Silverton Hike & Huck (3.10.12)

With the weekend fast approaching and a dismal forecast for bringing any local runs into a fun runnable level, I was planning to spend it both days scouting out some new creeks in the area. I did try and get a crew together for a trip up to Canyon Creek (WA), but even that was a little low and didn’t generate much interest. Then I got a call from Jacob who invited me on a mini huckfest near the town of Silverton (OR), which I graciously accepted. The plan was to hike into a ½ mile stretch of Abiqua Creek to run a pair of falls in the 15’ to 20’ range, and then head over to Upper Butte Creek Falls to fire off a line or two. I was also able to round up Roman for the trip north, who seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea.

Saturday morning we got out of town on time and headed for the meeting place, just off the highway at a Fred Myers in Salem. We rolled in at the exact time that Both Jacob and Andrew Bradley did, and after some greetings, Jacob informed me that we’d also have recruits coming from Corvallis and Portland. In addition to the four of us, we would have Brandon Bloomquist, Nate Merrill, Anna Herring, Joni Randall, and Michael Freeman.

Before heading to Abiqua Creek, we made a quick stop in Scotts Mills (OR) for a quick huck on Scotts Mills Falls, located right in town on Butte Creek. This waterfall drops about 20’ in total -- The first ~4’ drops over a cement diversion weir, followed by a rocky middle section, and finally over a semi vertical curtain of around 10’ tall (for more information on the falls, go here). At first glance I wasn’t really sure I wanted to run it, and to be honest it looked pretty trashy. Then I watched Nate Merrill have really a nice line, which had me hiking back up to get my boat.

Nate with a very convincing line on Scotts Mills Falls

By the time I had gotten geared up and ready to go, Nate and Brandon had run multiple laps, so it must have been pretty fun. After sliding into the duck pond above the falls, I paddled the short bit of flat water to the lip and dropped in. Having much more speed than anticipated I completely missed my boof and basically flopped over the last pitch into the boil below. Obviously not happy with that line, I hiked back up for another. This time I was much more prepared and hit my line just like I wanted to, feeling much better about walking away from this one. Roman also fired up a couple laps with us and had good lines as well. Probably the best line of the falls was Andrew's, who threw a nice freewheel off it -- unfortunately no cameras were out at the time.

Brandon finishes up nicely on one of his laps
(photo by Jacob Cruser)

The author takes his turn
(photo by Jacob Cruser)

Once we had our fill in Scotts Mills, we headed up the road to our put-in on Abiqua Creek. Since I wasn’t driving I don’t really remember the route, although I do recall a long steep descent into the drainage on a fairly developed gravel road. Once the creek came into view, Jacob mentioned that this was where we would be hiking in from.

Since the takeout was only ~1/2 mile downstream, we decided to just jog up for the cars after the run, so with that we started the short/steep descent to the creek. The area had obviously gotten some weather, as the bushwhack trail was fairly wet and greasy with mud. For the last pitch we setup a rope and lowered boats down to mitigate the chance of a boat tumbling into the creek. This effort proved futile, as two of the water crafts found their way into the creek and running the falls without their pilot. The first boat that went into the water happened as I was still lowering myself down – I basically looked to my right (after hearing yells and crashing sounds) to see a speeding green torpedo hit the water and drop out of sight around the corner. Soon after, a couple figures could be seen giving chase, which included some cliff jumping near the falls. Nate, quick on the draw, jumped in his boat and headed downstream to help, while I hung out to ensure more weapons wouldn’t be deployed into the water. After the dust had settled a bit, I hiked down to the lip of the falls to see if the situation was under control. Although there was no sign of the green boat or its original owner, Jacob and Nate gave me the head-tap, indicating that things were good. As I turned to return back upstream another unmanned boat flew into the water. I quickly yelled to Jacob “Boat in the water!”, which was kind of ironic since it was actually his boat – apparently a victim of the domino effect. Since he was staged just below the first falls, he was able to quickly corral it once it dropped over and floated free of the veil. Luckily this would be the last of our put-in struggles, so we could now focus on what we had come to do, huck some really fun/clean waterfalls!

Since there was a great perch at the lip of “Momma Duke’s”, the first waterfall, I setup with my fisheye lens to take some shots of the first few boaters running the falls. One of the first things I noticed was that the right line was almost identical to Big Kahuna (Canyon Creek, WA), in both height and style. Nate Merrill was first and lined up the main line on the right, taking a delayed boof halfway down and landing nicely on the boil below. Anna was next and went for the high point a little further left, which looked like a fun line as well, although it didn't produce as big of a boof as I had expected it to.

