Clackamas River Festival 08'

A great festival with tons of boaters, 90+ degree weather, 9,000 cfs in the river, and well organized events, as well as a great after party complete with complementary food from Next Adventure and Ryan Scott's new video Local Scrapbook VI showing made for a great day at the river. It was so much fun. There was too much going on to right about so I made the video as usual. We found a fun playspot on fish creek with great eddy access that some people where asking about so that is in the video along with the big air ramp and some fun in the big ledge at Carter's. -Jacob

Little North Santiam: Upper Opal

Photo: Priscilla Macy


BETA

Stream: Upper Opal is similar to the Classic run, but a little more serious and involves a hike instead of a walk to the put in.  The full run begins in Jawbone Flats, though sometimes people get tired of carrying their boat and put in at Sawmill Falls/Cascadios Los Ninos.

It's worth making the push up to Jawbone at least once, if just to check out out the town.  At the confluence of Battle Axe Creek and Opal Creek Proper (visible from Jawbone), the Little North Santiam River is formed and this is the beginning of the Upper Opal run.  There is some easy floating up here as the stream carves through one of the most beautiful portions of Oregon.  The whitewater quickly picks up and one seven foot horizon line (worth a look on your hike up) presents a fun slide.   

Less than 1/4 mile after passing under a bridge, the horizon line at Sawmill Falls/Cascadios De Los Ninos presents itself.  Most people scout on the left where there is an easy walking route if you wish to portage or do laps.  At first glance this appears to be a straight forward falls, and at medium levels and up it is.  However as levels drop you start to realize there are shallow spots all over the place on this falls so scout carefully.  Far right and far left are the worst.  The higher the level the less likely one is to land on a rock.

Alan Bergman right on target.  If flows are much below 1,100 cfs, there is a real chance of landing on a rock (under the veil in the photo) here too.  The boof flake marked by the orange arrow is good to go at all flows, though lining it up can be tricky so again, scout this drop thoroughly at all levels.

The whitewater picks up below Sawmill/Cascadios De Los Ninos though it never reaches true class V at the recommended levels.  At high flows there may be a couple rapids you would be forced to run blind that the typical Opal Creek boater would rather portage, so I'd stick with between 700-2,000 cfs unless you know the run well.

Below Sawmill/Cascadios De Los Ninos there is some scenic floating.  When things pick back up there will be some read and run and then a blind rapid with some large boulders that can be scouted and run on the left (second photo in this report).

The very next rapid is the nearly must-run Harvey Wallbanger.  Eddy out along the left bank (entering the island on the right side will dictate running the rapid blind) and walk downstream to take a peak for wood.  

                                       Looking down into Harvey Wallbanger from the scout.

There are no big moves in Harvey Wallbanger, just stay right and keep your boat pointed downstream.  There are two soft holes in the narrow bottom portion of the rapid, but I have never seen them give anyone trouble.

Jesse Shapiro lining up the two narrow holes.

                                                              Photo: Lucas Rietmann

Most people catch an eddy on the left just below these two holes and before the exit move.  For the exit move paddlers build up as much speed as can be mustered and ride a strong left stroke through a plucky hole into an alleyway.  It is possible to set safety here on the left side.  There is a large pool below in the event of a swim though for what it is worth, I have never seen anyone have trouble here.

                                                                  Ross George pulls through.

                                                                                Photo: Lucas Rietmann

The river gorges up again a short ways downstream for another fun rapid, both channels are fun, I try to stay off the far left wall though.   A short ramp below leads out of the gorge and attentive boaters will soon notice road abutments high on the right and get ready for Coyle's Boil.  The stream builds from class II-III along a river-right boulder bar here, as it turns back to the right there is a steep III+ rapid leading right into Coyle's Boil (portaged more often than not).  You must catch one of the eddies at the base of the III+ before going over the short drop that is Coyle's Boil.  People generally catch the river right one, then ferry over to river left to portage.

Eric Adsit ferries from river right to river left just above Coyle's Boil, with the III+ rapid visible just upstream.

