American, Silver Fork

Long fascinated by this lesser-known cousin of South Silver, I decided to scout this run on a sunny Thursday afternoon with 70cfs, well below the recommended level, releasing from Silver Lake. To my surprise, I found the rapids in the first mile both clean and runnable at this level. I rallied a fellow packrafter for a paddle-in / hike-out mission the following weekend.

Saturday morning rolled around and I checked the level to find that EldoCo Irrigation had stepped the flow down to 50cfs. I called my packrafter buddy and canceled, and then on a whim my partner and I decided to go anyway.

Surprised again, I found that many of the rapids still went just fine and were quite fun. Because it was a very hot summer weekend, the Potholes area was crawling with people and I had no desire to create a spectacle by paddling through them, although these drops were mostly good to go and looked rad. We hiked to below the first unrunnable waterfall (which is also a fantastic filter for day hikers) and put in.

Some drops were clean and runnable, others I had to portage because of the low water. Astroslide was spectacular and much less boney than Autobahn at similar flows. My partner and I paddled and hiked down to Strawbilly Falls to find it too low to comfortably run, so we packed up and hiked out. It was a super fun and very low stress day thanks to packrafts and their ease of portaging.

If you’re looking for a similar inflatable experience, I’d suggest a minimum of 70cfs on the Silver Fork below Oyster Creek gauge to run more of the rapids. Strawbilly Falls (an obvious 15 footer below an unrunnable slide) makes for a good turnaround point, as the river changes character below and becomes more boulder gardens.

Shoutout to Joe Cutrer for unlocking this run and sharing the beta I needed to actually get on it.

View a video of the run here: Packrafting Tip Top Silver Fork

PS: I went back with a crew two days later and ran the Potholes section at 50cfs. Still needed more water.