Sandy

To find the put in take Hwy 26 west through Sandy. At the last traffic light in Sandy take a left down OR 211 (?) towards Bull Run. The take-out is at Revenue Bridge, however due to landowner issues it is best to park about 100 yds before the bridge on a road that turns off to the left. After a lovely discussion (mostly about the aforementioned barista), the 4 of us crammed into the cab of Mike’s pickup truck and headed off upstream. Our original plan was to put-in above Alder Creek, however after 20 minutes of drysuit stench in the cab of the truck and no-sign of a good put-in, with the guidebook locked in my car at the takeout, we decided to settle for the put-in at the Marmot Dam site. From Revenue Bridge continue on OR 211. The first right is Marmot Rd., take that until a dirt road takes off on the right with lots of big official signs. The road winds down to a locked gate. At this point we decided that the easiest way to the river was down. After some sliding on a muddy slope, the kind of place where it is far to easy to imagine serial killers dumping bodies off of the dirt bank. We just about dumped Dave, and his boat, off the bank, however a sort of sketchy belay later, and Dave had made it to the river. The other 3 of us decided that we did not in fact want to die by falling off of a dirt cliff on the Sandy River, so we made our way back up the road and continued walking down to just below the dam site where we found an easy put-in. The first couple miles of the river are easy class II with one woody class III that is worth scouting on the right, you can see giant logs sticking out of the river from upstream. Continuing downstream you head into a fun little gorge section with a few class III rapids and some lovely overhanging caves. We made it past Sasquatch and his cohorts and had fun through Boulder, the first class IV of the run. At the level we ran it at, the line was just to the left of the biggest boulder, winding down through some other rocks. Next was Rasp Rock where there’s a big hole that you might want to paddle hard into. Half the group went right, the other half went left, and we all survived so that just goes to show (?) We continued down to Drain Hole, a tight right turn with a big sieve on the left, a move that looks hard but actually has a huge pillow on the sieve. The final rapid is Revenue Bridge, a fun, but quite rocky rapid that is much bigger than it looks from the bridge. We ran far right down the top section, then left at the bottom, skirting (or getting chundered in) some quite large holes. The takeout is on the left at the bridge. more pictures can be found at http://cohophotography.com/sandygorge/