Photo: Priscilla Macy

The line at Coyle's Boil.  

This one gets more runnable as levels increase above 1,000 cfs.

                                                                                  Photo: Priscilla Macy


The portage is short and easy on the left.  If you are the curious type, check out the mine shaft on river left.  You can make your way some distance back there.

                                                                                 Photo: Lucas Rietmann


There is a ledge just below Coyle's Boil that looks like it has a sweet boof on the right, do not take that line as it lands on a rock with face-rearranging capabilities.  Instead run center-right or center-left, it's worth a quick scout for the smoothest line if you don't have a guide.

A hundred yards of easy water lead to the final ledge.  If levels are up I recommend scraping down the shallow right side of the ledge.  If levels are lower check out the left side "Hypoxia Hole".

Take out in the pool below this ledge on the right and walk the road back up to the gate, or continue through Classic Opal.  Ambitious boaters with an early start sometimes try for Total Opal (Jawbone through Salmon Falls) by tacking on Opal Gorge.
  


Flows:  If you are showing yourself down this run without a guide for the first time my recommendation is 800-2,000 cfs in the Little North Santiam at Mehama.

5.3 on the Elkhorn Gauge is my low-end cutoff for Upper Opal.

Access:  Take I5 to Salem and head East on Hwy 22.  In about 22 miles turn left at a flashing yellow light onto N Fork Rd.  In about 15 miles the road turns to gravel, and at 21 miles you will reach a gate where you leave the vehicles, a location that has a $5 fee to park.  You will walk back to the this gate at the end of the day if you are only doing Upper Opal (this is rare, most people continue through Classic Opal).

If you are continuing through Classic Opal or Opal Gorge, refer to those pages for other take out options. 

To get to the put in from the gate, carry your boat past the locked gate up the gravel road about 3 miles to Jawbone Flat along a nice gravel road.  Put in wherever is clever in town, I usually choose to put in at the bridge over Battle Axe Creek.

Some people who tire of carrying their boat put in at Sawmill Falls/Cascadios De Los Ninos, which is an obvious feature about 2 miles into the hike.

Collawash

The plan was to get an early start and run Rock creek, the water was too low. Next option was the Truss, I wanted to run something new. Next option was the middle Collawash, the road was closed. Next option was the Hot Springs Fork and possible park and huck of Blister Creek falls. We got snowed out a mile and a half out. Instead of doing fish to bobs. We decided to do a roadside run that looked interesting enough with a couple interesting-ish rapids(good idea Neil). This turned out to be a decent fall back but I think I will just settle for a well known classic run for the next couple weeks. The run was interesting with one drop that was an easy class four with a nice hole on the bottom right. The run was very pretty and had clear water. There was some fun play and we made the best of the mile long run. I will let the video do the rest of the talking.

Eagle Creek in kayaks

I finally ran Eagle Creek in the gorge in a kayak at the beggining of spring break. I had run a variety of the drops before in an innertube, K-mart raft, and just swimming off the falls. I was there with Eagle creek veterans Theron Jourdan and John Jansky. The hike in was not fun, I don't know how people deal with the eleven mile hike into Cherry Creek when four miles was this difficult! The run was awesome, but I don't have the time now for an entire report. The drops where all great, very high quality. I was the only one to pass on Skunichuck with two others cleaning it and one roll between the two drops. Two drops above Punchbowl there is a log in the near vertical log making a portage the recomended choice by way of seal launch on the right. Punchbowl was great, my line was to drive high onto the pillow and hold a right draw stroke into my tuck as I came off and this worked great. Everyone rolled at the bottom which made sense given the type of drop it was. There was one broken paddle and one accidental freewheel that made for some excitement. Punchbowl seems to have a much lower "clean it" rate than Skunichuck from what I have seen both in video and in person. The last bit of info I will add is that I chose to hike back down to the river at a spot just past the second cliff as you are hiking out. The trail is on the far side of a rock slide and is not a difficult hike back down to the creek. This makes getting out of there much more enjoyable and the creek is moving along class II-III from here to the take out and it also saves a lot of time. A thanks to Theron and John for showing me down the creek and Alex for hiking along and videotaping and carrying food. Nice to meet Rick as well. Here is the video -Jacob

King Creek

Theron Jourdan and I ran King Creek last weekend. The small tributary of the East Fork Lewis that comes in at the take out for the waterfall run/Copper creek. I used google Earth and mapquest to figure out the put in and that worked great. The logging roads we where using were suprisingly not gated and things went pretty smoothly. Our first put in choice turned out to be down a private road so the next option required a 3/4 mile hike in.

