Copper Creek

BETA

Notes: Copper Creek has two sections, an upper and a lower.  The lower gets done more often, as it has more picturesque drops.  I like the upper just as much since it is action packed read and run the whole way, with a couple notable drops near the beginning.  The caveat is that it needs more water than the lower to be fun (2,000 cfs is enough).  The roads into Copper can be driven by most vehicles, but something with clearance is definitely preferred, especially for the upper.

Andrew Bradley and I have hiked upstream from the footbridge at the upper put in to where the creek forks and paddled down from there.  It's not bad, but also not interesting enough that I would do it often - probably just the once to see what was up there.
  
Flows:  You can run the lower section as low as 1,000 cfs on the EF Lewis sometimes.  Sometimes that is too low, and there really isn't a way to tell the level without driving up there.  1,500-2,000 cfs will always be in.  People sometimes complain about how the stuff between the named drops can be rocky, but at the flows needed to pad the in-between, the named stuff is class V.  If class V sounds great to you, look for 2k+ on the EF Lewis gauge.  The upper section does not paddle well at low water.

Access:  A flows are low-ish and you are just running the lower, I prefer taking out at the Dole Valley Road Bridge.  If flows are up I would probably choose to skip the secret stash and take out at King Creek.

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Original Write-up
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After getting foiled by high water on Eagle Creek, we ran Copper Creek again.  It has become our go to creek recently.  We had a decent flow with 1500 on the EF Lewis and rising to 2,000 cfs while we were on the creek.  This was a nice medium level, and felt padded.  Once again we used the upper put-in for the run.  This is definitely the right choice in my mind when there is enough water.  The upper has a couple nice bedrock rapids, and a lot of fun boogey.  Matt was the only one who ran the Weir this day,  it had a tree limb in the center that he avoided, but everyone else decided it wasn't worth the trouble.  He missed the log, punched the hole, and paddled away upright.

Matt on the Weir.

(photo by Nate Merrill)

From here to the lower bridge was fun read and run class IV.  No real wood issues in this section.  Once below the bridge, there is narrow ledge run on the right.  Just below the ledge we eddy out immediately on the right to portage Certain Death.  If you want to run Certain Death I guess you could go a bit lower, but we all knew we weren't going to run it before we got there.  We walked certain death along the track on the right, then found somewhere to seal launch.  There was a log in the water, but Matt fixed it so it's not there anymore.  Below Certain Death, the it's easy read and run to Triple delight, one of the better rapids in the area.  It starts with a two foot ledge that I like to run leftish, because the right side funnels strongly into a slot that is hard to stay upright through.  I took Matt over blind his first time, giving him the left, left, left beta.  In the second(crux drop) Two of us hit the boof on the left, one hit the boof pretty far right, and one of us got sucked into the slot, resulting in a pretty interesting line down the rest of the drop!

Here is Eric Foster-moore dropping the final tall ledge in Triple delight.

(photo by Nate Merrill)

Below here were a few more bedrock drops, some fun slides, ledges, and flumes, all with good sized holes at this level.  One sent Eric airborn!  He was able to pull off a catlike move to keep it upright though.  This section was lots of fun and before too long we rolled into the eddy above Final Five.  After taking a look at the headwall drop, I decided I wasn't in the mood and joined Nate, and eventually Eric in the portage.  This left only Matt, who decided to fire off the entire canyon.  To complicate things, the landowner was firing off gun shots.  Not sure whether he knew we were there, we kept a low profile regardless and seal launched in above the final double drop to keep out of his land, but the gunshots were still a little unnerving given the problems that have arisen here in the past.  Matt didn't let the nerves get to him and paddled the entire series, with a roll in the third drop against the undercut wall in the left eddy and perfect lines elsewhere.

Matt approaching the headwall.

(photo by Nate Merrill)

Myself seal launching below the headwall drop.

(photo by Matt King)

After the seal launch, Eric and I decided to take the easy line and ran the final double drop left, left.

Eric driving left at the first ledge of the Final Drop in Final Five Canyon.

(photo by Matt King) 

Myself ducking some branches while getting where I want to go in final drop

  (photo by Matt King)

 I might add that the bottom hole on the right side of the final drop was looking sticky at this flow, so paddlers running the main channel would do well to set safety.

    Below here we joined the EF Lewis, which was good fun at this level.  We cruised down to Horshoe falls and scouted to see if we could take advantage of the elevated water levels to run a line we hadn't done before.  We decided to do the triple bounce on the left and all went deep into the aerated landing. 

Below here was uneventful, and we finished the run happy with another great run on Copper Creek!

  -Jacob