Lacamas Creek

Photo: Priscilla Macy



BETA
1.3 miles

Stream: With a take out less than 30 minutes from downtown Portland, Lacamas Creek is (excluding the novel Willamette Falls and Oswego Creek) the closest challenging whitewater to Portland, OR.  Short and sweet, the run flows out of a dam and flows when it has been raining hard.  It's tucked into Lacamas Creek Park, which in turn is tucked right into the middle of Camas, WA.

From the parking area at the put in, either put in on the reservoir right at the bridge next to where you parked, or shoulder your boat.  Either way, paddle or walk, it's about 1/3 of a mile to the dam.  The run starts on the downstream side of this dam.

Photo: Priscilla Macy

The first drop is the smallest, but least commonly run.  It's about a 5 foot tall ledge, it has a hole and I have heard that if you have seen this place in the summertime without water, the potholes will have you taking this drop seriously.  Some people choose to put in just below this ledge.

Photo: Priscilla Macy

It's easy floating down to the next horizon line at Pothole Falls, scout left.  There are three line choices.  The one that seems most obvious is the middle line, but this line lands in bout 6" of water if you go straight off.  If you choose to run this line drive hard left.  At some levels it's a sweet Boulder Sluice style boof.  But again, if you boof the peak, you will smash the bottom of the river.

 Pothole Falls, all three lines are visible in this image.

Photo: Paul Thomson

The right (but not right wall) line is the easiest, just line it up and bounce 15" into the pool.

Far left is a sloping ramp that goes smoother than it looks, so long as you line it up correctly.

Andrew Bradley, lining it up correctly.

Photo: Priscilla Macy

More easy floating and a 5' ledge leads to a foot bridge.  Be sure to eddy out before this bridge on the left to scout Little Norway, the largest drop of the run.  

Photo from the footbridge: Priscilla Macy

This big slide is intimidating, but good to go.  Wood sometimes collect here, and in 2018 was problematic but still runnable.  It is best scouted and portaged on the left.  Safety can be set at the bottom.  Most people run just to the left of a large hole mid-slide.

Ben Mckenzie makes the final move to the left, avoiding the wood in the runout.

Photo: Priscilla Macy

From the base of Little Norway it is about half a mile of class II down to the take out.  It's worth pre-scouting your take out route, or, risk facing the wrath of the blackerry bushes.

  
Flows:  Lacamas is controlled by a dam and does not have an online gauge, so comes with the uncertainty of such a combination.  If the reservoir is full, and it has been raining the spillage is funneled into the creek so when the reservoir is full it's reliably in on high water days.  Since it's on the way to the Washougal drainage, it's easy to fallback on something in that drainage in the event you get skunked on Lacamas. 

Both times Iv'e run Lacamas, it's been on a day we also ran Hagen.  So 2,000 on the EF Lewis gauge, and 3,000 on the Washougal gauge are good minimums to shoot for.  If the first drop looks runnable, the rest of the creek will too.

Access:  Take Highway 14 into the town of Camas.  Below is a map of the shuttle route, click on it for higher resolution.

Take out:  45.5891, -122.3916

Put In parking:  45.6037, -122.4068

Dam: 45.6005, -122.404

The creek even has cell service!

Photo: Priscilla Macy

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Story
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My first time down was shortly after Dan and his buddy Trevor had the first go at rafting Hagen Creek.  That was fun, and with some time left over Ryan Scott suggested we try out Lacamas Creek nearby.  I hopped in the back of the raft with Trevor and Dan up front, while Matt King, Eric Foster-Moore and Josh Grabel kayaked.  There was hardly any light so we were moving fast.  Everything went smooth, I have a vivid memory of being in the raft below Little Norway, looking up as the three kayakers blue angled the drop, careening down the face all at once on slightly different lines.  We took out as dark set in, with cheers to another loose operation where the bolts held fast.

Jeff Compton guides an R4 team down Little Norway on another trip. 

 Photo: Paul Thomson

My second trip to Lacamas Creek was many years later, at the opposite end of the day.  We set shuttle in the dark after flows were reported as too high on option #1.  This time we were able to move slower and take it in more, Priscilla and Ben even observed a large Beaver sending it into the outflow of the first drop shortly after the sun came up!

