Ohane/Roaring River attempt

This last week I was able to head North to the Mt Rainier area with Ryan Cole, Chris Arnold, and their friend Shawn (didn't catch last name, sorry). We were able to spend two days running the Ohanepecosh river from secret campground down to the Clear Fork confluence. The first day I loved the river, and by the second day, it had become one of my favorite runs. It is super clean for the most part with a plethora of great boofs and boulder drops.

Nothing mandatory was super challenging, but if you wanted to get your gnar on, their is definitely a couple drops that fit the bill, with one definitely being a class above the rest. Even the seal launch at the put in was awesome and a great way to start the day. Also, with no boring sections, I couldn't have asked for much more.

There were a couple portages. There are three, and they all kind of sneak up on you if you aren't scouting. The first is the log slide, you cannot see the log until you are directly above the ledge, and its not an easy place to get out at that point. If you haven't done the run before, be watching out for a slower section at the downstream end of secret campground where you are running a few hundred yards of class two. When you see a headwall downstream and a small horizon, get out on the left. Another is in what I have heard referred to as "Triple Drop" You will see some wood piled up, portage on the left. Below this a ways is a shallow drop with a small slide on the right that piles into a boulder. The next boulder garden has wood clogging the bottom. Make sure to catch an eddy on the left to scout, and probably portage. It looked like far left would have gone though.

The hole above the falls produced one flip, but this flip pushed the boater left and he was able to have the best boof of the day off the left side slot on the falls(noone else was able to make it left). At this level gutting the hole was the only way to make it left, but there was enough water to take the sneak route as well (~1000 cispus@randle). The final drop has changed noticeably. Definitely worth a scout now. We all ran the main line the first day, but the second day Chris and I decided to try the right side because it looked pretty fun. It was, but unfortunately Chris pitoned on a hidden protrusion in the first drop. If anyone tries this side, make sure you stick your nose on the right wall and keep it there as you slide down while keeping you bow up. The left side goes really well too, just don't get stuck in the hole dominating the center of the river.

Last week we tried running lower Roaring River, we never found the put-in even after three attempts. The upper would have still been accessible in the right vehicle, but that is probably no longer the case. The lower is probably even snowed in for awhile at this point. Here is the video.

Ohanepecosh and Roaring river attempt from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.

-Jacob

~1000 Cispus at Randle

just over 2000 cowlitz at Randle

Slick Rock Creek

Photo by Nate Merrill

Nate, Matt and I ran Slick Rock Creek off highway 18 on the way to Lincoln city back when we had water a few weeks ago.  I had found the creek by chance last year and had wanted to go back to check out what was in there.  Strangely enough, you can drive right to the put-in for this creek on an old forgotten looking gravel road.  The take out we used was right under highway 18.  At the put in there are boulders on bedrock, and immediately enters a section with gorge walls.  We put in and were swept downstream quickly through many class four boulder gardens.  We boat scouted all the boulder gardens, so we didn't get many pictures except where Matt hopped out once.

(photo by Matt King)

Somewhere in here was an island with some bedrock.  We took the left and it was a fast slide ending in some mank, but the right side looked better with a slide and ledge.

       At one point I was in the lead and came across a steeper drop with bedrock on the sides of the walls.  I hopped out to look while Matt and Nate caught up and bashed through some devils club to see a nice double drop.   I signalled Matt through, and Nate went next off verbal beta, then I came down.    It was a nice break from the boulder gardens.

Myself in "Twist off"

(photo by Matt King)

Nate coming through the bottom hole in Twist Off.

(photo by Matt King)

Reason for the name from Matt- "cause it's sometimes nice to get a beer that you can crack easily, but them easy crackin' beers don't taste as good as others."  It also was sort of a twisty drop.

 Below here there were two spots we portaged for wood, and eventually the creek tapered off down to class II-III for the last quarter mile.  In this section Matt found a rope swing and tried it out, in the video it is obvious to tell it was created for low water use :)

            Before too long we passed a building with "park ranger" or something like that on the side.  I decided to hike out here because I was jogging the shuttle, according to a local the guy in this building is only there in the Spring.  Nate and Matt continued downstream and reported more class III and a surf wave on the way to the highway take-out.  

          The people in the area were very friendly and were interested to see kayakers.  I jogged back to the car, evaded our car alarm (Oakland the dog), and headed back to the highway within 5 min. of Nate and Matt arriving.  The video is not very indicative of the drops, as we have no footage of any rapids except the class III+ stuff at the put-in.   At high flows this run would be rockin'.  Really its a mini version of lower Roaring River.  It's about half the length, the shuttle is 5 min. instead of over an hour, no hike, and the wood situation is better.  Maybe a good way to warm up for Roaring River.

             level of the SF Yamhill should be around 2000, a boater could probably paddle all the way down to 1000, but I wouldn't recommend that. Not sure how high you could go safely.  We had about 1500 and there were a few F.U. rocks.  From Pat Welches site. we ran it 11/18  

A couple weeks ago Ben Sigler and Dan McCain fired up the put-in drop on Butte Creek Oregon.  There used to be wood in there but its good now.  The rafters cleaned up on "The Butte Crack", so I guess it goes.  Here is a video from these two trips.

