Rob A & Alan J 5-13-08 ran brush creek into wills creek in a 4-man shredder the ultimate whitewater craft. Cumberland gauge read 2570cfs 5.79. Brush creek alittle low but still fun. Wills was very exciting,we started on the right for the falls got kicked a little sideways into the 2nd hole & typewritted across, spit out sideways into the 3rd hole typewritted across kick out headed backupstream, spun hard to turn ourselves around & thru the 4th hole. No problem. Good level, believe you can go higher & hope to one day. Rest of creek was good solid moving water. Yo Yo was fun, good upper yough feel on this section in places. HillBilly Haven has all the local flavour you can handle & may be more exciting than the river. Edit

We ran railroad falls at 500 cfs on the hard left side. The second to last ledge hole is the crux of the rapid. Power through, keep the nose straight or you'll be back surfed right into a very retentive hole. Its harder to clear with speed than it looks. Have a throw bag there as its an easy rescue but horrible recycling. The last hole seems to be nothing when I've been there to actually boat the railroad at sane levels. It would be interesting for people to post their highest CFS that they cleaned this Railroad cut falls. Yo Yo is pretty easy to skirt right if you have any riversense of where not to be and when to scout.

3/6/07 - Yesterday a couple of us ran the bridge to bridge section of Wills (Fairhope down to first bridge). When we got to Yo-Yo we discovered that there had been a significant change to the drop A 10X 10 slab of concrete has fallen off the retaining wall on river left and settled in the river left slot. It sits at a 45 degree angle and now forces all of the water under the undercut retaining wall. There is no way to run the left slot and avoid the under cut or the half dozen reinforcing rods hanging into the water. The right slot and center slot were still available and have not changed. But given the nature of the left slot it is not a good idea to go left of the large rock above the drop even as a set up for the center slot as this move would require a boat length attainment above the left slot to make it back center. Nathan

The official gauge used to determine if its running or not has been switched from the CUmberland WIlls gauge to the Hyndman Guage at the end of the run. Minimium was set at 2.45, However, I don't have good data for determining the top end of the runnable, any help on that number would be appreciated.

As the person who wrote the original description above, the Class V is Railroad Rapid. It is above the listed put-in but part of the frequently combined Brush into Wills run.

In reference to a previous comment below, the Class 5 on this section is not the huge slide (Railroad Cut Falls?) above the normal put-in. The Class 5 refers to Yo-Yo Falls, especially if it has railroad debris in it!!! This has been true since at least the late 1980s (for proof, see Appalachian Whitewater, Volume 2, page 28---a description that, I think, was not written by Nathan Blatchley). The upper drop is not included in this section, even though it may well be Class 5 at some level(s). In my experience, this whole section is Class 5 when the water is high enough (when the big slide looked too insane for anyone to run). Or, if there is hidden debris, when it's low enough, too!

from the monacacy board reported by Steve Ettinger...<br /> The drainage area of the Hyndman gauge is 60% that of the Cumberland gauge, which would suggest that the AWA minimum of 3.7=580 cfs at Cumberland would translate, on average, to 2.43=350 cfs at Hyndman. We ran Wills in 2004 at 2.55=410 cfs at Hyndman (with Cumberland at 3.82), and were a little above minimum, so I think 2.43=350 cfs would be about zero level.

There is a gauge at Hyndman which gives more accurate CFS readings since its right at the end of the run. It can be accessed at the PA gauge webpage, http://waterdata.usgs.gov/pa/nwis/current/?type=flow

The (V) on this run is Railroad Cut Falls. The falls are about 400 m above the normal put-in (at the bridge) up the railroad tracks from where they cross the road. The river bends through an S-turn and then plunges over four distinct ledges for a total drop of 30’ (or so). Apparently these ledges are all slightly undercut and as a result they all form really holes that might just hold on to you as well as trees and all sorts of debris. This one isn’t for the faint of heart. I’ve run it down the right and across the big, mean, nasty hole on the third ledge and then boofed off the left of the last drop and I’ve seen it run all the way down the left (recommended). Make sure you get the last left side boof- that hole looks ugly…