Klamath

We ran Kikaceki Canyon on 7/2/2025 at 1100 cfs (Iron Gate Gage) and found ourselves in over our heads. We estimated a ~1 hour trip through the canyon and ended up being in there for about 5 hours, with scouting, raft pins, and eventual lining of rafts through 2 rapids. We've all played with class IV before, but were all a bit rusty, so the early mishaps and river conditions made us extra cautious and led us to choose lining rafts. 2 oar rafts with no paddle support.

The early dam site section was great. Really cool piece of history to witness as we floated through. Several fun smaller rapids were easy enough to navigate.

At a big right-hand bend, we reached Rapid 4 (I think), with the big ledge drop on the left. We tried to push the right line hard, but the laterals forced us left and the hole sucked us right in, dumping a passenger who was fortunately recovered quickly. The second raft tried to get even further right, but also got sucked into the hole. That raft got pinned on some rocksdownstream and took about an hour to recover. You need momentum here! A full load of paddlers might be able to punch the hole, but at this flow, it is very very sticky!

Rapid 5 was full of wood, including in the big chute at the bottom. Given our recent mishaps at #4, we decided to line our rafts through on the right. Another hour gone...

Rapid 6 was our minor redemption and was a fun time. Reminiscent of House Rock on the Grand Canyon, if only because it's a big yard-on-the-sticks-to-the-right kind of rapid.

And finally, Kikaceki Falls. At this point, it was late and we were pretty beat. All that notwithstanding, this rapid looked scary. From our perspective, there is a right line only at the top. Full of nearly exposed rocks, so plenty of chances to get spun around in there. The entrance leads right into three consecutive, almost channel-spanning holes, and more rocks downstream. In all likelihood, we probably could have ran this and been OK, but the margin of error was slim, and swimming through multiple big holes and rocks was not sounding great. So, we lined through again.

The canyon is beautiful, and part of me wants to go back, maybe with a bigger group, better rafts for the run, and better flows. I'm not sure what the sweet spot is, but for us, this flow is too low!