Strainer in the Cascade. A tree trunk has lodged itself longways with the current right where most
of us would like to run the cascade. (9/9/09) Would be tough to avoid. Edit

I ran the slide on a low water day, the meadow was far from running. The lower was at 3.0 and
falling. The water line was not nearly above the edges of the little box the water flows through.
It was straight forward, tough current in the notch of course, but the run was clean. Momentum
coming down from the upper slide into the notch drove me right through and kept me off the walls.
It can go at low water if you're bored and looking for some action.

Responding to the picture about going under the seven foot falls rock. I did do that once at a
medium-low flow actually. The catch is I was being stupid and cavalier and found myself to far
right and hit the right rock with my bow, went cartwheeling backwards into the hole off the rock
and surfed it upside down until I caught some deep greenwater off the fall and it pushed my low
volume C-1 XXX right all the way under the rock. The bouency of my boat popped me out the other
side in the eddy after rubbing up under the ceiling of the undercut. My friend sat there and
watched it and said it was a pretty wild little trashing; it felt weird upside down too.

Put-in

Best put-in is right at the commercial rafting outfitters off Rt 381 about a mile up the hill from
the slides. In reality, you can walk the shuttle along the road, it takes about 15 minutes at most.
There is a trail alongside the river, but its hilly and winds around a little, the road is more
direct.

Also, for the cascades. Our consensus was to start right of center, through the notch, and stay
there until the end. Pretty simple slide. To avoid pitoning at the base, carry speed and go off
with a side angle to the right, maybe 30 degrees. This keeps your bow from smacking down on the
rocks, boofing is pretty hard when there is only an inch of water to use.

To gauge the river, its in the same drainage as the Big Sandy, the water falls from the same place,
so most likely if the Sandy is rising towards 6.5 or more it is runnable.

Cascades is quite impressive looking (more-so than the photos suggest) but not at all difficult,
high flows want to slam you into R-wall and pins are possible at all flows at base of 6' ledge,
especially with pointy boats, so have some speed and keep yer bow up!

7-foot falls requires a different approach for different water levels and they are pretty much
incompatible so you may want to scout it if you haven't run at that particular level. Really high:
from center line (well above last eddy BTW) head right and boof onto rock, if you miss it prepare
to get worked; High: left of center down flake and draw beyond piton rock (thwwap!) Med: About the
same; Low: Flake is exposed and the normal line will shunt you into a nasty little slot on the far
left where pins and elbow/shoulder beatings are the norm. Instead, boof over meat R of center and
have enough speed not to get pulled back in. The canyon at this point is fantastic so look around
and appreciate it!

The slide must be one of the fastest rapids around and loooonnnngggg too. No joke about catching
that last eddy (the flag is still up as of 6/2003) I've seen folks miss it and go for an unintended
legitimate class V run. Might be good to scout it on the shuttle just in case you end up running
it. For those who want to run it, it is truly sweet but pretty demanding, requiring quite a bit
more than just hanging on to avoid running it backwards, upside-down, toothless, battered or
without pitoning. I don't think that I'd run it too much lower than that photo of Andy Masser at
the top, because of serious danger of losing teeth in several places.