Trip Report: June Creek section of Clackamas

[liveonearth]

Five of us ran this creeky upper section of the Clackamas today. There were no other boaters on the section. Soggy Sneakers says it is runnable when the Clack is above 3,000 CFS. It was 600 today, and still enough water. Yes, it was low. Lowest, busiest, rockiest run I've done in Oregon yet. I like it. I was happy to see the Oregon boaters working hard to get around some of those rocks. There are only maybe 8 real horizon lines, all smallish drops. The last one has a hole that would get considerably worse with more water. It claimed a swimmer today, low as it was. No one in the group knew names for any of the rapids. The biggest one looked pretty bad from the road, but from river level I saw a line so I ran it. One of the guys ran it behind me. The other three portaged. It was shady in there and I had a hard time getting good photo eddies at some of the drops....and the group was moving fast enough that I couldn't get ahead of the group. So lots went unphotographed. I didn't care. I had lots of fun. We stopped on river left at Austin hotsprings and I sat in the steam tent. The spring was too hot to touch. =-]



A little video of Rick running the bigun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwnQSS7otR0





A little video of somebody else on another day, running June creek section at 3,000 CFS.

Comments

[neptunia67.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an awesome day.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Twas!

SE skill time...

[beauregard45.livejournal.com]

glad to see you got to use your low water SE skills out west. Looks like a neat run. I ran the Watauga a few weeks ago at about 260 cfs. Kind low, but probably a good place to start. Sold a sea kayak, broke the Mtn. 300, gave away the T4. Now down to a duck, a floor out of a Riken duck, and two PFDs. Looks like its time to go shoppin' at the second hand store again soon. That or see if John Tincher can find me another $50 boat at a yard sale like the last one.

Re: SE skill time...

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking my next boat will be fiberglass. I don't want anything that weighs over 25 pounds.