Klickitat

We did an overnight trip on the Klickitat River, floating from Leidl down to Ice House. At a flow of 1,040 cfs, this was approximately a six-hour float, including a few fishing stops along the way. We had good luck targeting rainbow trout, while others we encountered were focused on steelhead and Chinook. We left a vehicle at Ice House, drove upstream to Leidl to launch, and were on the water shortly after noon.

While we encountered a number of wood hazards, they were all easily avoided by those with solid moving-water skills. We did find one river-wide log below Stinson Flats that had obviously come down recently. It was easily visible from upstream, and we were just able to get over it, though that will likely not be possible as flows drop below 1,000 cfs. It would be an easy walk-around on the right. We also spoke with a gentleman navigating the river in a drift boat who was able to get over the log by pulling his boat over it from the shoreline. While the flow was a little lower than is typical for this time of year, the current was still moving swiftly, and we had plenty of water to float our packrafts. We also saw drift boats on the river.

We found a campsite on one of the benches a short distance upstream of the Little Klickitat confluence on state land along river left, arriving a little before 4 p.m. We had a sandy bar with convenient shoreline access and some vegetation to camp on, while an oak grove on the bench above provided welcome afternoon shade.

The next morning we were back on the water by 10 a.m., and the road along river left soon came into view after we passed the Little Klickitat confluence. We took our time with a couple more fishing stops and reached Ice House by 4 p.m.

Our total float time for the trip was less than six hours, including all of our fishing stops. I highly recommend this as an overnight trip, though it could also easily be done as a day trip at these flows.

We paddled the 21 miles from Summit Creek Bridge (on the section above) to Icehouse in 3 hours, a pace of 7 miles per hour. The water was up into the trees along the shoreline and eddies were limited so it was a fast trip. Even at this level there were several good campsites on the bench above the river but no beaches. Wood hazards were present in several places along the shoreline and a few were mid-channel but could be easily avoided by experienced paddlers.

I went from Leidl (which is open for camping) to Icehouse in my IK. At 2300 cfs, it's a little tricky to find spots to eddy out and pull up on shore for a break.

I scouted the main rapid (where the river initially meets WA-142) from the right, but it's hard to get a good look because of a side channel coming in. At the river flow, I couldn't easily ford that channel to get closer to the rapid.

There's a big log in rapid to the left of the rock outcrop. It's partially submerged and I was able to just barely paddle over it.

Luckily, there's a route to the right of the outcrop that is narrower, but is totally clear.