   

When we arrived at the put-in, there was just enough water to float a boat. Our first portage was just downstream, then we where able to run close to half a mile of whitewater without another portage. Somewhere in here a tributary bumped the flow and made the eddies more defined. The next mile was class two with about three easy portages (all the portages in the first half of the trip where easy). There where often signs of bedrock and a few class two slides presented themselves, enough to get us excited, but no real drops occurred in this section. We passed a couple more bridges and were pleased by the low amount of wood for such a small creek.

Theron after our fourth portage.

Before too long we could see the clear cut high up on the right that signaled the last mile, the 200+ foot per mile section. Right about here the wood started to pile on. The creek got steeper with some bouldery class four, most of which we had to portage because of wood issues, and the eddies got tough to find.

Theron in the runout to one of the class four rapids we ran, just downstream was a log jam.  Standard fare on obscure creeks of this nature.
We had a couple tricky portages in here, one included throwing the boats from a log across the creek into an eddy. A couple times in this section Theron had his paddle almost ripped from his hands, this was scary because of how challenging the eddies were to catch. A couple times I thought I had seen an eddy from about, but it turned out not to be and I had to scramble to shore and grab on to rocks to keep from getting swept into a log. When there where no eddies we would just drive our boats onto some shallow areas and hop out. The final couple hundred yards held the most challenging section. Theron was in the lead and was reading and running down a class four section that was starting to be pretty fun when he broached himself on a rock to see downstream. I couldn't tell what he was looking at but when he un-pinnned himself he charged left and drove into a tough eddy and signaled me down. I saw him take his throw-bag out for the first time so I was a little worried about what might be downstream of this eddy should I miss it. Luckily I stayed in control and boofed into the eddy. I looked downstream and saw the only real horizon line of the day. We got out and looked and were both glad we had caught the eddy. Some people have hiked up the creek a ways from the takeout, including a group of boaters we bumped into at the take out and from what we could tell, this drop is what people call "the waterfall" on this creek.  It drops about 10-12 feet over two steps. The second step has a log that would require a rail slide and boof to avoid a aerated room boxed in by wood.

The room

The drop looked doable in a video game sort of way, we chose to take a sneak route down the left.  Below here where a couple logs to dodge, then we dropped over the ledge visible from the takeout on the left. From here we flowed into the EF Lewis then ferried across and we where at the take out. The logistical challenges and puzzling were more interesting than the whitewater, and I had a good day on the water. I won't be back, but I'm glad to have had this little adventure.

King Creek as it enters the EF Lewis
March 16, 2008

EF Lewis River Near Heisson gauge

The section of King Creek we ran is highlighted in yellow below.

      -Jacob

Backflip

Nick lands a backflip in Utah, very cool. This was his third day ever trying one and he has them down pretty smooth by the looks of it.

Grays River

We ran the Grays River Saturday with the ORT group and a few kayakers from Seattle. It was a great level for a first trip and a good kayak level. It was a little low for the rafts though. Superbowl was Super fun and Picnic was pretty manky but still fun. The first gorge was class four and had some wood but was really fun.

Theron about to plug under the branch in front of him. Dave and Matt in the first gorgeSeattle boater driving left at Superbowl.ORT crew chargin Superbowl.Neil taking the center line.John drops the ledge in superbowl.John dropping into the turbulent second drop.Seattle boater resurfacing in the second hole.I dont have time for a full report but I got a video to put up.

ORT dropping into Picnic.The gorge Picnic drops into.

Take out near an old covered bridge

-Jacob