Brushy Fork,

Brushy Fork Road to Stonelick Creek

Usual Difficulty	II-III(IV) (may vary with level)
Length	2 Miles
Avg. Gradient	68 fpm
Max Gradient	80 fpm

River Description

In just two short years, the Stonelick watershed has suffered a terrible downward trend for paddlers. Due to the Bush Administrations Dirty Water Act uh, I mean Clean Water Act, the Ohio EPA has announced tha the number of streams or rivers in Ohio which are deamed unsafe for fishing, boating, swimming and all other recreational activities has increased from 205 watersheds and 15 large rivers to 242 watersheds and 211 large rivers. Only one stream meets the federal standards.

Brushy Fork is a tributary of Stonelick Creek. The pioneering first descent was made on May 8, 1998 by Bruce Jackson, James Nutter and Sarah and Fred Coleman. This is a little creek, about 30 foot wide. The run is about 2 miles long and it has the biggest easy drop in this watershed. A 6-7 foot ledge that at lower levels you have to run on the right side and boof over a big flat rock just inches under water at the base of the ledge. There's a couple pretty dynamic surfs on the run; a couple 360 holes and a rodeo hole that is nasty, sticky and shallow at lower flows but gets bigger, deeper and better at high water. When that happens, three more similar but much bigger and stickier holes appear just downstream. When the hole washes out, two of the holes below are eye-bulging keepers. Go right. The big ledge is just below the three holes. Scout on river right. Respect the landowners here. This ledge can be run either off the bigger boof on river right, or at real high flows, on river left off the launch point. But never down the middle.

Below the ledge things crank downhill in Class II boogie water, but it's flyin'. It mellows for a short bit but soon things pick right back up. First there's a nasty, hard to see diagonal hole, right above another ledge. The ledge drops into a dynamic surf/360 hole. Just stay in the middle here, but remember that the eddies are always on the left. Immediately below there's another sizeable sliding ledge drop with a big wave behind it at high flows, some runout boogie water, and then you get a break with some flatwater in a valley. After passing a tributary (Rocky Run) on river right that adds some flow, the next section of rapids is pushier and has a couple of nice broken ledge type rapids and another nice hole/wave twisting flume rapid that is a lot of fun. At high water it all becomes one rapid consisting of a big diagonal wave/hole followed by 2 BIG holes . They can be skirted on river left. They can be really mean and they look really bad. A little boogie water after that and it's over.

The confluence with Stonelick Creek is 50 feet above the take-out. The put-in is on Brushy Fork Road, so the shuttle is quick and easy. After you run it, load up and go run Stonelick. It's running and you're already there!

Directions: located in Owensville, Ohio in Clermont county. Going north on I-275, take the Rt 50 / Hillsboro exit. Heading south on I-275, take the Rt 50 Hillsboro exit and circle around under the expressway. Turn right off exit ramp and head east on Rt 50. Go approx. 5 miles to Owensville. Turn left onto Rt 132 at the Sunoco station, and follow it until it descends into the valley and crosses Stonelick Creek. The next road on you right is Ansteatt Road. Turn and go 100 yds to the take-out.

Shuttle: from Ansteatt road, bear left and head back south on Rt 132. take it until it dead ends into Rt 50. turn left and drive slowly through Owensville and go straight through the other traffic light in town. Look for Brushy Fork Road on your left and turn there. Follow it to the creek. Go across the bridge and drive around the bend and turn around. Park on the bend and put-in right down the driveway on the ford.