Blacks Fork, W. Fork

01. Bridge to confluence with East Fork


Put in ~3 miles upstream of what is listed here, could probably push that another 3-5 miles though. The run to the start of what is listed on AW (essentially where the west fork road splits off) was good class 1-2 and clean without portages. In the stretch listed here, the water picks up speed and becomes continuous class 2, but the river becomes very braided quickly and all channels have significant wood pressure. We ended up portaging ~6 significant log jams, finding the right channel after a log jam was always a bit difficult. Just upstream of the east fork confluence the river braids again and the channel that we took (left) got continuously smaller untill we were in a ~5ft wide channel running quickly through trees. There were no river wide sweepers but if there was one it would have been tough to avoid. Ran to Hewinta bridge where there is an easy take out just downstream of the bridge on the right.