Hutchinson Creek

Hutchinson Creek is a narrow forested creek that is often trail/roadside as it flows down toward the South Fork of the Nooksack. The creek starts as a shallow easy float with some standard hazards for wood. The first section starts out with some easier class II-III rapids with the occasional wood hazard.

Soon the walls begin to rise and the creek plunges into the first gorge. The gorge is short but depending on the flows offers excitement or terror. As flows approach 200cfs and above, the rapids in the gorge piece together to create one big firehose. Wood is the main issue here and at lower flows eddies may be present to avoid the wood but as flows go up these eddies disappear and things get very continuous. The gorge can be scouted or portaged river right.

After the gorge the creek winds through a short lower gradient section before dropping into the second slightly longer gorge. The second gorge is more commiting and the rapids seemed slightly more complex that the upper, but wood ends up being the determining factor here. At higher flows it is imperative to scout the entire lower gorge before dropping in, once you are committed scouting and portaging at river level becomes very difficult if not impossible in some places and a misplaced piece of wood could wreak havoc here.

Below the second gorge the creek mellows out down to the confluence with the South Fork Nooksack.