Tire Creek

Photo: Nick Hymel                            Paddler: Ross George

Tire Creek is a silly little creek that flows into Dexter Reservoir about 30 miles SE of Eugene.

It caught Emile's attention because even though it is so small, it is well channelized through interesting bedrock features and finally one day Ben went and soloed it.  He swam in the first rapid so that caught all our attention since Ben doesn't swim very often.

Ben, redemption run on Flat Tire.

Not long after Ben's trip, another opportunity presented itself when everything seemed too high, which meant Tire might be perfect.  We headed down and Ben made it through the put in rapid without swimming, while the rest of us put in below.  Downstream were a couple ledges and then the main event at the bridge, a series of small ledges leading into a ten foot drop that was hard to stick but not particularly challenging to roll up after.

Ross, finessing it.

We took out here, pleasantly surprised by this fun little slice of bedrock boating and headed up to Staley Creek.

Two less than perfect lines from Tire Creek are shown between 1:56 - 2:20 in this video by Nick.

Clean Lines, Good Times from IKNick on Vimeo.

I don't recommend traveling to run Tire Creek, but if you are a Eugene local you might get a kick out of sliding down it once or twice when everything else is blown out.  The part we ran is less than 1/4 mile long.

Logistics:  Just drive to the lowest bridge over Tire Creek, the best part is visible right there (43.7968, -122.5537).  Figure out a place to put in a short way upstream, the further you go the more wood issues there are, but also there are some more rapids to pick off up high.  The more water the better, we had 5-6k on this gauge.  I would look for a closer gauge to use in the future though, probably Winberry Creek.  We there sometime in the first half of February, 2015.

    -jacob