Slick Rock Creek/Butte Creek from Jacob Cruser on Vimeo.

And I forgot to credit it on the video, but the photos in the video are by Matt King

-Jacob


** Since we ran the creek, a gate has been installed along the access road.  This means a short hike is now required to reach the put in.

Rafting the Little White

I didn't get to be there today, but Dan McCain and Ben Sigler from ORT ran the Little White today.  They had a great trip, and cleaned almost everything.  They chose not to run Stovepipe or Island, but they went for everything else.  Including a clean run of Spirit! 

 Check out this photo taken by Paul Thompson of ptnature.com

More photos from this trip will be on that site in the next week or so.  As well as video on Ryan Scott's website http://gorgehits.wordpress.com/

          -Jacob

Tumalo Creek

Put in drop was fun.  Then we were glad there was usually a trail along the creek as we portaged our way down to Tumalo Falls.



The most runnable action was gained from a short side hike up the Middle Fork of Tumalo Creek.

The run would be exceptional without wood, but wood there is.

Copper Creek

BETA

Notes: Copper Creek has two sections, an upper and a lower.  The lower gets done more often, as it has more picturesque drops.  I like the upper just as much since it is action packed read and run the whole way, with a couple notable drops near the beginning.  The caveat is that it needs more water than the lower to be fun (2,000 cfs is enough).  The roads into Copper can be driven by most vehicles, but something with clearance is definitely preferred, especially for the upper.

Andrew Bradley and I have hiked upstream from the footbridge at the upper put in to where the creek forks and paddled down from there.  It's not bad, but also not interesting enough that I would do it often - probably just the once to see what was up there.
  
Flows:  You can run the lower section as low as 1,000 cfs on the EF Lewis sometimes.  Sometimes that is too low, and there really isn't a way to tell the level without driving up there.  1,500-2,000 cfs will always be in.  People sometimes complain about how the stuff between the named drops can be rocky, but at the flows needed to pad the in-between, the named stuff is class V.  If class V sounds great to you, look for 2k+ on the EF Lewis gauge.  The upper section does not paddle well at low water.

Access:  A flows are low-ish and you are just running the lower, I prefer taking out at the Dole Valley Road Bridge.  If flows are up I would probably choose to skip the secret stash and take out at King Creek.

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Original Write-up
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After getting foiled by high water on Eagle Creek, we ran Copper Creek again.  It has become our go to creek recently.  We had a decent flow with 1500 on the EF Lewis and rising to 2,000 cfs while we were on the creek.  This was a nice medium level, and felt padded.  Once again we used the upper put-in for the run.  This is definitely the right choice in my mind when there is enough water.  The upper has a couple nice bedrock rapids, and a lot of fun boogey.  Matt was the only one who ran the Weir this day,  it had a tree limb in the center that he avoided, but everyone else decided it wasn't worth the trouble.  He missed the log, punched the hole, and paddled away upright.

Matt on the Weir.

(photo by Nate Merrill)

From here to the lower bridge was fun read and run class IV.  No real wood issues in this section.  Once below the bridge, there is narrow ledge run on the right.  Just below the ledge we eddy out immediately on the right to portage Certain Death.  If you want to run Certain Death I guess you could go a bit lower, but we all knew we weren't going to run it before we got there.  We walked certain death along the track on the right, then found somewhere to seal launch.  There was a log in the water, but Matt fixed it so it's not there anymore.  Below Certain Death, the it's easy read and run to Triple delight, one of the better rapids in the area.  It starts with a two foot ledge that I like to run leftish, because the right side funnels strongly into a slot that is hard to stay upright through.  I took Matt over blind his first time, giving him the left, left, left beta.  In the second(crux drop) Two of us hit the boof on the left, one hit the boof pretty far right, and one of us got sucked into the slot, resulting in a pretty interesting line down the rest of the drop!

Here is Eric Foster-moore dropping the final tall ledge in Triple delight.

(photo by Nate Merrill)

Below here were a few more bedrock drops, some fun slides, ledges, and flumes, all with good sized holes at this level.  One sent Eric airborn!  He was able to pull off a catlike move to keep it upright though.  This section was lots of fun and before too long we rolled into the eddy above Final Five.  After taking a look at the headwall drop, I decided I wasn't in the mood and joined Nate, and eventually Eric in the portage.  This left only Matt, who decided to fire off the entire canyon.  To complicate things, the landowner was firing off gun shots.  Not sure whether he knew we were there, we kept a low profile regardless and seal launched in above the final double drop to keep out of his land, but the gunshots were still a little unnerving given the problems that have arisen here in the past.  Matt didn't let the nerves get to him and paddled the entire series, with a roll in the third drop against the undercut wall in the left eddy and perfect lines elsewhere.

