all photos by Matt King
Got some cool shots of our Trips to the N fork Lewis and Hagen Gorge from Matt King. Ran Hagen with 1600 or so and rising in the EF Lewis. Usually you want 2000 at least, we definitely felt our low level, but it was good to go. If I went back at that level I would use the old broken down road right before the clearcut that spurs off to the left and put in right below the logjam. I am pretty confident this will be the case because it makes sense that there would be a road for when they built the dam. I was tempted to try it out last time, but we went all the way up and had a portage right at the put-in that Matt punched through(wood) then we bashed our boats down to the log dam. Let me know if you try out that road.
I believe this is it. view in satellite form to see road.
We didn't get out of our boats between the log dam and Euphoria falls as usual. I love this creek for this reason. Just flying down the creek is a great day of boating. Matt's shots of Nate and I at Euphoria are pretty cool. He got a good angle that really makes the drop look steep.
Nate at the top of Euphoria.
Myself halfway down the first tier.
Nate exiting the first tier, heading into the lower drop with the log.
The log was not an issue as usual as long as you were in control. You could go under it if you had to and if you were so far left you got stuck between ground and log rescue was as easy as it gets. Luckily none of us had problems and we bombed down to Teakettle. We did see another group there, that was interesting coming around the corner above Euphoria and seeing the bright colors in the scouting eddy! We were not expecting anyone else with the low water.
Teakettle looked good so besides some mixed up beta from me to Nate, everything went well. Even with the misguidance we all stayed upright and headed down to the crack drop.
Myself a half boat width farther right than I wanted.
Nate keeping it upright.
Below here is a narrow little drop that looks like it has a boof on the right, but it is actually pretty ugly. I have ended up in the pocket below on the left twice. This day, one of us didn't make the sneak route on the right and injured his arm in a brace, he was ok by the next day, but watch out for this sneaker between Teakettle and Crack drop. If there is enough water, far far right, almost drying out has been our line of choice the last couple of times and produced successful runs.
We all decided to portage the crack drop, as it looked a lot more hectic today. So I guess I will retract my statement from the last time I ran Hagen that anyone with a roll can run the drop. At the levels we had, it looked like getting your head slammed into a rock was a very likely outcome.
Going deep in the crack drop from last year.
From here to the takeout was fun with some good quality class III-IV drops. We took out and checked out money drop, but there was a bit too much water for those who were considering it. All in all a great day after a long day on Upper Opal creek the day before when we decided to portage Harvey Wallbanger. All I will say about that trip is if you are going to run Upper Opal, watch out for this committing drop. Its hard to scout and the hole below looks like it has some wood in it. You might be able to eddy out and portage just above, but we decided not to risk it. We portaged on the right and it sucked. Not the worst, but pretty bad. (all photos by Matt King)
-Jacob
1 comment:
I smashed the shit out of the bow of my boat in the crack. After it got wedged in the exit of the crack that is.
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