Briggs Creek: Middle

 BETA

2.7 mi hike and paddle, no shuttle.  Class III-IV(IV+)

Stream: A short, quality hike-in run not too far from the Rogue Valley.  After hiking in, boaters decide whether to tackle the put in rapid or not.  The top of the rapid is fun, a set of narrowing ledges.

The second part of the rapid is a hallway with an undercut boulder blocking most of the water, the line appears to be to the right of the boulder, but I walked this part when I paddled the creek.

Downstream the creek enters a boogie section with a few fun ledges that pop up amidst the boulder gardens.

When the creek steepens slightly the next notable rapid appears at an island and should be scouted.  The left line is a fast flume that pillows off the left wall, and a right channel that is runnable at higher flows.  This pushes quickly into a small ledge best run left.

Downstream the whitewater continues with read and run, and another ledge or two down to the confluence with Red Dog Creek.

Below Red Dog Creek it's class II-II+ down to the take out.

  

Flows:  Like a lot of the small creeks in the area, flows can be hard to nail down.  Here are the 3 data points I have, using the two most common proxy USGS gauges in the area.

-Yellow bars are dates that were just barely floatable, too low for a repeat trip.  

-Blue bar was from the friendly medium flow day.

Chetco @ Brookings USGS gauge

Illinois @ Kerby USGS gauge

There are some more flow musings on the Lower Briggs report.

Access:   

Put In:  42.40131014049408, -123.73591864665532

Take Out:  42.37701161080251, -123.76343377340532

It's good to mark the take out when dropping the vehicle.  Then, cross Soldier Creek and start following the old road uphill and upstream, a map is nice for the first quarter mile.

Once moving upstream the hike along the road is easy-going (you could drive it with an ATV if you can cross Soldier Creek), eventually reaching a slightly open area and the road starts to drop to the creek.  Don't follow the road, instead head off to the right and find the trail. 

 Follow that trail upstream another mile or so and you will pass the obvious put in rapid.

If you walk another 100-200 yards, a trail will head sharply uphill to the right, stay left and put in when the trail reaches the creek in less than a minute.

Watch out for poison oak, it can be avoided but is often present.

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Story/Notes
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I had run lower Lower Briggs Creek years ago, and while that last section before reaching the Illinois River is the obvious whitewater run, my eye had drifted upstream on Briggs Creek as well.  Up there the gradient was lower, and the access less obvious.  I had written it off as likely class III with wood.

Fast forward a number of years and I'm more interested in class III-IV than I once was, and while visiting Priscilla's parents in Grants Pass decided to have a look.  The first time we checked it out, we thought flows would be too low so just went for a hike.  Turns out the flows looked ideal, and we should have given it a go.

Yann on the scouting trip, shortly before his dog found a discarded diaper full of diarrhea, which the dog found delicious.

The next time we were in the area, we weren't going to miss another opportunity, so when the Illinois gauge (the default gauge for an area without many gauges) showed higher flows than our scouting trip we set out with an ambitious plan.  The shuttle was very roundabout and would have been 2 hours one way, so instead of spending many hours in a car that day, we drove to the put in, with the plan to hike back up the trail from the take out.  I did as much searching the internet as I could to ascertain the condition of the trail, but it seemed people hadn't reported hiking it straight through in many years, so I was worried about the middle section being overrun as many trails in the area are not maintained.

We put on to lower water than we had hoped from, and drifted downstream. 

 The first bit was pretty and intimate, but lacking much whitewater.  There was a log portage or two, but nothing problematic or annoying.  In fact, the first few miles were rather unremarkable whitewater-wise, so we just enjoyed the setting; an unmolested forest with clear water and pitcher plants.

Eventually, we reached the middle section of the run, which turned out to be the good part.  This is the section described on this page in the "Stream" section, and the part I would return to with the better logistical situation and better whitewater.

We worked our way through this section, which I thought was high quality intermediate whitewater with a couple more notable rapids that Priscilla walked and I paddled through.  We wished that flows had been at the level of our scouting trip, but it is often the case that our exploratory trips are done at low water and I'm ok with that.

We reached Red Dog Creek and while we could have started our hike back upstream here for a shorter hike, I wanted to paddle down to the more logical take out "for the sake of completeness" as Pete G would say.