Nate drops the main line at Momma Duke's Laundry Chute

Nate, mid flight

Anna fires up the line just to the left

Now chomping at the bit, I went up to take my turn. The lead-in was very straightforward, but did push a little more to the left than I had expected. With a correction stroke or two, I lined it up and threw in a boof about a quarter of the way down, landing pretty flat. Although soft, it was still enough of an impact to tilt my head-cam down. I quickly paddled over to the rocks on the other side of the pool to set up for some photos, this time from below. We each ended up running another lap or two on Momma Duke's before continuing downstream.

Michael lines it up at Momma Duke's

Joni throws in a nice delayed boof

Nate on another lap over Momma Duke's

Just a couple hundred feet below Momma Duke's was the second large horizon line, known as Peony Falls. I had headed down before the others to find a good place to set up for photos and give it a quick scout. This drop was more vertical and a bit taller, it looked all of 20' tall. It also appeared unbelievably clean and I couldn't wait to run it. There really wasn't a great place to setup for photos from above, so when the other showed up I asked if they'd hold up so I could setup from down below. After confirming the line with Jacob, who had run it before, I got in my boat and peeled out of the eddy. The line I had planned to hit had a delayed boof ~5' down from the lip. As I dropped over I held my stroke until I saw the sweet spot, then pulled, landing at the base with nice angle. I quickly paddled to a rock outcropping, climbed out, readied my camera, and gave the rest of the crew the thumbs up.

One by one our crew dropped over the falls, using a variety of lines -- some boofs, some plugs, but all ending with a big smile. The hike back up to run it again was definitely harder than the one for Momma Duke's, but also more rewarding. We each ran a couple of laps, and with more time I would have hiked it a few more times. I actually over-boofed it on my second lap, but luckily I was bent far enough forward to protect my back. I had charged the drop from further up and hit the more pronounced flake just to the right of where I had run it the last time. As I went airborne, my bow lifted above my stern, and I basically landed stern first. Although it was pretty damn fun and the landing didn't really hurt, I still felt pretty foolish for showboatin' at the risk of a back injury -- oh well, live and learn I guess...

Anna drops over Peony Falls

Brandon fires up Peony Falls while Anna and Michael look on

Nate plants a nice stroke at the lip...

...and flattens it out nicely

Roman at Peony Falls

Joni

Andrew, with a very similar takeoff to Nate's...

...and landing

Brandon sits front row for the show

Jacob looking smooth at Peony

Michael with a great line

Now that we were burning daylight and pretty worn-out from all the trips up and down the falls, we headed downstream to the takeout at the lip of the big boy, Abiqua Falls. After dropping over a couple of fun smallish drops, the creek entered an ever tightening gorge that was very reminiscent of the geology on Eagle Creek in the Columbia River Gorge. Jacob recommended leading from this point since he was the only one that knew the run, coupled with the fact that we would need to portage around a section that was not completely obvious from above. As we continued down cautiously, we finally came to the spot, The Cattle Ramp. Basically the creek narrowed down to an 8' wide chute that ran about the length of a football field before taking the final plunge over the 100' tall Abiqua Falls. There was a slow moving pool above the falls that allowed for us to take out, however, a couple pieces of unfortunately placed wood blocked passage in the chute itself. The portage wasn't that bad, but I could see it getting pretty sketchy as water levels increased. After the portage, you put back on in the pool above the falls, cross it, and take-out on the other side. Using a two part rope system, we towed the boats up to a section of trail that was conducive to shouldering them. A short hike later and we were back at the road, just down from where the vehicles were parked. Once they were retrieved and gear was loaded, we headed off to our next destination, Upper Butte Creek Falls.

Looking down the Cattle Ramp

Joni, Jacob, and Anna on the portage route around the Cattle Ramp

This picture shows some of the bothersome wood

The portage ends right below the two sticks in the
water, and just above the lip of Abiqua Falls, where
the creek drops out of view at the top of the photo.

Looking back up at the Cattle Ramp
from the lip of Abiqua Falls -- Stunning!

Andrew scouts the line, possible for another day...

Conveniently, Butte Creek was just on the other side of the ridge that we had driven up; however, just as inconvenient was the unexpected road gate that would necessitate a couple miles of hiking just to reach the falls. The group quickly agreed that it wasn't really worth it, and decided instead to head over for a lap or two on the Silverton Speedway.

