East Fork Hood; Upper

                                            

3.8' with a big diurnal at Tucker, on a day we got a raft down.  Photo: Tim Brink

Beta

4.5 miles

Stream:   The old put in used to be up at Sherwood campground, but in recent years there has been a couple wood issues between there and the Hwy 35 crossing a short ways downstream.  As a result most people put in at the Hwy 35 bridge these days.  If you do put in higher you will be treated to the only bedrock on this run, in the form short sloping ramp.

The ramp

The stream changes year to year, but is uniform in character.  That character is continuous steep and bouldery rapids with fun boofs and soft holes. No pools!  It's fast reaction boating and some people find it to be fun, others don't.  The steepest part of the run starts about 1/4 mile below the Hwy 35 put in and continues for about 1 mile.  This is fun read and run whitewater if you know the wood situation beforehand.  But if you don't, anything blind can be scouted.



After about 1 mile of continuous maneuvering the stream slows a bit, but it is still continuous class III-IV route finding down to the take out bridge.  If you don't have current beta on the wood situation, be cautious your first time down, then take a second lap!

Flows:   As of 2018 there is a painted gauge at the take out bridge where Hwy 35 crosses over the EF Hood near Dog River West Trailhead.  This gauge lines up roughly with the foot level of the Hood River at Tucker gauge when there is snowmelt.  In the Winter, the EF bridge gauge often reads 1'-2' less than the Hood Gauge.

4.5'-5.5' at the bridge gauge is the friendliest range.  It is still fun down to 4' but expect to hit a fair number of rocks, and it's possible even lower than that but is less enjoyable for most hard shell kayakers.  I do not know what the upper range is.

Some data points 

Access:  Take Hwy 35 out of Hood River, a couple miles shy of 20 you will cross the EF Hood at the take out, this is the bridge with the gauge (45.464787, -121.570097).  Continue upstream another 5 miles or so to the put in where the highway crosses the EF Hood again (45.410877, -121.570676).

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Original write-up
The second lowest trip Iv'e done down the Upper EF Hood

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July 12, 2007, headed to the Upper East fork of the Hood when the Truss didn't pan out.  We were surprised the EF still had water in July, even if it was pretty low. We put in right below the beginning of the Worm and ran down to a roadside pullout 0.8 miles downstream. It seemed longer because we scouted most of the river due to it being steep, low, and with wood present.

Typical Upper East Fork Hood

The run was III-IV, but a flip would have been painful, and a swim even more undesirable than usual.

Nick running my favorite drop on the run, it is not all pictured here.

Then Nick and I headed over to Punchbowl falls on the West Fork Hood for a couple laps, we had fun goofing off over there. The easiest hike back to the top of the falls was on river right, and this meant that the most convinient way back into the river was a nice seal launch pictured here. You can hike up the other side which we have done in the past, but we preferred this route. The hole at the bottom was not sticky at this level, but was still powerful for how little water was going down the gut as Nick shows in this sequence (the same thing happened to me).
-Jacob