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So all week I’m watching the river levels for the rivers we wanted to run, the East & West forks of the Hood, and it’s just scraping by…so come the weekend Docta P and I decided to head out past Estacada and run the river that we pretty much grew up on, the Upper Clackamas, bcoz the road was re-opened and we knew there would be plenty of water. The river has seen our evolution from nothing but truck-tire inner tubes, PFD’s, and sandals (those were cold, scar-tissue-on-the-shins-and-knees days) to our current Navy-SEAL type outfits and boards – and despite the road being closed for some amount of time pretty much every year due to rockslides, the river has not changed its character much in the 11 years we’ve been running it.
The normal run is about a 4 mile stretch from Fish Creek down through Bob’s Hole, a fairly famous kayak surfing hole which is the site of a national rodeo each year. We had not riden the upper section of the run for quite a few years (there’s also another even more technical run further up), so we decided to run the whole thing.
The upper section is some 6 or 7 miles with only a couple of named rapids – it’s a fun run though, very scenic, and since the water level was at Red (which doesn’t mean stop, it means “Hell yeah!”) and looked higher than we’d ever seen it, there were a lot of little wave trains that made the normally slow parts pretty fun.
One of the most fun rapids on the river funnels into a little gorge that in the summer time becomes a popular cliff-jumping spot – I believe it’s called The Narrows. The river becomes extremely steep for about ¼ mile and it’s not very technical or huge, but it’s a great rush of big waves moving fast, and it ends in a beautiful, deep pool which at this high level was kind of eerie – green water with random whirlpools shooting up bubbles beneath you can really trip you out! There are a couple other decent sized rapids before you get to Fish Creek, one is called Roaring River, and it is normally pretty bouldery but at high flow it is just a great bouncy ride, with a really cool looking chute that cuts between a huge river-center boulder and the mossy wall on the far left. There's also a fun chute that banks hard against the river left wall (thus the name Hole In The Wall) and tosses you back out into the main river. During one of the slower little wave sections, Docta P and I were having fun trying to get each other stuck on little spillovers – which, if you’re not familiar with that term, it’s where the water looks harmless but is flowing over a boulder and then drops straight off – in big rapids, they can be dangerous, but in little stuff, they’re mostly just annoying, bcoz since the water is usually only a few inches above the rock, if you try to go over it you’ll just high-center and get stuck! This usually results in tipping over and rafters making fun of you. Anyway, so we’re entertaining ourselves pointing out bad lines for each other and pushing each other into hidden boulders, and he’s like, “Yo, I get my thrills on I+ spills!” I cracked up and he goes, “Hey, don’t laugh, I’ve been working on that one for weeks!” The Docta had an amazing experience going over a huge one blind on the Lochsa river several years ago that sent him airborne about 6 feet and landed him with the loudest slap I have ever heard on a river, so I guess that’s where he gets his love for spillovers and a good rap line. Or maybe it was when he hit his head off Class V Husum falls…
From Fish Creek through Carter bridge is where the Clackamas festivals are held in May, it’s a fun mile stretch that has 3 easily visible rapids. The first is Fish Creek, which is barely a Class III but is fun at any flow, it’s just a river-wide descent through some fun waves which ends abruptly in a weird way as the entire river slowly heads toward the left bank. On our way down to the next rapid we had a surreal experience – bcoz the water was so high, what was normally a small wave train had become about a 30 foot long bubble – by that I mean it was a drop, but the entire thing was super smooth in the middle of the funnel like a huge glassy waterslide! We’d never seen a smooth chute that long before, it felt really cool. The next rapid is almost right beneath the road, a quick little chute that slams into the rock wall on river right and drops over a boulder. It looks small from up above on the road, but when the river is pounding like it was it’s actually a pretty powerful turn that you better be ready for, since slamming headlong into rocks in the middle of a large rapid is not recommended. Carter rapid (sometimes called Carter Falls) is known mainly for one large hole about ¾ of the way down. I’d venture to guess that at average flows it’s a good 4-5 feet deep, maybe more, I don’t know – it’s hard to tell when you’re laying in it. The upper part of the rapid is kind of tricky, bcoz you CAN run center, but it drops into several gross hydraulic pools before funneling toward the hole – Docta P thought that looked fun. Huh? His ideas of fun, sometimes I just don’t know…he flipped over on the first drop, swam through the hydraulic pool and managed to get back on his board just as he dropped into the line and hit the hole. He’s a