Matt approaching the headwall.

(photo by Nate Merrill)

Myself seal launching below the headwall drop.

(photo by Matt King)

After the seal launch, Eric and I decided to take the easy line and ran the final double drop left, left.

Eric driving left at the first ledge of the Final Drop in Final Five Canyon.

(photo by Matt King) 

Myself ducking some branches while getting where I want to go in final drop

  (photo by Matt King)

 I might add that the bottom hole on the right side of the final drop was looking sticky at this flow, so paddlers running the main channel would do well to set safety.

    Below here we joined the EF Lewis, which was good fun at this level.  We cruised down to Horshoe falls and scouted to see if we could take advantage of the elevated water levels to run a line we hadn't done before.  We decided to do the triple bounce on the left and all went deep into the aerated landing. 

Below here was uneventful, and we finished the run happy with another great run on Copper Creek!

  -Jacob

North Fork Lewis

After being snowed out of another run, we decided to do the Waterfall run on the N. fork Lewis (not to be confused with the waterfall run on the East Fork Lewis).  We decided not to deal with trying to portage the nasty drop in upper falls.  We decided to do a throw and go instead!  We all had a good run and jump.  There were no takers for Lower falls, but Matt's girlfriend Caitlin took some really cool photos (and did a great job running shuttle for us the last couple trips, thanks!).

Matt drops Taitnapum falls.

Matt about to hit off the 60-70 ft jump

Josh decided to climb down to take a closer look at the bottom.

That was actually him after he jumped.  He didn't get out very far and landed in the veil of the 35 footer and got stuck in the hole for a bit.  Then worked his way along the wall below the drop.  After seeing this, I decided I needed a bigger jump and cleared out farther, without any problems.

myself nearing impact.

We then boat scouted middle falls and took out just above Lower.  I have become increasingly uncomfortable about drops over 30.  I need to practice my tuck.

 -Jacob

Hagen Gorge

all photos by Matt King

Got some cool shots of our Trips to the N fork Lewis and Hagen Gorge from Matt King.

        Ran Hagen with 1600 or so and rising in the EF Lewis.  Usually you want 2000 at least, we definitely felt our low level, but it was good to go.  If I went back at that level I would use the old broken down road right before the clearcut that spurs off to the left and put in right below the logjam.  I am pretty confident this will be the case because it makes sense that there would be a road for when they built the dam.  I was tempted to try it out last time, but we went all the way up and had a portage right at the put-in that Matt punched through(wood) then we bashed our boats down to the log dam.  Let me know if you try out that road.

 I believe this is it.  view in satellite form to see road.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108197590826630613769.0004788129b1696180e58

   We didn't get out of our boats between the log dam and Euphoria falls as usual.  I love this creek for this reason.  Just flying down the creek is a great day of boating.  Matt's shots of Nate and I at Euphoria are pretty cool.  He got a good angle that really makes the drop look steep.

Nate at the top of Euphoria. 

Myself halfway down the first tier.

Nate exiting the first tier, heading into the lower drop with the log.

The log was not an issue as usual as long as you were in control.  You could go under it if you had to and if you were so far left you got stuck between ground and log rescue was as easy as it gets.  Luckily none of us had problems and we bombed down to Teakettle.  We did see another group there, that was interesting coming around the corner above Euphoria and seeing the bright colors in the scouting eddy!  We were not expecting anyone else with the low water.

Teakettle looked good so besides some mixed up beta from me to Nate, everything went well.  Even with the misguidance we all stayed upright and headed down to the crack drop.

Myself a half boat width farther right than I wanted.  

Nate keeping it upright.

Below here is a narrow little drop that looks like it has a boof on the right, but it is actually pretty ugly.  I have ended up in the pocket below on the left twice.  This day, one of us didn't make the sneak route on the right and injured his arm in a brace, he was ok by the next day, but watch out for this sneaker between Teakettle and Crack drop.  If there is enough water, far far right, almost drying out has been our line of choice the last couple of times and produced successful runs.

   We all decided to portage the crack drop, as it looked a lot more hectic today.  So I guess I will retract my statement from the last time I ran Hagen that anyone with a roll can run the drop.  At the levels we had, it looked like getting your head slammed into a rock was a very likely outcome. 

Going deep in the crack drop from last year.

 From here to the takeout was fun with some good quality class III-IV drops.  We took out and checked out money drop, but there was a bit too much water for those who were considering it.  All in all a great day after a long day on Upper Opal creek the day before when we decided to portage Harvey Wallbanger.  All I will say about that trip is if you are going to run Upper Opal, watch out for this committing drop.  Its hard to scout and the hole below looks like it has some wood in it.  You might be able to eddy out and portage just above, but we decided not to risk it.  We portaged on the right and it sucked.  Not the worst, but pretty bad.  (all photos by Matt King)

 -Jacob