Methow

Sunday 5/22/2022 my father, brother and I took a float down the Methow starting at the Burma Road access under the bridge on 153. We were all running in packrafts and found the eddylines behind the bridge pilings to be fun to ferry back and forth across the river with.

Starting off, this section down to Burma Bridge is very fun and has plenty of fun class II/II+ rapids. We kept our eye out the whole time for Engles Slide but we got down to the Burma Bridge and didn't really think anything down to there deserved a class III rating. We didn't even know where Engles Slide was on the run because it must not have stood out as being any more difficult than the rest of this section. Lots of fun wave trains and holes to play in all over this section.

The river tapers off a bit after the Burma Bridge with a few fun rapids here and there until Black Canyon. We played around a bit here and there But kept moving cause we were stoked for the big stuff ahead. At the flows we had, Black Canyon had a busy and fast channel on the river right side that my dad and brother took and found to be quite fun at this level and was a bit tamer than the river left channel. The left channel was a couple small picket lines of holes before the channel came together and formed a big wave train into this huge hole on the river middle/left. After this there is a big wave train of like 15 big rollercoaster waves. After this Staircase comes pretty quick around the next corner and is a steep boulder garden with a couple pretty huge holes river middle and left toward the bottom, most people would say Black Canyon is the highlight of the run but I personally found Staircase to be a lot more fun. My dad swam above this and he got out at the top of the rapid but we couldn't get his boat until the bottom, we hiked his boat back up to where he rested at the top and we ran the rapid again. The lap on this is doable but kind of a crappy bushwhack through huge boulders. Shortly after this was Corner Rapid, which felt a lot more Mellow and spread out than the rapids above. Corner rapids is pretty much just a big long continuous boulder garden with lots of wave trains and holes. The rapid above the little bridge with the huge rock in the middle was a lot of fun, the line to the right of the rock being a little more rowdy. Roadside Attraction was a few rapids down and felt very similar to Corner Rapid, as it was a bit more tame than some of the other bigger class III rapids and was just a long boulder garden full of waves and holes. As you pass under the big hwy 153 bridge this next rapid is a bit more intense than the last few class III's. Bridge rapid has a steep band of waves and holes on the river left side and then whips around a corner and river right slams over a bunch of big boulders to create a funky band of waves/holes, mostly holes at this flow.

From here on down the river tapers off a bit and as we passed under the next highway bridge we found Metiorite, which was a very oddly placed boulder as it didn't seem to share any of the same geology of the rest of the valley (besides one more rock just downstream out of the water). The river from here had several fun wave trains and surf waves. There was one more rapid that came the second time the river butts up against the highway after Metiorite. This rapid had a lot of holes to dodge and towards the end had a very wide fan of boulders that created a pretty nice ledge hole.

The river loses a lot of punch and drops down another small set of rapids before splitting into a couple different channels. My dad and brother went right, I went left and then right at the next island. If you We're to go left and then left again, it appeared as though there was a river access point here on river left that cuts out the flatwater at the end. I'm not sure if this was a public access point but it had a vault toilet so I am assuming so. This access would add quite a few more minutes to the shuttle so it may not be ideal. The flatwater paddle out sucked in the packrafts but it was what it was. The entire float took a little over 4 hours with a few stops for snacks/surfing.