The section of Silver Creek between the reservoir and the town of Silverton was basically class II, with a nasty 10' drop about halfway through. By the time I had pulled up, much of the group was already out scouting this ledge; in fact, the other Nate was already headed back to his boat to take a run at it. The main line over the ledge didn't look bad on its own, in fact it looked like a fun little boof; however, the landing didn't look nearly as good, and there was a near vertical log in the run-out just to the left of it. With the group looking on and staged with safety, Nate peeled out of the eddy and lined up for the drop. As he rounded over, he hit a nice delayed boof, but even this wasn't enough to keep his bow from smashing into a hidden underwater ledge, which none of us had seen. To me it actually appeared that he pinned for just a split second before getting pushed left into the log. Since there was room behind the log, it didn't end up being much of an issue, and probably acted more as and insult to injury. Now that this hidden hazard was discovered, no one else gave serious consideration to repeating the line, and instead opted for either a right side line (which pushed quite quickly into another log), a midstream shallow slide, or nice seal-launch on river-left (which is what I chose).

Nate drops over the 10'er. The ledge he pitoned is pretty
obvious in this photo, but wasn't in person. Be very careful
if you choose to runs this drop, which I would advise against...

Below this ledge the river continued its class II nature, so Roman, Brandon, and I pulled over and ran up to retrieve the cars while the rest of the crew continued down to a take out at a park in Silverton. From there we parted ways, heading back home in different directions.

Conclusion:
I thought this was a fantastic day of running waterfalls – nothing huge, but really clean and fun. Although a shuttle car wasn’t needed, I would consider this more of a Hike & Huck, as opposed to Park & Huck, at least for Abiqua Creek where you have to work a little for it. That said, Abiqua is also a very special place that would be worth dropping into for the scenery alone. The Cattle Ramp into the 100’ Falls is one the most beautiful sections of water that I’ve seen anywhere, making the 2 runnable waterfalls upstream just the icing on the cake. I was a little bummed that we got shut down at Upper Butte Creek Falls, where I was looking forward to getting in some “Oregon Tuck” practice. I still don’t know why they feel the need to gate it off, especially since it cuts off access to hikers as well, which will now have to put-in a lot more work to view the falls. Regardless, I would certainly do a return visit to run the drops on Abiqua, which would be really great on a warm day with time to do multiple laps.

As for flow, we had ~260cfs on the Butte Creek calculation gauge, which can be found here (thanks again Pat!). This flow was just fine for the falls, but I would agree with Jacob that 300 – 400cfs might be a bit better, and that much over this might make it a little sketchy for the portage at the Cattle Ramp.

For Jacob's trip report of the first descent down Upper Abiqua Creek, which includes this section and how the falls were named, go here.

Some footage from our huckfest:

Mission: Coast Range (aka Wiki Creek #4) - 2.26.12

After an exploratory run down Portland Creek on Saturday and being pretty tired out, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to boat on Sunday. After talking with a few folks I decided, if anything, I’d do something local, and eventually agreed to jump on Sweet Creek and/or Lake Creek Slides. Then everything changed after getting a text from my buddy Jacob, which read:
“Would you be interested in another mission tmw? Main drop is a clean 30 footer with a class iv lead in.”

This was followed up quickly with:
“The run itself is not class five, but there are 4 waterfalls. Only one 20 footer is mandatory.”

As you can expect, I really couldn’t pass up something like this, so without actually asking what the name of this river/creek was, I got all the essential stats from him (length, gradient, access, geology, etc.). Feeling fired-up for what seemed like a good adventure, I called Brandon up to see if he’d be willing to forgo our previously established plans. He agreed, and we setup a meeting time with Jacob – 10:30am at his house in Monmouth. The next morning I called Brandon to set a meeting place in Eugene so we could caravan; unfortunately he had read my text wrong and was already on his way, thinking that we were meeting in Monmouth at 9:30am. I finished packing my stuff and headed north to play catch-up.

Once at Jacob’s I wanted to go over the maps with him, since I also like to be prepared in case something was to go wrong, especially if it were to happen to the tour guide. Since it was an adventure-style run, we also did a gear check to ensure we had all the necessary group equipment (radios, GPS, breakdowns, pin-kit, headlamps, etc.). About the time we finished up with the pre-trip meeting, Willy showed up, our forth crew member. Now that we had everything we needed we headed out. Jacob was actually able to round up a shuttle driver which was extremely helpful in regards to time (thanks Aqua!).