 Photo: Priscilla Macy

With the addition time allotted to scouting, we tried out the left line at Pothole Falls which I had in my mind was ultra stout but I know consider the preferred line (at least at the flow we were there).  Adam probed and we were relieved but not surprised that it went so smooth.  Three more of us lined it up and rode the ramp into the pool below.

Little Norway ended up having a pretty prolific wood situation at the base on this trip, I definitely wasn't feeling it this time around but Adam wanted to give it a go.  He checked with the group to see how we felt about him running the drop.  The consensus was we trusted his judgement, but were not comfortable with the risk unless proper safety could be set at the wood.  Andrew and I scrambled out to the problem spot and found the footing manageable enough to feel good about assisting in the event we needed to administer a rescue.  There was no need, Adam executed the line so well it convinced Ben that he wanted to run it too, repeating a perfect line.

Adam Edwards running Little Norway, wood be damned.

Andrew, Priscilla and I chose to hike the trail to the take out, much to Priscilla's chagrin.  It didn't help when we passed some hikers and they told Priscilla they felt sorry she was going to have to carry her boat so far.  I promised her we'd paddle out next time, but the looks got no less dirty :)

With plenty of daylight left, we headed up to the NWF Washougal drainage where loads of paddlers were running Hagen.  Priscilla joined them, while the rest of us headed further up the drainage for something new.

Further up on the NWF Washougal.

Photo: Adam Edwards

           -jacob

NF Toutle: Sediment pond to Kid Valley

Poking around on satellite imagery as I often do when I have some time to kill, I came across an interesting half mile of bedrock whitewater on the NF Toutle that seemed out of place.   The reason it is out of place requires a little background knowledge.  As many in the PNW are aware of,  Mount Saint Helens erupted in a big way in 1980.  There was much devastation, but the form that is relevant to our discussion here is the large debris flows that roared down the Toutle Drainage.  Aside from causing much destruction at the time (reaching all the way to the Columbia River), they left behind large deposits of sediment in the stream-bed.  This turned what was once a classic PNW, class III-IV style stream with canyon walls and greenery into a boulder strewn flood plain. The only distinct rapid left behind was Hollywood Gorge, about 8 miles upstream of the confluence of the Toutle with the Columbia River.

Back to the map perusing, why was there now a half mile of bedrock up on the North Fork of the Toutle that was not mentioned in any whitewater guidance literature?

As it turns out, the sediment laden river-system was causing issues down as far as the Columbia and to remedy the problem a retention structure was built to hold back a portion of the sediment working its way down the drainage.  Initially, the spillway that was there was not something of whitewater value.  However, in 2013 the structure was modified and raised 7 feet.  The history and reasons can be read about on wikipedia.

The modification in 2013 funneled the flow over bedrock that had not been exposed since us humans have been around.  The resulting 1/2 mile of channel drops 184 feet over a multitude of ledges, ramps, and slides.

In December 2017 Priscilla was passing through and scouted out the section from a convenient path on river-right at around 1800 cfs.

It looked big, but we were intrigued to come back sometime with less water and with kayaks.

June 2018 we were taking a trip up to the Cooper River and decided to start the trip off with a run down this section of the NF Toutle.

We set shuttle just below another dam, about 3 miles East of Kid Valley.

2.1 miles upstream was an overgrown road with a gate we dragged our boats down.

In less than a mile we had reached the bank of the NF Toutle and could see the structure and beginning of the gradient downstream.  We walked the path along the right a short ways to scope out some of the eddies and the feel of the run (the whole run can be scouted from this path, 50-100' vertical feet above the river with few visual obstructions).

Things looked good for a first run, so we returned to our boats and launched off the wall into what was about 2" of water.  You see, the structure was doing its job and the sediment was being retained.  So the river was wide, and the water shallow.  It was only a hundred yards to the beginning of the whitewater, but it took 20 minutes as we scooted and walked our boats through the sand.  Each step had us sinking to our ankles, it was not your normal approach to a kayak run.

We reached the start of the whitewater at the retention structure itself, a gentle ramp to a 5' boof.  The sediment had filled in the landing zone, so a boof seemed necessary, even with a boof I landed on sand, though it did not hurt. A week later, Nick Hymel and Brandon Lake did the run and both plugged this drop, neither hit bottom, go figure.

