Santiam, S.

I'd barely given this section of river any thought until I drove over Tombstone pass a few days earlier. Kinda hard to ignore after you see the gorge with crystal clear water, bedrock slides, and countless waterfalls.

Flipping to Soggy Sneakers, this section is rated Class IV/V at first glance, but that's if you run all the way into Cascadia. There is in fact a Class III/III+ section above the Monster. At only 8 miles long, it's easy to overlook, but this thing packs a ton of variety into such a short stretch.

The first gorge is super tight with plenty of boulder gardens with stunning walls. Soda Fork adds a ton of volume a mile down from the put in, and the river picks up a lot of water before hitting a handful of III/III+ rapids and a half dozen cool bedrock ledges and slides.

There is a new rapid that is not in the guidebook at about mile 52.8. Some folks call it Ferrous Oxslide, it's a landslide rapid that definitely deserves a road scout, it's right at the edge of the road in a corner and easy to spot.

The remaining 4 bigger rapids are all easy to road scout, and wood seems like it will always be in play.

At these flows, Fernview was an ass dragger, and the right chute at longbow was tougher than it would be with a few hundred more on the gauge.

Full descriptions is run 105 in Soggy Sneakers, Section 1: Milepost 53.5 to Highway 20 Bridge.

Flow was ~950cfs, I'd consider that the bare minimum. 1200+ would be pretty great most likely.

Video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlfQm7cB8vo