Steelhead

Ran this while in the area doing other things.  We put in on the south fork 100 yards above the confluence with main stem.  We had fun but I wouldn't do it again.  Ben Mckenzie named the rapid halfway down "The Rapid" as it was the only one. It fed under the left wall, but was only a class IV move.  Under a handful of log portages.  Boaters were Ben Mckenzie, Kory Kellum, Andrew Bradley and myself.  Do not recall water levels but Steamboat was medium low and this creek was low, low.  

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Story

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I had injured myself earlier in the day when, while descending down into Toketee Falls, a large rock had been dislodged from above and landed hard on my shoulder.  Anna Herring hiked my boat back out and the group decided to paddle Steamboat Creek instead.  I still wasn't feeling like I could take strong strokes, so was going to just run everyone's shuttle.  At the put in was this dinky little creek with a small ledge.  I figured it was so low I could just rudder down the creek, and still get on the water so told the group I was going to do that while they paddled Steamboat.  For some reason Andrew wanted to join, then Ben and Kory.  Despite my assurances it would not be a creek with any redeemable qualities we went in with a group of 4 while the rest started down Steamboat Creek.

We laughed and giggled our way down this silly creek, pushing ourselves under logs and running exactly one defined rapid.  We got to the take out and even though there was only 15 minutes left of daylight, a rest of the guys decided to add on the 5 mile section of Steamboat creek too.  I jumped out and drove the car that had been left at the confluence down to the take out, while the other three paddled into the growing darkness.

After collecting the people who had begun their day on Steamboat hours ago, we headed back upstream to find the guys who I was pretty sure were hiking out about now.  Ben had bailed about 2 minutes into the trip so we found him near the put in, about 20 minutes later we found Kory and Andrew slogging up a sloppy hillside with big grins on their faces.

You really can't overestimate what boating with people who you can have fun with in any situation brings to the table.  The next day we ran the Gorge Electric for the first time, and the weekend was chalked up as a big success as far as a fun time goes.