Coffee Creek

While following the Stanley Holebek book to put in he states; drive 8-10 miles along the river to the north for confluence. The actual mileage is closer to the 8 or a little less but we kept going up the road to the second confluence at about 10.5 miles. Flows were low on the gauge of 308 (but still in the green) for coffee creek so we probably had about 1/2 this for the upper section. Being the least experienced in the group I got beat on the class IV+ V upper section and swam 3 times and flipped and took hard hits more than that. The others in the group had a good time but wanted more flows to clean up the mank. The main hazards are shifting portages dues to log jams and there are also some sieves. If there were no wood the would section would go. I was so beat from the top part I portaged the last 1/2 mile down the first bridge and normal class IV confluence. The main reason I am writing this is because of the landowner issues. About 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile in there is a big red house up on the right bank. The rapid is wood choked up top and hard to see so I got out on the left and Brendan got out on the right. On the Left I immediately noticed hundreds of broken skeet discs from the land owner shotgun shooting across the river. The dogs up at the house were barking and the land lady came out and looked down at us. All you have to do is glance at the rapid and see the line but in the 2 min it took me to get back in my boat the land lady came running down to the river with her 4 dogs barking and growling and a pistol on her side. She immediately started yelling at us that we were trespassing and it was illegal for us to be there. I did not hear the conversation as I went down river but what I got from the story later was Brendan apologized and said were leaving and tried to calm the situation with some success. Adam paddled up and nicely explained the high water mark and nagavibility laws and this set her off again and her last comment after yelling at them some more was to watch out for getting shot at down river. Nobody shot at us but Atom said the rootball/beaver dam looking strainer on the right bank was made up of clean chopped pieces of wood and he felt they may have been placed there by the land owner to block the river. We ran down stream in the center right channel where the current would wash away all but the stoutest logs the land owner may have thrown in the river. The morals of the story are, beware of the landowner, beware of possible landowner made strainers, ass kissing worked better than logic and the law to calm her down, and scout fast as no matter how quiet you think you are the dogs will hear you.
Steven Vaniman

Helmet cam on coffee http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Tp6RaWhNU