Tangle Blue Creek (Trinity River headwaters)

BETA

2 miles

Stream: This is a class IV-IV+ stream with straight forward access off Hwy 3 that flows into the Trinity River halfway between Etna and Trinity Reservoir.  Above the put in described here the stream is steeper, more bouldery, and has more wood.

The section described below has a wide array of rapids, there are plenty of bedrock ledges, ramps and chutes that tend to be around 5' tall, with boulder gardens in between.  

At the flow we were there, the boulder gardens were clean and fun, low water and they would likely be manky.  There were no log portages in 2019.

There are no gorges, or anything committing.  There are eddies where needed, the scouting is easy and the run is not long, so it's a fine one to sort out for oneself.  It was a pretty consistent run at the flow we were there, with opportunities for breaks in eddies but not pools. 

I'd certainly go back if I was in the area, and it combines well with runs on the Trinity above it's reservoir.

  
Flows:  We had what felt like a perfect flow for the creek the morning of May 30, 2019

 Trinity River above Coffee Creek

Access:  Tangle Blue Creek flows into the Trinity River near it's headwaters, half way between Trinity Reservoir and Etna on Hwy 3.

The most straight forward take out is where Hwy 3 crosses of Tangle Blue Creek (41.232704, -122.645586).  You can take out a bit above or lower down if you like though.

To get to the put in go north on Hwy 3 for 1.3 miles and turn left onto a dirt road passable by a Subaru.  Continue on this dirt road exactly 0.9 miles and walk your boat down the nose of land to the creek (park here: 41.233058, -122.675238).  Upstream of this nose of land the gradient jumps up along with what looked like mank and wood is more of an issue.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trip Report
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I heard about this creek from Bryanna Lyons, who mentioned it had a bunch of ledges around 5 feet tall said I should check it out if I was ever in the area.  She said the run was obscure, but shouldn't be given how easy access is.

At the tail end of a week long trip to California during the last week of May 2019, we found ourselves in the area.  We camped nearby at a place on the main Trinity we could use for a take out and headed up the next morning.  I had determined that while the access road to the put in does reach the creek at a point that could be used as a put in, there was a lot of bouldery gradient up that high, so we walked down a nose of land about half a mile downstream and put in where the gradient dropped from over 400 fpm down to under 300 fpm.  At first glance it seems like there was more water than I was thinking I'd want for exploring the creek, but it turned out to be a perfect flow.

Priscilla ran shuttle for Zach, Ben and I.  We found the creek to be good quality, with lots of 5-ish foot ledges as advertised broken up by fun bouldery rapids.  We had a good time working our way down this creek, doing a mix of shore and boat scouting.

We completed the run into the Trinity and back down to camp.  We were able to paddle everything and there was no class V, or anything that needed to be walked around, just consistently fun IV-IV+ rapids of all sorts.  That afternoon we scouted the headwaters of the Trinity and ran a short section of it, Priscilla and I hiking off after she bruised her shoulder during a swim while Ben and Zach continued another few miles.

Ben on the Trinity headwaters section.

     -jacob