Before heading to the run itself, we stopped at a road crossing over the stream to get a gauge reading, compliments of a stick gauge attached to a bridge support column – it was reading around 2.3'. Since I didn’t have any point of reference I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but trusted Jacob’s lead that it would probably be at a great flow. We quickly jumped back in the car and changed course, heading to the put-in. After following a forest road for some time, we finally topped out at around 1,800’ where we encountered enough snow to deter us from driving down the spur road – this meant we’d need to hike about three quarters of a mile down to the put-in.

The bridge guage

Looking at the class II paddle out on the way to the put-in

The end of the road...

The first part of the hike went just fine, we pretty much dragged our boats behind us from tethers, which the snow made much easier. The second part of the hike consisted of bushwhacking down a very steep clear-cut, which basically sucked. At one point I tripped when I caught my foot on a blackberry vine. After falling on my face, I starting sliding at an alarming rate until my progress was stopped by a tree stump. Other than a bruise where a branch dug into my leg, I was uninjured -- this was pretty surprising based on how violent the wipeout was. After wiping off the dust, I looked downhill to see that Brandon had also taken a spill and was still laying in a very awkward position with his boat lying on top of him. I quickly hiked down to assist. Once we were both back on our feet, we continued down, this time with a lot more caution. It should be noted that had we hiked down the road a bit further we would have reached a much easier section of the clear-cut to hike through, basically not nearly as steep.

Hiking down the clear-cut. Trust me,
it's a lot steeper than it looks in this photo.

Once we reached the water, I took a quick breather before putting on. Right below the put-in we had to sneak around some wood and then run a steep/trashy drop against the right side. By putting in where we did, we had actually avoided a slightly sketchy log move upstream. Below this the river went around a bend and entered a fun looking boulder garden. Jacob told us that a 15'er was just below it and around the corner, and that it also had wood in it the last time, making it unrunnable. He held us up, and headed down where I could see him pull into shore on river-right. Before long he waved us down while motioning for us to eddy out as well. Pulling into the small right side eddy, we jumped out and hiked downstream to take a look. Good news, the falls were now wood free, setting it up for a first "D"!

Looking upstream from the put-in

Jacob drop in just below the put-in

Looking back up at the lead-in drop to the 15'er

The 15'er

The falls itself was not completely vertical, although very close to being so – it basically looked like a very steep boulder pile. The only real hazards that I saw were a small piton rock at the bottom center, and a small hole on bottom left, neither of which looked too concerning. Jacob went first, eddying out just above the falls on river-right, to facilitate a better setup for the main part of the drop. From there he drove across to center left and dropped in with a solid line all the way to the bottom. Willy came down soon after with a similar line, although he did get a little sideways coming into the bottom hole, which stalled him out briefly.

Jacob takes a first descent down the main line at the first falls

Willy follows shortly after with a well placed stroke at the lip

After putting my camera away, Brandon (who had been on safety) and I headed up to take our turn. Brandon was first. As I watched him run the lead-in and head straight for the falls without stopping, I waited for the signal that it was all clear. Probably 30 seconds or more passed with no communication, and just as I was climbing out of my boat to hike down and see if everything was alright, Willy came into view giving me the thumbs up. What I did not know at that point was that Brandon had actually gotten rolled in the falls and had been stuck upside down against the river right shelf and needed Willy’s help getting upright and free (though he did a great job of fighting and holding on); that said, this is probably a good place to have safety setup.

As I came down I also eddied out on river right to get a better setup. Pulling back into the current I drove left and dropped over the lip with a boof stroke. The line ended up being much smoother than I was expecting and I eddied out just below on the right. Since Jacob got the first D, he had the honors of naming the drop, which is now known as “Catalyst Falls”, since this is where the run adds bedrock to the mix turning the run into a big drop playground – basically setting up the good stuff!

Immediately below this was a fun 6’+ drop that could be run either left or right. Left went down a steep mini slide, with the right having a small boof flake about halfway down. I went first so that I could setup for photos and opted for the right side. Both Willy & Brandon also ran right while Jacob took the left option.

