Unami Creek

So, I finally had a chance to run this reach on 4/27/07 and its hard to even find words to describe it. Noah S. described it as epic and that may truely capture the essence of this gem. Noah, Joe, and myself ran down from nursey rd. in Trumbauersville to an unnamed fisherman pull-off on Swamp Creek Rd. near Gerysville. Some flatwater mixed with class II-III rapids led into the meat of the run. There are two, maybe you could say three very long rapids, one after another where the river drops ALOT. Both rapids are extremely sieved with enormous undercuts, manky lines, huge moves, and off the wall rewards. We all walked the first rapid because we had not seen it in low water to understand the bad ass hydrology. Honestly the creek felt almost bony throughout, even though it was clearly flooded. Most of the water flows under rocks and throuh the caves and sieves. I ran the top of the second major rapid and took out half way down the rapid in a microeddy with help from Joe and Noah. It consisted of a few boulder drops with a huge pillow rock boof left with half the current dissappearing right into a sieve. The bottom half looked just too manky. The rest of the reach is class IV technical boulder drop, slot based moves with huge rewards and big consequences for missing the line. I think the class IV-V+ is suitable, although the huge rapids are runnable if you can stick your lines perfectly! This reach reminds me of the Upper Yough with bigger boulders, more gradient, and huge consequences. I'd love to run it again with some really experienced creekers if anyone is ever interested. Check the Perkiomen guage (USGS 01473000 PERKIOMEN CREEK AT GRATERFORD, PA), it read 8,000 cfs when we put on and dropped to 6,000 cfs by take-out, a good level I'd guess, maybe a bit more would be good. Precipitation at the guage read .22 in. I would not suggest running it lower. If you think youll just scrape down, you'll end up scraping right into a cave/sieve.

Has anyone scouted the upper unami? From Umbreit Road to Kumry Road or all the way to Trumbauersville Rd. with the flatwater. There looks to be some whitewater from the google earth images.