| Difficulty | V |
| Length | 1.3 mi |
| Avg Gradient | n/a |
| Gauge | East Fork Lewis River Near Heisson, Wa |
| Flow Rate as of 1 hour | 53 cfsbelow recommended |
| Reach Info Last Updated | July 24, 2026 |
Lacamas Creek is a short, infrequently run whitewater creek in Camas, WA, offering a quick but engaging descent when flows are right. The run features a couple of small ledges, a medium-sized waterfall followed by a long, fast slide that requires solid boat control. It's set in a forested canyon and best suited for experienced paddlers looking for a short, technical challenge.
There is no dedicated gauge for Lacamas Creek, so paddlers rely on local conditions to judge flow. The creek is rain-fed and responds quickly to storms. A key indicator is the status of the upstream reservoir—when it's full and there's ongoing rainfall, excess water spills into the creek, creating reliably runnable conditions on high-water days. Checking nearby rainfall totals and doing a visual scout at the take-out can also help determine whether the creek is in. It is worth a look when the reservoir is full and the East Fork Lewis gauge is reading 2,000 cfs or more.
There are trails on both sides of the river so the whole run can be sussed out beforehand. Because it is a park, paddlers can scope things out on a non-paddling day in order to get the lay of the land so when they come back with a boat they already know where the big drops are and what the wood situation might be.
The run starts by walking around Round Lake (or paddling across), and getting down to the creek on river-left below the dam. There is a small but formidable ledge drop here with pot holes that is better at higher flows, often paddlers put in below it. Fast water downstream leads to the next horizon line at Pothole Falls. This can be scouted from either side and has three obvious line choices. The easiest route is a sneak down the right side where there is only a bit of water, the middle route has an awesome boof - but a shallow landing. The l
...Put in at Lacamas Park on Round Lake and paddle or shoulder your boat 1/3 of to the south end of the lake where the creek starts below the dam. Portage the dam on the right, walk across the top of the dam, then put in river left
The run begins below the dam. At anything but high flows, this rapid looks horrible and is a portage. You need a significant amount of rain to run this, per the picture
Scout left and assess the options among the three lines. Note: this waterfall will come up very quickly after you get past the dam rapid, so be prepared to eddy out quickly on the left. The left line looks the deepest and is generally suggested. The center line looks glorious, but the landing is a touch shallow
Eddy out before the foot bridge to scout this big slide or portage on river left. I'm not sure how big it is, but from start to finish, you're going down this slide for about 15 seconds. This is likely the largest slide within at least an hour or two drive from Portland
The take-out is at the Lacamas Creek Trailhead on the upstream river right side of the Highway 14 Bridge. While you will park at Lacamas Creek Trailhead, you will want to scout where to takeout from the parking lot. The closer you get to the parking lot, the steeper the bank gets. The ideal place to takeout is roughly one or two tenths of a mile from the parking lot. You will likely have some wood portages between Little Norway and the takeout, but they are in class 0-1 water, so it's easy to portage them
Dec 18, 2024
There isn't a gauge, but we ran this when EFL was at about 3k cfs and I think flows were about ideal. With that said, it looks like you can still scrape down this a good week after it's last rained. Anyway, I (Timothy Kunin) went with Kallie Kurtz and Andy Lozovoy. This run is very underappreciated, especially since big slides in PNW are rare and this is so close to Portland. Thanks to Kallie Kurtz for the majority of these photos
Dec 30, 2018
We had planned on running something else, but when that fell through and we were still up early this seemed like a good alternate. All three of the main drops were runnable, wood at the bottom of Little Norway complicated the landing pool and only half the group ran it. Those of us who did not run it just hiked the trail out from there, those who ran it reported a bit of wood in the run out section. EF Lewis gauge was at 3,000 cfs.