Brandon takes the right line on the
ledge immediately below Catalyst Falls

Jacob running the left line

Just below the 6’er the river poured over a series of bedrock ledges, which Jacob indicated was the lead-in to the clean 30’ falls. After scouting out the entrance, we hiked up the right bank to look at the falls itself. There was actually another drop between the slide and the main falls, which is what gave me the most pause. Essentially the river funneled though a 10’ wide slot for 10 yards or so before taking the final plunge. The big concern here was a mid-stream boulder that split the current, which you wanted to be left of, and this move was a mere ten feet or so above the lip of the main drop. Although it was only a class IV move, the price of failure was obviously high. After studying the move for a few minutes, I made the decision that I just wasn’t feeling it that day. After letting the others know, we discussed the best way to setup for safety and photos. I knew that Jacob would be for sure running it, since this is the drop on the run he wanted to finally bag; Willy also seemed pretty fired up to give it a go, so it looked like we had two ready to take the plunge.

Looking down the lead-in slide to the 30'er. This
doesn't show the second part of the lead-in, which drops
between vertical walls before taking the final plunge.

The lip of the 30'er -- looking really good from here!

Since Brandon had also decided to walk it, we both grabbed our boats and started the hike up and over on river-right. Probably the worst part of the portage was hiking through the thick salal (brush) before dropping back down to the river. The plan was for me to communicate with Jacob and Willy (via walkie-talkies) and take photos, while Brandon sat in the pool below in case anything went wrong. Once I got the communication from Willy that they were about 60 seconds and 90 seconds from dropping in, I gave the signal to Brandon and we both got into position.

The waiting game...

Waiting in anticipation, I finally saw Jacob's head appear above the lip of the fall -- with a small stroke and a slow motion tuck, he came sailing down in perfect form, as he usually does. Although I’ve never seen him show excessive excitement after running a drop, I could see in his eyes that he was pretty happy with how it went, as well as finally baggin’ the falls. Next up was Willy, who came over the lip a little more centered but with right angle. He didn’t put in the tuck like Jacob, but still landed well and paddled away with a big smile. I gotta say I was pretty jazzed to watch these guys run the drop. It’s one thing to watch someone run something big that’s been run before, but to be a part of a first D on a drop like this is something special – props guys, I can't wait to run this one myself! Once again, the responsibility of naming the drop fell on Jacob, which he so named “Osmosis Falls”!
He settled on this name when seeing a connection between the selective membrane present in that process and the selectiveness of various land owners who pick and choose who is allowed to see some of the most beautiful and rugged areas of our country, including this waterfall!

Jacob snags another first descent of the big one!

Willy in tow

Celebrating below Osmosis!

After packing up and getting in my boat to join the others, I asked Jacob how much further down the river the mandatory portage around the 40’er was, which he told me, “we've got a little ways, and it will be obvious.” Sure enough, we came to a section where the canyon walls tightened up and he let us know that after a short run through some gorged out class III, we were going to enter a pool just above the forty. He also said that we were at a point of no return if we dropped into the gorge, but that there was a way to hike around or do a throw & go for the portage. That said, we eddy-hopped our way down cautiously to make sure we wouldn’t be cut-off by some poorly placed wood. The class III stuff was pretty fun, but even better was the spectacular scenery of the canyon – this is a very special place, and I felt very fortunate that I was one of the few people to experience it. This was also the point where the geology turned from Basalt to Tyee Sandstone, which created quite a cool contrast.

Jacob finishes up the short class III gorge above the portage

As we eddied out in the pool, vertical walls on both sides, the earth dropped out in front of us and the roar of the unrunnable falls filled the air. Jacob looked to me and said, “This is the last thing you want to see during a first known descent…” Such an otherwise awesome drop if it wasn’t for the wood and “room of doom” on the left (with no place to set safety). This drop was given the appropriate name “Tough Luck” on a previous descent that Jacob made with Jeff Hartley.

Headed for final pool above Tough Luck

Tough Luck. Note the "Room of Doom" on
the left, and wood on the right -- bummer!

Jacob heading up first to set a rope

Upsie-daisy

It was now decision time on how we wanted to get around this thing: either a throw & go into a shallow eddy on the right, or a climb up the cliff on the left. Although the throw & go looked easier, Jacob wanted to install a permanent rope from the cliff side, so we decided to take that route. Furthermore, this would allow us to scout the mandatory 20’er (named Little Lucky), which was the very next drop and appeared to have some concerning wood. Jacob free-climbed up the soft soil wall and setup the rope for us to drag the boats up, as well as provide some additional safety for the rest of the crew. One-by-one we lifted our boats and ourselves out of the gorge at the base of another clear-cut. From here we hiked down a bit to get a better look at Little Lucky, which looked to be clear on the right, where it had been run on previous descents.

