Clear Creek

Park ideally downstream river-left side in the steeply tilted parking area. Walk down the concrete steps and across some rock piles to the water. Or use the easier but longer trail at the upper end of the parking area to work down to a pool below the normal put-in.

A Class II+ shallow entrance to a 4 foot tall sliding ledge. Before paddlers ran the river, locals referred to this spot as The Jack Rock, in reference to the good fishing for Musky that happened here. Enter right, zigzag back middle, and run the main drop center moving slightly right of center. Too far right falls into a crack, too far left into a big hole. An eddy on the right bank after the first move can be caught, allowing a scout and group planning session. At high water, encourage swimmers to swim hard right since Camel Rock is just downstream.

Run the Camel far river-right. The middle should be avoided because of a nasty undercut called the Camel's Hump.

Wooten's Folley consists of three drops, back to back, in a corridor constricted by huge boulders. Scouting can be done left or right, but portaging is best, though painful, on the left, low through some wet channels, with a slide back into the river below the second drop. In the first drop, the river splits around a boulder. Either side is commonly run. Downstream the water splits again around a shallow thumb rock. Try to stay left of this rock. The right side heads straight for a really bad undercut downstream, under a house-sized boulder. This undercut is hard to get into below 400 cfs, and is somewhat covered over 1500 cfs. But in most of the commonly run flows from 500-1300 cfs, this sieve is in play. The bottom drop through a sticky hole is the least of your worries.

The longest stretch of rapids, this long stretch of rocky rapids runs nearly a half-mile. At low water it's quite difficult to stay off the rocks and not get deflected through this dechannelized section. At super high water, there is an almost river-wide terminal hole around the corner from the beginning of this section. Over 2500 you'll be pushing for the left bank for all your worth to stay left of it. At the end of this long stretch the river turns back right. Watch the undercut on the left here at low water. It's worse than it looks.

Here the river exits a moving pool and drops over a diagonal ledge, with a rock fence waiting just downstream. Coming out of an eddy on the right up top is preferred, to facilitate a strong but late ferry hard left to hit a mid-rapid eddy on the left bank. From here execute a high angle ferry low out of the eddy with some pin rocks at your back. Trying to run direct without the eddy and stay out of the pin rocks is more difficult but a simple line of code for those hoping for the best. Make the eddy move and thank yourself later. At high water this is all moot, and Focus reveals two overhead scissor blade diagonals that meet at the crest of a huge wave. Epic.

Here Clear Creek meets the much larger Obed, and the flow typically triples. It's 5.3 miles down to the take-out at Nemo from here, with the first few miles being Class III and the rest calming to Class I-II, unless the water is high.

After the confluence rapids calm, there's one more shallow ledge with a tempting surf wave on the left that is not recommended. Below here is the first big long, slow pool. At the right bend, an emergency access can be had by hiking up the old rough road on river-left out of the canyon and to Hardwick Road, which then leads a mile up to Ridge Road.

Just below Canoe Hole, the river bends right, into a constricted channel that eventually pushes into the right bank. Move left near the end of this dogleg and then realize it's not over - a hidden pourover downstream catches many folks off guard. Usually a fairly harmless drop surf, but if you want to keep your nose clean, move left at the bottom. Another nice Class II-III rapid waits downstream and then the long pool above Keep Right.

After some fun boogie the river bends hard right. Cut the inside at the top of this rapid to avoid some dubious looking rocks at low water, that turn into monster holes at high water. A huge wave hit near the end of this rapid is a real hoot.

Often confused with Keep Right upstream, Widowmaker is fairly easy and benign at most flows, though at low water the wave train is shallow for those upside down, and at very low flow, a bad pin happened against the left bank in the early paddling days that almost killed one of the early pioneers. Hence the name Widowmaker. At normal flows in modern boats, it's just a fun wave train, and has epic surf potential in the 1200-2000 cfs range.

The Obed ceases to exist as it merges with the (MUCH SMALLER!!!) Emory River for the final mile of your run. In mapping the straighter river keeps its name.  A few (very minor) rapids populate the first half, then flatwater to the take-out.

Hop out at the beach on the left upstream from the old bridge. Downstream is private property.