Dosewallips

We ran a pair of packrafts down the run on back to back days. We had a blast despite how low the river was (we ran at the aboslute bare minimum for water level). Would love to see it with a foot more water in the river because it'd be even more fun.

Put In: Follow the bridge that stretches over the pinch and use the turn off immediately to the left at the end of the bridge to stage/store a car, don't park north of the bridge. Please be aware that much of the surrounding area is private property. We did have one property owner stride over to chat us up. They were very kind but politely reminded us to respect property lines. Another local shared tales of prior owners who were much less hospitable. This run's guide is helpful and should be followed to ensure good access and friendly relations with neighboring property owners. There's a footpath that leads from the staging area down the river to put in. We used a bike to shuttle from the campground to the put in and stashed it at the put in without issue.

Water level: ~1.3ft. The Duckabush gauge sat between 1.25 and 1.3 ft most of the weekend. The Big Quilcene river was sitting at 1.6ft all weekend. We optimistically guessed that the Dosewallips was sitting somewhere in between. The AW description list the lower run range at 1.5 feet. We definitely had a fair number of scrapes/buzzes on shallow portions of the river. There were only 2 occassions we're we had to jump out of our boats to quickly pass over too-shallow a section to runnable water. That being said, this was the absolute bare minimum for water in the river, it'd be a miserable experience with less water present. Ideally you'd want the gauge at 2ft or higher as it would ensure an enjoyable run and open different lines and features.

Hazards: No log jams or hazards of note. There was one downed tree that spans much of the river about 2/3 of the way into the run. It's plainly obvious in a slack section of water. With more water in the river you could easily pass to the left (we had to pop out and drag our boats the 5 feet needed to pass through the shallows). Otherwise we could read and run everything and encountered no surpirses or unexpected hazards.

Run: We enjoyed the pristine blue waters and abundant bird life along the river. We did see Elk on neighboring property heading up Dosewallips river road but no Elk passed through the river itself. With the water level so low, it's hard to comment too much on the rapids as many would be more enjoyable with more water, the wave trains we did find were fun enough but probably lacked amplitude. The canyon was spectacular and was a welcome oasis (albeit rather short). Steep, damp, and abundantly green walls jutted from the spectacularly blue waters with a couple of waterfalls trickling down. The couple of small bolder gardens were fun and probably more easily navigable in higher water, we were starved of choices given the water height so took what was available to us. We had fun but were also aware of how much more enjoyable the run would be with more water.

Pull out: We had a campsite at the Dosewallips campground for the two nights we were there. This made for a convenient pull out at the gravel bar just upstream from the 101 bridge that passes over the river as it heads to the sound. There are pink tag markers to help guide you toward the campground which is a relatively short walk from the river. It's a really nice campground with new, heated bathrooms and showers. But it's worth booking a site in advance as it's a popular camping spot throughout much of the year (limited to no options for dispersed camping in surrounding area). Tent sites are closed for much of the winter so we made do with an RV site. We paddled to the sound at the end of one of our runs, but note tide times as low tides may mean you have to navigate around private property. A run all the way to the sound adds a 1/4-1/2 mile walk back to campground to rendezvous with a car/campsite. The lower portion of the state park is closed to vehicle traffic much of the winter.