After the last mile of boulder bars we set up our packs and began the 5-6 mile hike back up to our vehicle at the put in.  The first couple miles were easy, and we had done it before on our scouting trip (this is the hike recommended for the run, starting at the take out, and hiking up to the intersection with the Phone Trail).  Once we passed the put in for the middle section, I ferried across the creek to see if the trail still existed on river-right as shown on the maps.  It did not.  So we took the backup option which was to climb steeply uphill on the Phone Trail, we crossed our fingers it connected like it showed on the map and grunted out the 800' vertical gain over 1/4' mile and were glad to see it meet up with a marked road. 

High above the creek.

 It was here that I worried the trail would not continue, but I felt relief to realize that it did, so back down we went as the trail headed upstream, and we completed the bypass of the discontinued section of trail, reaching Briggs Creek near the Courier Mine and Onion Creek confluence.  Here we descended a little further than we should have, and Priscilla did not walk to retrace or route, so we hiked up the banks of the creek for 45 minutes or so until the map showed that the trail was not too high above us and we headed up the hill and regained the trail. 

Orange dots show our detour route.

 It was in a burned area, so we would lose it at times but eventually, we were out of the recent burn and the trail became easier to follow.

The trail became a two-track mining "road" for ATV's at some point, and crossed the creek a couple more times.  We made it back to the put in with light to spare, tired and beat, but satisfied.  

We headed out along Taylor Creek, instead of the Onion Valley route we had come in on, and checked the Taylor Creek gauge as a reference for next time.

Too low for Taylor, too low for a repeat of Middle Briggs.

We had a cool adventure, but I'd recommend any boaters with interested in these parts of Briggs to stick to the middle or lower sections and avoid the upper half of what we did.

SF Coquille: Sru Lake Section

Stream: This is a short IV+ section of the South Fork Coquille River adjacent to Sru Lake that ends in a beautiful 30'+ waterfall, and pairs well with a run down nearby Woodenrock Creek.

There is a section of warm up below the put in bridge that lasts a mile or so and is easy floating. You might find a surf wave or two and some places to get your edges under you.

The river pools up before turning right and dropping through Neckin' which is the standout rapid on the run, a narrow flume with fun hydraulics.

 Neckin'

A hundred yards of read and run leads to the next notable rapid in the form of a spread-out boulder garden, which can be scouted from the road before putting on or river left from the river.  There was wood blocking the intuitive right line in 2017, but we found a way down the left.

Read and run continues a short way before the river drops over a short horizon line that had us scrambling to the left bank for a scout.  This drop is not visible from the road, and ends with a significant hydraulic.

More class III and IV whitewater continues downstream, while there are generally no wood blockages, brush often obscures the route.  Picking lines from the road during the shuttle saves time on the river.  

A distinct ledge signals the upcoming finale, a 30 foot waterfall that has numerous lines to chose from.  It can be scouted from the left before putting on and from the right if floating downstream.

Ledge above the waterfall.

A waterfall with many lines. 4' on the 16 mile gauge.

                                                               2' on the 16 mile gauge.

Take out in the pool below on the left to avoid entering the Cataracts of the South Fork Coquille.

Flows:       We were there March 30, 2017 and flows felt like a friendly medium.

Then again on Jan 3, 2020 which was a pushy medium.

There is a gauge below the 16 mile bridge, 2-4' is medium.

Access:  From Powers, OR drive upstream along the SF Coquille on NF - 33 for 16.5 miles at which point you will cross the SF Coquille at the take out for "The Gem".  Continue along the road, taking your next left less than 1/2 mile past The Gem take out bridge.  Follow this road (NF-3348) 3.4 miles and park along the side of the road adjacent to the take out waterfall along the SF Coquille.  There is a tributary falls that drops in right next to the road in this area to confirm you are close to the right spot.  42.7244, -124.0117

Photo of some happy campers and the tributary waterfall at the take out.  

To get to the put in, continue upstream along NF - 3348 for 2.3 miles.  There is a large pull out and bridge crossing the stream.  The easiest access to the river is on river-right.  42.7466, -123.9996

The arrow is pointing to the take out.

