamboat Creek a ways to add some more rapids and floating if you head that way. 

 Photo: Priscilla Macy

  
Flows:  Iv'e had two visuals on Big Bend Creek.  The first time the Steamboat Creek gauge was at 3500 cfs, this looked like a medium flow.  We were not able to do the run due to logs blocking the road that day.  When we actually ran the creek on Dec 14, 2019 flows dropped below 1,000 cfs on the Steamboat gauge.  These flows equated to scouting the creek with our kayaks, we were able to paddle the whole way, but it was too low for interesting hydraulics to form.

Access:  Take Highway 138 East from Roseburg, in a little under 40 miles turn left onto Steamboat Creek road.  Follow Steamboat Creek road 11 miles until it crossed over Big Bend Creek.  You can take out here, or at the next bridge downstream on Steamboat Creek, which is what we did.

 After crossing Big Bend take the first immediate right turn, in 2.7 miles is a very old road dropping off to the right that could easily be missed.  We drove half a mile down this road, cutting logs as we went.  Eventually we decided it was faster and easier just to drag our kayaks down the hill.  It only took 5-10 minutes to get close enough to the creek to schwack down into it.  

The South Fork of Diamond Creek

All photos by Priscilla Macy

BETA
3 mi, 200 fpm

Stream: This was the third year in a row we had made an attempt to paddle the SF of Diamond Creek.  The first year we had been stopped 3 miles short by snow in the Spring.  Last year levels weren't there when we met at 6am in Gasquet, so headed to the SF Chetco instead.  This year, flows again looked low as we met in Cave Junction.  However Yann was in touch with a friend and got a visual update that the pipe gauge was at a runnable flow (~11.5) for Diamond around 8am.  Given this was our third attempt, we decided even if it was low we wanted to check it out.

Where as in years past we had planned to continue through Diamond and into the NF Smith for a long day, this time we were going to take out where most people put in for Diamond Creek.  We figured this would reduce stress and increase our chances of success.  Since we would pass by the put in first, we decided to drop boats off.  The spur had a gnarly little entrance, it took some digging and Barrett gritting his teeth and channeling some optimism to get his F150 up and over.

After dropping the boats off, we started the long drive down the notoriously rough road.  Eventually we realized we could hike as fast as we were driving, so decided to leave the cars a mile or so from the take out and walk back up to them at the end to save daylight for paddling.

We weren't too worried about traffic, so set up Yann's changing tent in the middle of the road.

We left the truck, packed into Yann's vehicle and crawled back up the road.  We walked the spur road this time, and upon reaching our boats headed cross country down to the creek.  The walking was straight forward for the Siskiyous, we had good visibility and followed a ridge down to the creek with minimal bush-whacking.

Planning out our route.

What had looked like a good flow from the top of the ridge, turned out to be a paltry flow once we reached the creek.  Enough to float though, so on we went.

 Low, but enough water to check it out.

It's both hard and easy to describe some of these small Siskiyou Creeks.  They tend to be fairly uniform, ledges and boulders, boulders and ledges.  Nothing stands out a whole lot, but they tent to be consistently entertaining and engaging.  Nearly everything was read-and-run on this one, though we did scout a few times.  

The only downside to the creek, were there were stretches that had dense brush that we imagined could get sketchy at high flows.  Other than the brush, it was 3 miles of quality class IV whitewater with no boring sections.  If it were closer to home I'd run it regularly.  

An example of the brush.  While it was manageable at low flows, I'd be apprehensive about it at high water.

There was one quick portage near the end at a bedrock pinch.  There was a wire across the creek here, and the log broached in the pinch was hard to see from above.

Our take out was obvious enough, where the road extends down to the creek just above the confluence with the NF of Diamond Creek. 

 We walked our boats up to a landing, and Ben and Barrett each took a lap down Diamond Falls on the NF.  Boaters continuing through the regular Diamond run would have this option as well.

Two from the group walked back up for the truck, while the other three waited.  The road only got rowdier down here.  We all reasoned if we ever ran the main Diamond run into the NF Smith, we would put on either the SF of Diamond again or the last couple miles of the NF of Diamond to avoid the road.


You might even save time putting in on a tributary if you are running your own shuttle, given how slow that road goes, not to mention the wear and tear and stress.

And of course you'd get more whitewater too.

  
Flows:  I don't know the Smith drainage all that well flow-wise so take my recommendation with a grain of salt.  From my experience in the area, I'd imagine 10,000 in the Smith @ Jedediah is minimum. Or 12' on the NF Smith pipe gauge.  15,000-20,000 might be a good range to shoot for, or 13-14' on the pipe with some wiggle room.   High water would be oh-so-fun, but the brush would worry me.

Our flow

Access:  The road is gnarly, don't even bother trying with a Subaru.  Get a truck with clearance and preferably 4wd too.  Most people would choose to hire Bearfoot Brad (707-457-3365) out of Gasquet to run your shuttle and continue down through the mainsteam of Diamond and NF Smith back to Gasquet for almost 20 miles of boating.  The hike and SF of Diamond took under 3 hours for us, we spent am similar amount of time driving on the Diamond road.  So if you go the SF route, it will probably only take 2 hours longer than if you drove to the NF/SF Diamond confluence with the added benefit of additional whitewater.

Do some mapwork before heading in there, and cache the map to your phone.  The spur road leading to the hike starts here:  41.996418, -123.865714

Good directions to the NF/SF Diamond confluence we used as a take out are here.  The left turn onto the spur is 2.6 miles after turning off 4402 onto what he describes as a "very small and shitty looking road", called Wimer Road on most maps. 

The cross-country portion of the hike starts here: 41.990895, -123.863165.  Put in is here 41.983462, -123.861375

Click on map to increase resolution.

The hike was pretty straight forward, at the end of the spur road it forks.  We went right, then took the path of least resistance headed downstream towards the canyon rim.  Once we got to the point where we could see into the canyon, the route down a nose of land was obvious.  

A trip to the Siskiyous doesn't feel complete without some Darlingtonia Californica.  The South Fork of Diamond's river-right canyon rim is in the background.

Notes:  While there is fun whitewater on this run, it is not for everyone who would be paddling Diamond Creek. There is a lot of class IV whitewater on this creek, at high water expect a class V experience.  And really at any flow class V competence is probably needed.  The hike in is not bad, but it does descent about 650' and might be daunting for boaters who are not accustomed to hiking with their boat.  While the regular Diamond run through the NF Smith is pretty splash and giggle, the SF of Diamond is a more serious run.  The creek bed is small and there is brush and wood in the channel, requiring good decision making and group cohesion.  Large groups are a bad idea.  While I would personally never drive down to put in at the normal Diamond put in, with the argument that the tributaries give you more whitewater for less driving, there are no doubt others would would not enjoy the extra challenges the tributaries deliver.  Make the choice that is right for you.

       -jacob