Ran it last Saturday at 2.10. Although it was low all the drops were still good to go. The drop right under the bridge had a really shallow landing and one member of our group pitoned pretty hard. If you're running it at this level just make sure you use good paddle signals to make sure you dont land on your pitoned buddy. At this level it was more of a class IV plop and drop, but with the absolute must make eddy before the unrunnable big one, it deserves respect. I think next time we'll set someone with a line at the final must make eddy just in case.

Guage at 2.47 steady today. Newbie run for two of us. Taken down from the top by veterans Jeff Ackerman and Wayne "GMan". Perfect 1st time level. Just the right amount of adrenaline without the extreme.

Here is a Description I put together based on information I have gathered over the last 5 years of kayaking the Raymondskill. The Take-Out is located on SR 2009 off of Rt.209 N. You cross the creek on 209 and take an immediate left following signs towards Raymondskill falls. There will be a parking lot on your left a little ways up the hill and a walking trail from the parking lot leading down to the falls. Drop a car at the lot, and then continue up the hill on SR 2009 crossing the creek once, passing Silver Spring on your right eventually you’ll come to a stop sign. Make a right at the stop onto SR 2001, cross the Raymondskill again; keep going until you see an auto-parts store on the left and a little further down you will see a guard rail on the right and a gravel road immediately following. Turn right here, the gravel road ends in a parking area. From here hike your boat in to the creek, paddle down about a ¼ mile to the first drop, “Hackers Falls”. This drop is one of the most fun drops on the run. It’s a two step 25 ft slightly off vertical waterfall. The top move is the crux, a 3 foot boof over a pourover angling left to set you up for the 80 degree slide, best run down the left. Scout on the left. At the end of the pool there is a small ledge, run center. Then the creek meanders through some typical placid Pocono boogie water, and you are at the top of the “Super Slide” a.k.a. “Crack in the Wall”. It’s about 60 yards dropping about 40 ft, really fun, run down the right. You can also catch an eddy on the right ¾ of the way down in front of the “crack in the wall”. From here it’s a cool ferry out of the eddy back onto the slide. Continue downstream through flat water where you’ll see an occasional downed tree, best to portage these, use good judgment. Right now there is only one that is easily ski jumped in the middle. After a little more flat water you will come to the bridge on SR 2009. Here begins the continuous steep section. The “Bridge Drop” has a couple different lines. You can enter under the bridge on the left or the right. The left side slopes down a small slide, similar to the right, and drops through a slot, angle right. Following the slot you want to set your boat up with right angle and drop over a horizon line about a 3 foot drop onto a chute that slopes out the remaining 6 feet of drop. Or you can boof straight off and hit the ledge, double boof, and head back right. The right side is a bit easier, run down the right, about 5 feet off from the notch in the middle of the drop, set up on a near vertical 10 foot slide. Immediately after this drop is another drop with an 8 foot sloping entrance slide, run down the right, followed by a 3 foot pourover hole at the bottom, boof right. The next drop after a pool is called “Graham Slam”. This is a bouncy slide run down the right, stay upright! The next drop is called “Iron Staircase”. This drop can be run far right, far left or center. The left is pretty sick, often a big deep hole at the bottom. The standard line is a double boof run right of center over a 4 foot ledge onto another ledge dropping another 6 feet into a pool. Now you are at the main attraction of the run, “Flirting with Disaster”. It is a 20+ foot drop onto a sloped rock slide ramping 15 feet over a 6 foot drop at the bottom. This drop deserves a good look for it has been portaged by everyone who has ever run the creek for the last 7 years, until this year. Scout thoroughly, lines have been run down left of center at the top. After this big boy the stream mellows out with two great 6 foot boofs, the first one called “The drop after the Carry” boof center angle back left, followed by “Blue Angel” big boof off the left corner. A boogie drop brings you to “Z Turn” a slide ending with a 3 foot boof over a hole with water slamming into a cave/wall on the right, boof left. Then you come to the “Happy Couple”, two 4 foot back to back pourovers, 1st one run center, keep your bow up, 2nd one run a foot off the left, boof with your bow up and catch the eddy on the left! This is the take-out. It is imperative that you catch this eddy because below is the first drop on Raymondskill falls, for all intents and purposes this drop is unrunnable, a 40 footer slamming into a wall at the bottom left. However, the drop right after this has been run a number of times, and is actually quite fun! If you haven’t gotten enough vertical for the day you can hike down the right side, around the first drop, and lower your boat into the pool between the two. Put in here and run down the right. It’s a big 40 foot near vertical double bounce slide into a deep pool. Take out and walk up the trail on the left.