Lawson Creek

Stream: Lawson Creek is another tributary to the Illinois River I have had my eye on for awhile. We had planned and failed to run this creek a few times, but after getting some solid beta from Sean Bowen we really had the bug and made it happen the next weekend.  Sean not only hiked in to check out the access trail and take photos of the level (no gauge on this run), but got us in touch with his friend Jim who agreed to run our shuttle!  

We ran Woodenrock Gorge and the top section on the South Fork Coquille the day before Lawson, and were almost stymied by a log blocking the road we were planning to use.  Despite the best effort of some locals, it wouldn't be clear for a few more days.

We had put enough effort into planning for Lawson that we didn't want to give up.  I looked on the Gazetteer and saw three alternate routes.  One was a long shot due to snow and lots of recent windfall, another we had just been told by a local had too much snow to get his 4 wheeler through, and the third was a 4 hour detour.  

We went for the long shot, expecting at every corner to find a landslide or tree blocking the road, then as we climbed, a snow drift.  The only things of note we found was this neat little roadside grotto and a multitude of waterfalls also visible from the road.

45 minutes later we were back on track and headed to Lawson Creek!  We camped that night at Agness Bar where we were planning to use the pay phone to get in touch with Jim the next morning.

As it turns out the payphone has been out of commission for a few years now, but the camp host was friendly and offered to let us use his phone.  The only problem he told us is his phone only works for local calls.  This was just fine for us, since Jim is as local to the area as it gets!

We met Jim at Oak Flat, the take out for Lawson Creek, and headed up towards our put in at the Fry Place.   During the shuttle Jim gave us some good intel about a time he hiked up the creek from the bottom.  He had gone a mile or two before being turned back by a small waterfall with vertical walls.  This added some trepidation to the trip, but we felt confident we would be able to deal with it since he said it was no more than 10' tall and that he actually hadn't really tried very hard to climb around it.  Part way up the shuttle route, a family waved us down and told us the road was blocked a couple miles up by logging.  Having come this far, we were not going to turn around without seeing for ourselves.  A couple miles later we came to the operation where heavy machinery was being used to clear debris from the road, the operators moved their vehicles and waved us through with a "hang loose" sign.  There were a couple turns past this point I had brought a map to figure out, but Jim knows the area well and he took us right to the spot.

We geared up and Jim checked out the ridge and Fry place, he gave us some more intel on what might be the best route to drop in on and where the trail used to be.  He watched us from a ridge line and we waved every now and then along our descent. 

Eventually I could no longer see him on the ridge and my mind shifted focus to the creek, where the rapids were looking more difficult than I had expected them to be at this point.  The final drop down to the creek had some poison oak, and neither of us came away clear from that on this trip.  Next time I would take a slightly different course I describe below in the access section.

Getting close.

Priscilla and I talked about the challenge of the rapids at the put in and what that might mean about the rapids downstream.   She was nervous, and I was nervous for her, but we both decided we were ok with the situation.  Optimism won out and we pushed off into the first set of rapids, and committed to whatever it was that was going to come down-river.

GoPro, making interesting rapids look like class III since 2002.

Around the corner we get out of our boats to scout a narrow pinch between boulders.  There are plenty of boaters who would have likely chose to run the drop, we chose not to.  The next drop looks more our taste, it has an undercut but also a controlled line will keep us clear of it.  We go one at a time and have clean lines, moving downstream the gradient eases to what I expected at this stage in the game along with our nerves.   

The last rapid in the first set, with the pinch rapid in the background.

Read and run class III+ continues until a ledge appears on a right turn.  It looks kinda ugly from above, but turned out to be straight forward and clean.

Below here comes the meat of the run, we turn to the left and the river again drops away between boulders, from above I assume we will be portaging.  A quick scout and the rapid turns out to be clean and fun.  I go first and weave through, catching an eddy above what appears to be an ugly rapid, but it turns out to be pretty clean.  This becomes a bit of a theme for the trip, rapids that look trashy from above have fun, clean IV-IV+ lines with the exception of the pinch we portaged early on. 

The beginning of Saturation Station, where a rock flow with the consistency of jello comprises the left wall, with a longer rapid at the base.

Boulder gardens of much variety make up the majority of the run.  One of the earliest, with an active rockslide on the left, marks the longest of them.  While we were there, the bank looked stable but was in fact so saturated that stepping on it we resulted in us sinking through what appeared to be rocks.  Bizarre!  We later learned from Aaron Zettler-Mann that this is Blue Goo, which is abundant in Northern California and in parts of Southern Oregon.

