Indian Creek

Ran this stretch with a small group for the first time on 6-25-17. Gauge was about 4.2' and falling, so the run was absolutely non-stop, read-and-run. While most of the rapids individually were Class III or III+ moves, the continuous nature of this run made it a real shot of adrenaline at the higher end of this page's recommended levels. Simply put: you wouldn't want to come out of your boat here. There are practically no recovery pools, so keep your crew tight and keep an eye on each other at these levels.

The first major ledge drop was runnable on the far left with a right-left-right move around some pretty big holes. Alternatively, we took an awesome auto-boof about 4 feet off the far right shore. At lower levels, I think you could easily boof the center, but there was probably 7 or 8 feet of backwash off the ledge, which made us collectively decide it was too sticky for our taste.

Terminator is a huge horizon line, and even with having never paddled this, it was clear that something worth scouting was ahead. Scout and walk on the right. Most of our group walked it. The sieve rock described above (where all of the water is pushing) isn't the only issue here: there's about 100 yards of rapid above it, a decently large hole below it, and several more rocks that can bang you up below that. The shredder in our group cleaned it, while the two kayakers both spent time in the hole and took a couple of hard hits on rocks below before eventually getting bow rescues in the short pool below.

We paddled down the flooded Yough (over 10' in Ohiopyle) down to Connellsville, which was about 4-5 more miles on very fast current. Heads up when you get to your first railroad bridge after the confluence: there's a nasty low-head dam that you have portage via the railroad tracks on river right.

This run is totally worth it if you have the right levels and the right crew.