At higher flows when the hydraulic at the base gets large, the retention structure itself could be snuck left or right.

We ferried to river left after the first drop to check out the retaining structure.  There is a trail that leads to this area, it would be an option to use that trail as a put in in the future to avoid the sand dragging upstream (Nick and Brandon used this route and gave it the thumbs up), though the path on river right from which the whole section is scoutable would not be accessible if that route was used.

Checking out the retaining structure

A quick tangent here: while there is nothing illegal about being on this section of river, we all know how muggles can get when they see kayakers kayaking in places like this.  We tried our best (and were successful) at passing through unseen and obeyed all signs indicating where we could not go.  If others choose to paddle here, I urge them to do the same.

After checking things out we walked downstream on river left to scout out the first couple ledges, which we ended up re-scouting from river right.  The first was a short ramp into a hydraulic, then shortly downstream a ledge dropped 5-10'.  During Priscilla's scouting trip, both had been enormous holes.

The first ramp at 1,800 cfs

The second tier at 500 cfs

Next was a bumpy section we ran down the right.  The water spread out below here, with the most obvious low water choice being down a smooth 50' long low angle concrete slab into a 5-10' ramp.

Priscilla sliding down the concrete slab.

Up to this point it had been easy to scout everything at river level on the left or right.

Below here the river split into 3 channels, all channels were sliding sections with ledges.  Far right being 3-4, middle being 4-4+, left being class V.

We started down the left channel, after scouting all the channels we decided to scrape down the far right channel.  As levels increase, so too would the challenge of scouting these channels.

On an after work trip about a week later, Brandon Lake takes the left channel.

Photo: Nick Hymel

When the channels reconvened, there was one last 5-10' drop with a hole on the left.  Priscilla went first and had an entertaining line!  She pulled a large boof but was booted onto her side and landed nearly upside down.  She was able to hold on until the hole spat her out and she rolled up.  That was the end of the half mile of bedrock, we noted it would be easy to get out on river right and walk boats back up the scouting path high on the right to do multiple runs in a day.  We had driving distance to cover that afternoon so settled for one lap this time around.  Downstream of the whitewater we drifted another half mile through gravel bars to a true dam that looks like a large version of the final dam on the Little White Salmon River.  It can be easily portaged on the right.  The take out was just below on the left. 

BETA

  
Flows:  We had 500 cfs in the NF Toutle near Kid Valley.  This was a low, enjoyable flow and I would return at that flow.  Nick Hymel and Brandon Lake returned the next week at 450 and said they would also return at that flow.  Both groups felt more water would be welcomed.

 Priscilla's 1,800 cfs scouting trip showed a class V/V+ section of whitewater.  The photos she took made it look like at that flow it could be the type of run that boaters running the Little White around 5' might enjoy.

Access:  Take Exit 49 off I-5 in Castle Rock.  Follow Hwy 504 20.5 miles to Otto Cook Rd and turn left.  At the end of the road is a circular area to park in at the take out. 
46.3723, -122.5786

Put In A:  From the take out, continue upriver less than 1/4 mile on Hwy 504 before turning right towards the sediment structure on Stewart Dam Rd.  Follow this to the parking area, and hike the trail to it's end at the structure.  There is a break in the fence where you can walk down to the stream.  Brandon and Nick took this route, and I probably would in the future too if levels were conducive to it (medium or low).
46.3642, -122.5595 (trailhead)


Put In B:  The way we did it was to continue upriver on Highway 504 for 2.1 miles from the take out and pull over at the gated road on the right (shown in the photo below).  We dragged our boats to the end of this road, where it meets up with the NF Toutle.  The water is very shallow here, even though the murky water made that hard so see.  We skipped the seal launch for this reason and just set our boats in the sand 1-2" below the surface of the water.  If flows are high, this is probably the way to go, as it allows paddlers to scout the whole run from a trail on river right.
46.3615, -122.545 

*Both hikes are less than a mile.

click to view full sized

Notes:  The run is about an hour North of Portland, it looked like there was a camping option off the take out road down to the dam.  



**While there is nothing illegal about kayaking this section of river, we all know how muggles can get when there are kayakers kayaking in places like this.  If you choose to do this run, please keep this in mind and keep a low profile, with special care near the dam at the take out.