Stream: A short section of bedrock not far off Hwy 22 that flows into the North Santiam near the town of Marion Forks.
It's a novelty run at best, but was worth doing for us under the right occasion. We thought if we were driving from Salem to Bend at the right time of year it could be a nice way to break up the drive. Or if someone was looking for a class IV version of Sweet Creek.
There is a short walk in through the woods, and everything can be scouted either by the standard method of catching eddies and walking down the bank, or before putting on by walking down a rudimentary use trail that parallels the creek on river right.
There was one log that was in the way when we did the run in 2019 that required us to bang down a shallow channel on the left. The rest of the run was clean.
The last horizon is the tallest, and is run down the middle. Below this ledge/ramp the creek returns to boulders and the take out is on the right just below the island in the following photo.
Flows: We were checking this creek out on July 5, 2019. It had some water left due to snow-melt, but it wasn't really "in". Enough for a fun adventure for us, not enough to recommend to others.
These photos were taken from the bridge just downstream of the take out.
The rock circled in the photo was wet, with water washing over it. If it was covered, I think that would be a runnable flow.
July 5, 2019
Access: No need for a shuttle vehicle. Drive to the town of Marion Forks, about 16 miles SE on Hwy 22 from Detroit (between Salem and Bend). Head up Marion Creek Rd 3 miles, there will be a bridge off to the right. 100 feet past this an easy-to-miss road goes to the right into a campground, which is the take out. Scope out/mark the exit from the creek at this point.
To get to the put in drive upstream 1/4 mile, on a short straight away after a right turn and before a left turn park in a tiny pull out to the left. Walk up the road another 100 feet and enter the woods and b-line for the creek.
The walking is easy, there is a final bench to drop down to the creek. If you are in the right spot there will be a log jam above and the first horizon below.
If you want, you can set the boats down before the bench and walk upstream a short distance to take in Gooch Falls. It's not runnable, but is pretty. There is a rudimentary trail that goes down to the campsight from Gooch Falls along the creek, so you can scout everything before putting on if you like.
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Trip Report
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It was the first weekend in July and we had done two week long trips to California in June. I didn't really want to spend much time in a car this weekend, but still wanted to see something new. It had been a good snow year so I thought there might be some water flowing off the Cascades still, so I set about finding a creek that would be capturing that snow melt I had not paddled yet.
I had seen plenty of photos of Marion Creek in the summer-time and it seemed like it held it's water better than rain fed streams of similar size. I had read the Oregonkayaking trip report and while I didn't want to repeat that experience Jason had mentioned in there a section of ledges and slides below Gooch Falls. The maps did show some waterfalls, and there was a bridge downstream that would make for a take out to a half mile section.
Priscilla and I headed up on a Friday with our rock boats, and found the logistics pretty straight forward. We hiked in to Gooch Falls via a short bushwhack. Gouch Falls was worth staring at for a bit before we headed downstream. 50 yards of boulders led to a log jam portage, and just downstream was a horizon line. I recognized this first drop from the OK trip report. We ended up taking a center line instead of the left line.
We found the section below to be just as advertised, 1/4 mile of small ledges and slides. We scouted a number of them, one had a log in the main line that we skirted to the left of. Other than that it was a clean creek bed.
Just below the largest ramp/ledge the creek returned to boulders and I saw a log jam downstream of the next island. I headed over to the right bank to portage and noticed it was at a campsite. I set my boat down and looked around the corner to see the take out bridge, so instead of portaging just left the boats at the campsite and I jogged back up to the car while Priscilla explored a trail heading upstream from the campground.
We decided that we should do another lap, so drove up to a point Priscilla had determined from her trip up the trail from the campsite would drop us in just below the log jam we had portaged at the top on our first lap. This time we didn't have to get out of our boats and were smiling as we hopped out again at the take out.
We both thought we might be back some day to break up a drive between Bend and Salem, feeling it was like a tamer Sweet Creek experience. With more water, maybe we would even leave the rock boats at home.
We still had some time left over so paddled the Breitenbush at the lowest flow I have done yet. We didn't have to get out of our boats and I'd probably even do it again at that flow under the right circumstance. The left side of Sharon's closed out and pinned Priscilla, and we took the second from the left slot at the Notch, everything else went in the normal lines. We took out just upstream of Humbug Creek, as we typically do if flows are low.
-jacob
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