Raymondskill ran at a medium high level today. The Bushkill gauge peaked at around 2.3. I ran Flirting with Disaster and afterwards because of the higher water decided it was more suitably named than at lower water. It was more of a "within inches of Disaster" today. Higher water pushed me further left at the bottom than my 2 previous runs @ around 2.1(Bushkill). The wall on the left at the bottom really comes into play at higher levels. Watch your elbows and eyes. Scout and use good judgement on this one. It couldn't have a better name.

The drop on this run which most boaters refer to as "the Portage" in the middle of the run after the double drop "Iron Staircase" that was never thought to be runnable, was successfully run today. The drop is a 20ft slightly off vertical drop, pretty much freefalling, onto a sloped slab which ramps about 15 ft ending with a 6 foot boof into the pool below. A boater swam the drop by accident last fall after swimming above the falls and could not make it to the bank in time and somehow was not seriously injured, which made us think that it could be done. Today it was successfully run in a kayak twice by Eli Landis. He cracked his boat the day before and decided to risk completely demolishing the boat by ghost running the boat over the drop first to find the right line. After the boat cleaned the line we decided it could be done but the transition at the bottom would be too abrupt. Eli told us he was going to run it and after all of us hinting towards trying to talk Eli out of it, he went up and did it anyway. He made it look so good it convinced all of us to give it a go. It has now been run 6 times, all clean lines. Eli decided to call it "Flirting with Disaster"

you can run it down to 1.9 from the top or 1.7 from the bridge. It gets scrapy but verticals vertical especialy when nothing else is going

From 209 turn onto Raymondskill Rd.you will pass the Take-out on the left <br /> use second parking lot {bath room changing room on site}take a look at <br /> bottom ledge it can be a nasty hole and a mistake here it could be your <br /> last.Left out of the parking lot you will cross over the bridge drop then <br /> come to a stop sign.Turn right on Milford road{state road 2009 ?}.you will <br /> cross Raymondskill{100 feet}with in a mile you will come to a dirt road on <br /> the right{3rd guard rail ?}there is a small state park sign, follow to end <br /> take trail on left,to top of hill then first trail to right. <br /> <br /> Raymond Skill Rd, Milford, PA 18337 {this will get you close}

We put in farther up-stream (at the second bridge over the creek- from the falls parking lot) I wouldn’t recommend this put-in as it entailed paddling through a private resort lake and then over a low-head dam because the property owners wouldn’t let us walk around. The dam isn’t that bad, but the irate owners might make this route a bad idea. <br /> <br /> Apparently there is another dirt road somewhere between the bridges that allows access close to the creek but still above the two drops not described above. These drops are well worth any effort it takes to get to them- I’d say that the first one is the most fun on the run. The drop is a 25’(ish) cascade with a narrow (5’?) entrance sloping about 4’ into a boily hole followed immediately by a near vertical cascade into a mean looking hole that you just sub right under. Easy scouting and portaging is available on the river left. A bit downstream is the second drop, a looonnggg bouncy slide with a big pillowed wall at the bottom. This looks like it could be run about anywhere but be ready for the wall at the end. Around the next bend (or two) you’ll see the normal put-in bridge. <br /> <br /> We didn’t see any reason to portage around the falls and instead took out at the nice parking lot at the top. If you want to run the very public 40’ cascade, scout on the left but ferry across to the right and do the hike/scramble/climb down to the put-in ledge. The drop is quite runnable and even clean (as these things go) but the put in is a nasty surging pool right at the lip with the first drop pounding down a few feet away. Be careful and consider having someone help you into your boat (and get it down there!) Also, the pool below is pretty large but ends with a river level strainer followed immediately by the 50’ fall onto rocks… nice… <br /> <br /> This is a nice warm-up for Hornbecks which is right up the road and might be running too! <br />

Sounds like a cool run, needs some maps!!