San Francisquito Creek
Highway 280 to San Fransisco Bay
| Difficulty | III |
| Length | 8.4 mi |
| Avg Gradient | n/a |
| Gauge | San Francisquito C a Stanford University Ca |
| Flow Rate as of 12 minutes | 6 cfs |
| Reach Info Last Updated | March 9, 2026 |
River Description
Searsville Dam has plugged up the headwaters of San Francisquito Creek where several tributaries came together and carved their way through a confined gorge that is the dam site. The dam itself is a 65 foot high and 275 foot wide wall of concrete blocks within Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Searsville Dam no longer provides any functional benefits and has lost over 90% of its original water storage capacity as approximately 1.5 million cubic yards of sediment has filled it up. The creek hosts the most viable remaining native steelhead population in the South San Francisco Bay and dam removal would double this habitat.
Paddlers have explored the creek from Highway 280 down to San Fransisco Bay, a run that takes about 3 hours and inludes a few class III rapids. There are some hazards including one old, small diversion dam.
Paddlers can also put in at the Stanford Dish- Alpine Rd entrance near the bridge. There are multiple parks and points of egress to put in or take out along the way.
River Features
Take Out
Put In
Trip Reports
Log in to add a reportWe put in at 350 cfs and it was cool to paddle through town! No rapids to write home about... 1 river wide log we portaged. Pretty obvious. Many sections of bushy 'hope this goes!' moves that were fine. Although one sort of sketchy move where you had to paddle hard through bushes on either side to punch through. Could be fun at higher flows, as there were not any real rapids at 350 cfs.