Scouting Little Lucky from the rim

The hike back into the gorge was much easier – we only had to rope the boats down partway, at which point we could shoulder them the rest of the way down. When I finally got to the river’s edge, I didn’t see Willy, who as it turns out had already run the drop. I wanted to take a peek before dropping in myself, so I pulled over in the one-boat eddy on river-right to see what the landing looked like.

Looking back at Tough Luck after the portage

Jacob, back on the water after the portage.
Immediately below him is Little Lucky.

Basically it was good to go with the only real hazard being some wood that had collected on the right in the runout, but didn’t look to be that bad. Just to be safe, Willy was staged there in case something went wrong. The line I had picked out was center-right, where a nice looking flake was sitting about 4’ down from the lip. Jacob warned me that although it looks like the best line, it tends to pitch you forward. He also agreed to go first and take photos from below, of which I graciously accepted his offer. Taking the hard right line and angled toward the center of the falls, he dropped off with a nice boof, landing perfectly below. Not heeding his warning, I still lined up for the apparent flake. As I rounded over the lip I waited patiently for the timing of my stroke at the apex, grabbing for it at what I felt was the perfect time. As my boat flattened out, I spotted my landing and thought to myself, "I nailed it!". Wrong -- just as he had projected, I was kicked near vertical on my way down and entered like a lawn dart. As I resurfaced upside-down, I snapped off a quick roll just before floating into the logs where Willy was staged. Oh well, no harm no foul...

The author drops over Little Lucky
while Willy and Brandon look on
(photo by Jacob Cruser)

Willy making sure I don't go into the wood

(photo by Jacob Cruser)

Next came Brandon who also decided to enter where I had, although with some angling toward the right wall. He pretty much had the same outcome as me with some nice vertical form. He was also pushed toward the floating wood pile but was able to re-gather control before it became an issue.

Brandon takes his turn on Little Lucky

Downstream you could see a couple more drops, a sneak around the right side of a logjam just below us, and what looked to be a river-wide ledge further down. Jacob said that the ledge was basically the last drop before a couple miles of trashy class II to the take-out, the only real downer of the adventure. After running the first drop, Willy once again didn't waste time and ran the river-wide ledge as well, signaling that it was good to go from the pool below. I had jumped out for pictures and noticed that there was a small recirculating hole on the left, so I made sure to tell the others to stay away from that side. After taking shots of both Brandon and Jacob running it, I ran it myself, down the center. In hindsight (from below) the hole actually didn't look that bad and would probably be fine as long as you were straight and took a stroke; however, it could start getting nasty with more water.

Willy sneaks past a log jam just below Little Lucky

Jacob pulls into an eddy just above the river-wide ledge

Brandon lines up on the ledge while the others watch from below

Expecting to be done with the whitewater portion of the run, I was surprised to see another horizon line in front of me, which ended up being a pretty fun drop. The second part of it also dropped through a cool mini-gorge that reminded me a bit of the walls on the crux section of the Ohanapecosh, although formed from sandstone instead of volcanic rock.

Brandon drops into the last of "the goods"

The last mini-gorge before the paddle out

Once past the gorge, the rapids dwindled down over the next couple of drops until we reached the true "paddle out", which could best be described as boulder-bashing boat-abuse -- you'll definitely be wishing you brought your old patched up rock boat. The one saving grace of this section was the scenery, which was pretty unique to anything else I had seen in Oregon -- worn sandstone walls with waterfalls dropping over here and there. About the time I was getting pretty tired, a road bridge came into view, where I knew that our vehicles would be waiting for us with warm clothes and beer. Hiking up from the river I thanked Jacob for the tour and mentioned that this was one of my favorite runs that I'd done in Oregon, which elicited a bit of a surprised look from him. Yeah, I certainly love the roadside classics like The Mile, Brice Creek, and Upper Quartzville, but true adventure runs are what bring me the most satisfaction and reward, probably the main reason I choose to boat.

On a final note:
I know that I'll be getting more than a few inquiries on what the name of the river is or where it's located, so let me head that off. Due to the sensitivity of access issues I cannot divulge the name or exact location online -- trust me, this is not to keep the run from others, simply a means of not bringing unnecessary attention to it. What I can tell you for now is that it's in the Oregon Coast Range. If you'd like to plan a trip here please send me an email and I'll either get you the info or pass it along to someone else who can. It's also worth noting that there are a couple of hints in this write-up which may allow you to figure it out on your own -- and if you do, we found that ~275cfs on the "LL" at “FC” gauge made for a nice medium flow in the gorge section (although 300cfs would have probably been a little better), which is the whole reason to do this run... =)