good rider, so I wasn’t worried about him. However, it’s much easier and highly suggested to just run it left and follow the line – and if you’re timid the first time (bcoz the hole is really close to the bank, and there are often people sitting there gleefully watching the carnage) you can easily avoid the hole on the left side and continue down through the fun waves below. The hole is harmless though, honestly. It’s big, but you’ll pop right through. About a mile below Carter bridge is hidden away in the forested canyon what has been maybe the only ‘changing’ rapid on the river the past decade, a Class III known as The Crag. Strictly going off the USFS ratings, though, I would call this a definite IV on this day – it was easily the biggest, nastiest hole on the river. It looks fairly harmless coming up to it, and you can eddy-scout (it’s a long ways from the road), but it’s not necessary. You run it right and it’s another one of those rapids that looks like it’s going to slam you into the wall, but the water will shoot you quickly left. There’s a new twist to this rapid though – as it shoots you left, it really SHOOTS you left, off a little ledge (I don’t remember that being there) and into a couple nasty, churning holes that completely obstruct your view of the world around you. To add to the extreme fun, when all of that fast-moving pounding is over the river spits you out into a hyper-strong hydraulic which apparently likes the taste of flippers, the way it was sucking on mine! Once past the popular High Rocks swimming hole (which even my Grandmother used to talk about, bcoz so many people have died there cliff jumping into a huge whirlpool and drowned in the hydraulic – but a lot of alcohol is usually involved), the river splits – the left side cascades down an extremely long, shallow boulder field, and the right side tumbles through a series of boulders with a mondo hole at the bottom. This rapid is highly visible from the turnout on the road, and so long as you pick a decent line, it’s a lot of fun. The hole is big enough that even rafts can sometimes catch an endo here!
At this level, it would have been tough to pick a ‘bad’ line, but we have a friend who ran it back on the inner-tube days when the water was much lower and more bouldery – he ran it waaaay too far right and tumbled his way through giant boulders, bouncing along like a neoprene pinball. The hole at this level was pretty big, as you can see in the pictures. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to come racing into a hole like that – when you’re only a foot out of the water, a 4 foot wave looks and feels enormous. It’s fun when you fly off the other side too!
Around the bend from Rock-N-Roll is our favorite, Toilet Bowl. At high flows it’s not really technical at all, but the waves are pretty dang big. Bcoz the chute is so forgiving, I’d recommend it to any rider who wants to get a feel for Class IV water but doesn’t want the added danger of nasty recirculation that is found in many cat IV’s. You may fall off your board in this chute the first few times, and while it’s a huge wave train it’s not going to hurt you. We don’t recommend riding it with nothing on but an inner tube like the Docta’s first ever ride, but it is forgiving, and you can certainly feel the Class IV power.
The last rapid on the river is right at the take-out, and is a popular play spot for kayakers. It’s a great surfing wave known as Bob’s Hole, and if I ever figure out who Bob was I will certainly let you all know. It’s a big mystery to everyone, I think. My hypothesis is that probably Bob couldn’t even swim, he was probably some dude out fishin’ and drinkin’ beer and started carving his love for some girl into a tree – problem was Bob was so drunk he passed out and never finished the carving. So when kayakers found the place, all they saw was a tree with the name BOB carved into it. So, the logical conclusion was that Bob must have been some world class boater who ran the river in a hollow spruce sapling with his pet Saber Tooth Tiger…and the rest is history. Ok, maybe not. But when I see that story posted as the truth on a message board somewhere, I’ll laugh anyway.
I’d never really been into the whole “surfing” thing before, mainly bcoz we never bothered trying – we just have too much fun going down our Class IV waterslides. I was able to figure out how to catch the wave though after a couple of tries, and it’s a rush! I couldn’t see upriver bcoz the wave in front of me was higher than my head, so all I saw was this giant mound of water rushing toward me and going under me. I caught a couple waves for probably 45 second rides, and I can see why people think it’s fun. Just don’t let the river catch the front of your board and take it under…I got careless and ended up faceplanting into my board and getting washed upside down! I didn’t realize I was bleeding until Doc was like, “Dude, you’re bleeding.” So he stitched it up with a sharp stick and some strands of moss. It wasn’t a bad cut, and it certainly didn’t stop me from catching the eddy over and over to work on my surfing. I’m not sure how many rivers have awesome surf holes like that, but at least now we know how to do it. ~IceMan~
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