American, North Fork

From Joni Randall

Safety hazard in Giant Gap of North Fork of the American* I received a message from a member of the public that wishes to remain anonymous, asking me to alert others. Since I work for the Bureau of Land Management and this is one of our Wild & Scenic River Sections, and I often post on hazards, it makes sense.

They wrote: 'Can you post something in Facebook for kayak safety on giant gap? I want to remain anonymous. We lost a boat with a rope on it. The boat is on left side of the rock at the exit of what awetstate calls Fun One. The rope is wrapped around the rock and is probably in the right side exit boof.' Everyone is okay. 'If someone boofs cleanly thru the right they'll probably be fine, a swimmer could be in trouble. The rapid can also be run on far left.'

Sharing a post from Facebook about potential changes to the run over winter and spring 2017. Sorry about the formatting, AWW coments don't like newlines:

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BOATERS BEWARE!!!

Giant Gap (and possibly Generation Gap) have some significant changes in a few places, about 3 of which (maybe more if my tired memory is forgetting) are in big rapids, and not necessarily for the better. ~1400 cfs

1. Dream Gap:

Has a landslide on river left. There's a tree sticking all the way out across the entire main channel of Dream Gap 0. Also beware the the putin of Generation Gap at the river is hazardous. Watch your step (and your gear!).

1. Warm up gorge:

There's a slot between a boulder and the right shore that reminds me of the bottom of Nutcracker. I don't recall the boulder making a huge sieve on river left. Either way, seems like a new boulder and makes a gnarly sieve that about 1/3 to 1/2 the river pushes at. Easy to stay right. Make sure you do!

1. Locomotive:

has a log across the right channel just above the ledge. At our flow today, it was a good (not sketchy) boof. I was expecting the right side to be its normal big backed up hole. Instead it was pretty easy. When I looked back upstream, the ledge didn't seem to be a ledge anymore. We were in a rush, having just come down Generation Gap as well, so I didn't look long. Just looked... weird. And way different.

1. Five Alive:

No longer has it's amazingly awesome curly wave at these flows. There's still sort of a curly diagonal hole, but we had to make evasive maneuvers when taking the standard entrance (left of center near the left side of the curl) as there was a fatty piton rock right there! Instead I zigged far left of it and hugged the left wall all the way down. Super weird and different looking.

1. Just Downstream II (according to AWETSTATE):

The long rapid down river right shortly down stream of Dominator and just upstream of the waterfall coming in from Canyon Creek (the one with the holes) USED to have a sweet wave train at the bottom. Now the bottom is a BIG ledge hole. Very wide, pretty big tow back. Easy to get left or charge hard and boof. I wasn't expecting it and had to paddle my balls off to not get sucked back in.

1. Dominator:

The middle where it constricts above the final drop seems SIGNIFICANTLY smoothed out (this is the only better change). May have just been the flow, but the rapid at our flows could not be considered class 5 by any means, nor even 4+. A big class 4 is all it really was.

1. some interesting shifts of gravel bars, and I'm pretty sure a whole new gravel island.
   Please be wary and stay on your toes!

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