Eric was going to boat scout this next section, but we decided to take a look and this saved him from a blind send of a 40' vertical falls into a pool with a highly suspect depth. This falls may be runnable, but it was hard to see with all the brush. I might go back in the summer to check out the depth of the pool (A Summer scout a few years later confirmed a pool of marginal depth).
Following this were two more large waterfalls, the first landed on rock and was about 50' tall, the second was a slide to vertical that looked good except for a log across the lip.
Below the waterfalls the creek was all bedrock for awhile, blind and twisty class III/IV slides and ledges. There was wood present, but I'm not sure if we had to walk anything for awhile. After this I figured the run was over and would be flat till the end, but whenever I thought this was the case we would find another section of class III-IV bedrock slides. The longest drop on this run below the falls would have been challenging to scout, but with the low levels we were able to just walk down the creek bed for a look.
Eventually we were portaging a log and saw a horizon line downstream, we scouted on a trail on the right side and saw that there was a nice waterfall here! It was about fifteen ft with a short ledge just above. The main drop was smooth and Chris dubbed it "Muddy Boof Falls" because he dried out in the center of it and hit some plant matter/dirt in the center of the drop and that caused the falls to be muddy for a couple minutes. Also it was a nice boof at the bottom. If this was a run that was going to get repeated very often we might have whipped out the Thesaurus, but I doubt this run is going to get much future traffic outside of adventurous locals. Below here I don't recall any rapids and the logs started piling up. There were probably just under ten in this section. Overall we were approaching twenty portages.
Following this were two more large waterfalls, the first landed on rock and was about 50' tall, the second was a slide to vertical that looked good except for a log across the lip.
Below the waterfalls the creek was all bedrock for awhile, blind and twisty class III/IV slides and ledges. There was wood present, but I'm not sure if we had to walk anything for awhile. After this I figured the run was over and would be flat till the end, but whenever I thought this was the case we would find another section of class III-IV bedrock slides. The longest drop on this run below the falls would have been challenging to scout, but with the low levels we were able to just walk down the creek bed for a look.
Eventually we were portaging a log and saw a horizon line downstream, we scouted on a trail on the right side and saw that there was a nice waterfall here! It was about fifteen ft with a short ledge just above. The main drop was smooth and Chris dubbed it "Muddy Boof Falls" because he dried out in the center of it and hit some plant matter/dirt in the center of the drop and that caused the falls to be muddy for a couple minutes. Also it was a nice boof at the bottom. If this was a run that was going to get repeated very often we might have whipped out the Thesaurus, but I doubt this run is going to get much future traffic outside of adventurous locals. Below here I don't recall any rapids and the logs started piling up. There were probably just under ten in this section. Overall we were approaching twenty portages.
We had low water. Just enough to be considered kayaking. This run would probably only be a true run if everything was just sort of flood, and preferably some of the wood near the end disappeared, even though these lower portages were not difficult. When Sweet creek is too high, this probably goes. We had 450 in the NF Alsea, 1500 SF Yamhill, and 2500 in the Luckiamute. You would probably want around 1000 in the NF Alsea, and 2500 in the SF Yamhill. At flows higher than this, the fun factor would go up, along with the stress factor.
Thanks to Chris Arnold, Eric Arlington, and Josh Grabel for carrying their boats through the woods with me, along with kayaking a bit. Also to Chris Gabrielli for helping with shuttle and helping us figure out portage routes.
Put In: 44.7123, -123.5922
Take Out: 44.687, -123.5963 or wherever you can find.
Headwaters of the Yaquina River from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.
-Jacob
Put In: 44.7123, -123.5922
Take Out: 44.687, -123.5963 or wherever you can find.
Headwaters of the Yaquina River from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.
-Jacob
Any chance you could shoot me some directions (Roughly). I live in Corvallis and would like to check it out. Possibly floatie parts on a hot summer day. Thanks
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