West Fork Hood

Photo: Rob Cruser





Beta

Iv'e never run the WF Hood at anything but low flows, so I will direct you here for better information on healthy flows.

Stream:    I like putting in at Lolo Pass, but many people choose to put in at the Lake Branch confluence to avoid running or portaging a class V upstream.

The section from Lolo Pass to the standard put in is class III-IV with some fun bedrock rapids and one class V-ish bouldery rapid in a small gorge.  This one has a semi-strenuous portage high on the left if needed, or I have done a partial portage on the right at low water and paddled the rest of the rapid on the right.

The run below the Lake Branch weaves in and out of gorges with numerous class III-IV rapids.  The most unique hazard is a fish ladder half way through the run.  This has been run, but it is highly recommended that you make the easy portage on the left.  Rumor is there used to be a ten foot waterfall here before the fish ladder was created.

The biggest boulder garden of the run is just down stream and can be boat scouted or shore scouted on the right.  Rapids continue down to the take out bridge, some portions being more interesting than others.  Either take out on the right and hike up to your vehicles below the bridge or check out Punchbowl Falls just downstream, which is a powerful ten foot plunge usually boofed on the left.

Nick going center at a low flow.

And a video

  

Punchbowl is a straight forward move, but missing the line can result in serious downtime.

 If you run Punchbowl continue down to the confluence of the EF Hood.  Take out on the gravel bar on the right and walk the steep-ish trail up to the decommissioned road and back to your vehicle.

Flows:  The run can be done as low as 300 cfs on the WF gauge, but people generally shoot for 500 cfs and up.  700 cfs is medium.

If you are using the Tucker Gage 5-6 feet is medium, 7' is still not high.  4.5 is low but still fun. 

Iv'e been down with my dad as low as 3.5' a couple times, most people would not like the run at that flow.  The lower the flow, the more inviting Punchbowl is.

Access:  Take Hwy 281 out of Hood River to the town of Dee.  A bridge crosses the stream in what used to be the middle of a town.  Cross this bridge and turn right on Punchbowl Rd.  Follow this road until it crosses a bridge.  Backtrack 100 feet and you will find a gravel parking area that is the take out (downstream of the bridge).  Some people may wish to spot their take out from the bridge or by walking down the road past the gate.

Amercian Whitewater has done good work for this location, in the future the take out may be improved and more obvious to spot.

The put in is accessed by returning towards Dee, but instead of crossing the bridge continue straight on Lost lake Rd.  Following it through farmland and then paralleling the WF Hood 5.4 miles to the standard put in.  For the Lolo Pass put in continue upstream 2.5 more miles, then turn left onto NF-18/Lolo Pass Rd and follow that a short way down to the put in bridge.



Notes:   The Green Point Creek drainage has seen some attention by locals, this stream enters the WF Hood in a gorge in the last 1/3rd of the run.  Here is a trip report from Ryan Scott on the North Fork of that creek.

old clips

Found some clips I haven't used on the blog before. Some a couple years old, some taken last week. Nothing too special, just not much to do in Monmouth on a Tuesday night.

This is my 101st post, so I thought it would be good to look a bit into the past.

Guide to the video.

-Box smashing with the car was in my 2006 PDXkayaker film fest entry. My neighbor got stuck with a whole bunch of boxes, so we had to make good use of this unique opportunity.

-Second was our trip to Flugtag in Portland. We got there a bit late, so all the good seats were taken. We made due by heading to the top of a building about a quarter mile away, hence the shotty camera work. Fun all the same though, entertaining for sure :)

-Next, back to the boxes. We had always wanted to snowboard off the roof, we had just imagined there would be snow... Nick had a scary fall, luckily clipping the front of the boxes, luckily not getting injured. It was interesting to look back at when I used to snowboard, but kayaking is just so much funner to me and it stopped being worth the cost to head up to the mountain.

-Next clip is my dad on the Sandy river during a scouting trip of one of the tiny tributaries near oxbow park. The creek was runnable, but not worth it as I had imagined. It did however have a cool 40 footer that unfortunately landed in a very small pool. Cool to look at however. We ended the trip with a long wait in the dark as the keys were left in the put in car. Quit the debacle for a class one trip :)

-Dan, Shane and I on a top secret scouting mission :) Though anyone who has been to this spot will undoubtedly recognize it.

-Rick Cooley and Dan lowering the raft into Sick and Wrong on Sweet Creek.

-I have been wanting to backflip off the ground for 5 years, this was the first day I ever did itwithout using the blue mat! (It took me 4 separate days to get it down, but 5 years to get over the mental block). Then Zach did some gymnast stuff, including a backflip of his own.

-Kyle Robinson, Jeff Ivie and Emerald Ressler on our Eagle Creek K-mart raft mission the summer before my senior year of high school.

-Then Eric Fostermore on Eagle Creek from this year.

-Eric Arlington running "Muddyboof falls" on the headwaters of the Yaquina river.

-Myself running Punchbowl for my first time senior year of high school.

-John Jansky with a corkscrew at the Clack fest '09

-Kyle and Jeff hitting the nine footer upstream of Punchbowl.

--Additional footage by Alex Hymel and Danah.

-Jacob

Eagle Creek

We had an epic day up on Eagle creek saturday.  This mission was about the first raft descent of Eagle Creek.  The day was led by Hans Hooman who did all the legwork and made the calls to get this together.  He was kind enough to share his descent with the group and we all had a super fun day.  Everything except Metlako and the narrow cascade below it got run.  Here are some teaser pics, I will have more up this week including the full report, video, and pictures.

     -Jacob

all photos by Paul Thomson www.ptnature.com

                                            myself probing Skoonichuck                 First known raft decent of Skoonichuck falls in a raft.                      First legitimate raft attempt at Punchbowl falls.

all  photos by Paul Thomson www.ptnature.com

Tubing Eagle creek

Alex and Nick and I headed up to Eagle Creek again this summer to tube the normal kayak run. I had kayaked it earlier in the year so I knew what we would be seeing. We put in with a throw and go at Skoonichuck, portaged on the trail the class two boulder garden section below the high bridge gorge and put back in right above punchbowl. It was a blast and is a fun low water alternative to kayaking. Between the three of us we ran every runnable drop except the 7 footer that lands on a rock shelf just above the bridge and the top drop of Skoonichuck. Nick even fired up punchbowl. Here is the video.

-Jacob