Blister Creek Falls

Photo: Priscilla Macy

Stream: This small stream flows into the Hot Springs Fork of the Collawash a short ways below Pegleg Falls. There is a beautiful looking 30 footer on it that has had some unfortunate wood in it.

2016 UPDATE:  The logs blocking a descent of the falls disappeared around the time of the Clackamas River Festival in Spring of 2016, so Bobby Brown, Priscilla and I all took runs down the falls in various craft that weekend.
  

Bobby more than earned the first crack at the falls.

 Photo: Priscilla Macy

 Priscilla

Smooth enough for tubes.

                                                                   Photo: Priscilla Macy

It's that clean.

Photo: Priscilla Macy

Downstream of the falls and bridge is a ten foot slide and some wood before the confluence with the Hot Springs Fork of the Collawash.  I lost the footage of when I scraped down that part back in high school.

Doing Nohorn Creek through Pegleg Falls, followed by a park and huck of Blister Creek Falls would be a full and enjoyable day of paddling.  Blister Creek Falls is a half mile drive back towards town from Pegleg Falls.

From another day; 3,000ish cfs at Three Lynx.

Kory Kellum

Photo: Priscilla Macy

Flows:  The falls can be run at a wide range of flows, most of the photos above were taken with the Clackamas Gauge reading around 1,300 cfs.   3,000 cfs is a nice flow up there, 5,000 is even better.



                                                                          15,000 cfs
                                                               Video: Catherine Loke



Access:  From Estacada take Hwy 224 up the Clackamas River about 29 miles (about 14.5 miles past Carter Bridge, and 4 miles past the Ripplebrook Ranger station).  At this point take a right towards Bagby Hot Springs (paralleling the Collawash River for much of this portion of the drive). 3.5 miles later take another right towards Bagby Hot Springs. 

5.3 miles after this turn you will cross Blister Creek and can see the falls upstream from the bridge.  There are a couple pull outs on river right along with a short trail leading to the falls.

44.9589, -122.1589

The trail leads right to the lip, making for easy access for entry and to scout/pick markers.

Hot Springs fork of the Collowash

BETA

Stream: About 4-5 miles of the highest quality class II-III paddling Oregon has to offer, with a forgiving 15' waterfall near the beginning, and a class IV boulder garden near the end.  Watch for a nice green surf wave where a boulder bar pushes the river against a bedrock right wall after things have eased up.
  
Flows:  2,000-7,000 cfs on the Three Lynx gauge (3k-4k seems like the goldilocks zone).  It could likely be run with plenty more water, but I just don't know how it looks up there with lots of water.

Access:  Take out at Kingfisher campground (44.977569925922566, -122.0903011923093), or where the road is near the creek around a mile upstream to skip the last class IV.

Put in where NF-70/Bagby Rd crosses over Nohorn Creek (44.953138734910425, -122.17237318319891).

Iv'e also walked up the trail towards Bagby Hot Springs to where the footbridge crosses the Hot Springs fork and put in there.  That adds a couple nice ledges, but also a couple log jams.  

Notes: The gauge is far downstream, and the Hot Springs Fork is a tributary of a tributary of the river the gauge is on.  Iv'e been up there when 2,000 cfs was a healthy flow, and also when 2,000 was too low.  A good backup option is the lower Collowash, from the Hot Springs fork confluence to the confluence with the Clackamas (June Creek section).

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Story
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 My first time doing this creek was back in High School, we were in the area camping with my family near Bagby Hot Springs.  I had my kayak and an IK in the event we might paddle the Clackamas on the way home, or maybe paddle Pegleg Falls if there was enough water.  Driving up to our campsite I noticed we were paralleling a beautiful mountain stream.  I had been to the area before to run Pegleg in an IK, but wasn't aware of what was below other than my dad had told me before that he had heard of someone running a large class V rapid just before the confluence with the Collowash.

We set up at a nice campsite along the stream, and went up to Bagby Hot Springs for the afternoon.  I noticed that the road didn't seem all that steep, so maybe the gradient was manageable?  I hadn't done much off the beaten path kayaking at this point, but I was really called to the stream.  That night we did camp stuff and the next morning my family agreed to head up to Pegleg Falls, I was going to kayak it and my step dad thought he might be interested in trying out kayaking too.

After watching me go over the falls a couple times, my step-dad decided he was interested in giving it a try in the inflatable kayak.  I explained best I could what to do, and off he went.  Nailed it.

I was impressed with how well he had done at the falls and how receptive to learning he was, so we decided we would float back down to camp.  We scrapped our original plan of having my step-brother ride in the back of the IK, which was probably for the best.

Downstream was mostly class II-III, with some cool areas and a couple III+ rapids that we scouted, including a long sliding section that was good fun..  It was a magical trip for me, heading downstream with no idea whatsoever what was around the corner, and it turning out to be gorgeous at every turn.  Other than one quick pin, it was smooth sailing start to finish.  It was quite a feeling paddling into camp that night, and I reflect on this run as one of the trips that sold me on exploratory boating.



Here is a video from a trip on Clack fest weekend.  We went up and ran the Hot Springs fork after the events.  This was a trip where a couple of us hiked up to the Bagby footbridge.
Hot Springs fork of the Collowash from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.