The bottom of Saturation Station, a rapid at the base of a soggy rock flow.

The rapids up here mostly have a consistent style, yet with many different kinds of moves.  We scout a fair bit as its hard to tell if the rapids are going to be clean from above, but they all are.  There are a couple plucky holes hiding in there too, though we are always able to find a line through the soft parts of them.  

After a number of quality boulder gardens, one of them ended in a bedrock pinch at the entrance to a gorge that lasts for about a mile.  There was an unfortunate log just past the pinch that sent us portaging on the left.  In hindsight the rapid could have been run into an eddy on the right, and the log easily moved.  Oh well. 


                                                                          Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

The run changes character here as it enters the gorge.  The rapids are of similar challenge but a different style.   The stand out rapid inside the gorge is Jim's Waterfall, a 5 foot drop (it filled in with the water) with a hole that needs to be boofed.  

Jim's Waterfall

Everything that needs to be scouted in the gorge can be, but as in most gorges, a log in the wrong spot could prove problematic (the log in the photo below was easily passible underneath).

Photo: Nicole Smedegaard, from a trip in 2021

Eventually the run tapers off and the gorge is left behind, we had about 20 minutes of easier floating in which to reflect on the trip before reaching the confluence with the Illinois. 

Photo: Nicole Smedegaard, from a trip in 2021

 Paddling across the Illinois delivered us to the take out at Oak Flat where our vehicle was waiting for us.  Heading towards Gold Beach, we find our favorite beach campsite unoccupied.  Goals met, all that remains is a leisurely drive back home the next day, mostly along the coast.

I look back on this as one of the more enjoyable class IV-V runs in Oregon.  A weekend combining Lawson Creek with either Lobster Creek and the Elk River or the South Fork Coquille is well worth the drive from the Willamette or Rogue Valley's.

Flows:  The pictures from this report were taken March 31, 2017.   If you run it with more water, you can expect a harder run.   Inversely, with less water more rocks.  Also note the gauges listed below are correlations and will not always represent the flow in Lawson.

The Chetco gauge.  

It's not perfect, but as time has shown, more useful than the Illinois gauge.

*Another group ran Lawson March 20, 2021 with flows on the Chetco capping mid-day at 4400, and reported slightly more water than Priscilla and I had on our trip.

The Elk River Gauge (541-332-0405) was at 4.4' the day we ran Lawson.

The Illinois River Gauge

 Probably more confusing than helpful, we had about 3k in the Illinois at Kerby when we did Lawson.  This gauge is only useful when storms make it over the mountains into the Illinois Valley, not always the case.

*The group that ran Lawson in 2021 had 1400 in the Illinois @ Kerby, but more water in Lawson than we had.  

Access:  Take out at Oak Flat (42.5488, -124.0547), less than a mile upstream from the confluence of the Rogue and Illinois Rivers and but a few hundred yards upstream of Oak Flat campground.  This is the same take out that is used for the Illinois River.

Put in by walking down steep, but mostly open terrain from the Fry Place (42.4926, -124.0981),  Reach the Fry place from the take out using these directions:  Return to Agness Rd, turn left and quickly cross over the Illinois River.  8.7 miles after crossing over the Illinois, turn left onto NF - 3318 (marked by a sign in 2017).  Follow 3318 for 5.8 miles to an intersection, continue straight and downhill.  1 mile later veer right onto a spur road (122), if you don't have AWD and clearance don't push it on this road.  So regardless of whether you are hiking or still driving at this point, continue just shy of a mile down the road (the "main" one) until it bends sharply to the right and levels out with a nice field downhill to the left.  

                                                           Gearing up at the Fry Place.

There was a fire line that went off along the ridge here, you can follow this ridge past a lake and down to the stream.  It might take a couple rope lowers, but in a little over half a mile you will be at the creek.

*There is a trail just to the east of the Fry Place marked on some maps in this area (1173), which was passible in 2021.  This route is longer, but an easier grade and no off-trail navigation required.*

Click to enlarge map                      

If you decide to run Lawson Creek, take poison oak precautions.  There is a lot of it on this run.

                      -jacob