Clear Shade Creek

We did this in September during a flash flood (Ferndale gauge was at 6.5' and rising)...where we got flashed off Dark Shade and ended up here instead. We put in at the bridge on Crumb Road (after some weird turns on back roads). The river was clearly bankfull, but I wouldn't say it was flooded. The first few miles were moving flatwater with the occasional riffle. One river-wide tree we had to portage.

Then, the river picked up to the occasional class II rapid for a little while, and then the last mile or so was fairly consistent class III rapids. Some cool wave trains and LOTS of water coming in from the side streams. There was probably 200cfs at the put-in and about 800 by the take-out. The final dam had a fairly terminal looking hole on the right, but a fairly obvious line on the left that was a III+ move. Would have been easy to take out above it though and portage.

It's a good run as a back-up for when other runs are flooded out, since being on Dark Shade or Stony Gorge as the river rises high can be dangerous