I have been hoping to get on this one for a couple years now. On the maps is an intriguing pinch with high gradient. The levels lined up and while I needed a late start due to wanting to watch my buddy Alex throw javelin in Salem, I figured 3 1/2 hours was enough time to deal with a mile of gradient.
Jay Kirkwood and Anna Herring both agreed to go along on this trip. We met in Summit at 1:30 and were at the takeout by 2. The access was relatively painless for an exploratory trip with a bridge at take out and put in. We got within a half mile of the put in before finding a gate that had not been there when I scouted last year, not an uncommon occurrence in Coast Range. We parked at the gate and hiked in. We were at the river quickly and put in, noting the woody character of the creek. There was a nice class III under the put-in bridge, followed by a fair amount of wood and mank. The creek then became class I-II with a couple log portages before we reached the place I originally planned to put in when I thought we could drive all the way. We paddled some more class I as I assured them that the gradient was coming. Soon we could see the hill creating the pinch and not long after the creek hit it, turned, and some easy sliding bedrock was encountered in the class II range.
The creek started making its bend to the left where it would drop through the hill and we got out to scout our first rapid. A fun III-IV double slide with an ominous horizon downstream. The view scouting this drop was promising with a gorge wall and bedrock. We made the mistake of getting our hopes up before setting eyes on what was an ugly V+ mess with wood and boulders at the bottom. Luckily there was a river level portage that wasn't too bad. A lot of wood had collected in this drop and the boulder garden below it, so we set off on a relatively easy, but still taxing portage down to the next runnable rapid. This was a neat, but manky boulder garden that went a lot smoother than it looked. Jay pointed out a promising line that we all took. At the crux move at the end, Anna went for the 180 and showed us up by greasing the crux stern first! Below here was a III-IV runout before the next short log portage. Below here was a drop that was challenging to scout and involved some leaping to get onto an island where the first part of the rapid was visible. We ended up portaging the top in the name of saving time, but were able to run the lower part, a pinch boof seen in the video below.
Below this rapid the gradient cooled off and had a couple more fun class III-IV sections. I think we scouted one more time before the boogie to the end.
I was still in boat scouting/watch out for wood mode, when Anna passed by me in an eddy giving me a "hey Jacob, its class II now" look and took the lead as we cruised down the runout and one more small slide before getting to the takeout bridge with about 15 minutes of light to spare. In all the trip went well and I had a blast exploring this place I have been eyeing for awhile now. I am not planning a return trip, but it was a good adventure and usually that is enough.
We had a stable 125 cfs in the nearby Sunshine Creek on March 3, 2011 and that was a friendly exploratory flow.
The Siletz gauge was dropping from 4,500 to 3,800 from midnight to midnight. I typically look for the Siletz to be over 4,000 cfs for creeks in that area.
Put in: 44.782027, -123.693687
Take Out: 44.751095, -123.699236
Click on map to enlarge
-Jacob
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