Sauk

Had a lovely time on the Upper Sauk from Bedal to Whitechuck. We had two portages, one tricky sweeper, and a handful of log jams that the current pushed towards. The mountain views were gorgeous!

Flow was 1400, Sauk above Whitechuck, on Saturday May 24th.

Our two portages were easy to spot, with plenty of time to find slow moving water over a shallow cobble bar to get out. Easy, quick, portages for kayaks, packrafts, or light rafts. Would be more challenging in a heavy raft due to some big trees you have to work your way over or around. 48.1390511, -121.4293259.

There was one nearly riverwide sweeper that posed a challenge. 48.1652211, -121.4580400. There was about 6 feet of passage on river right, but a few guard rocks made that line a bit tricky. Unlike the other wood hazards near cobble bars, this one had a cut bank on one side and a long jam on the other. Portaging would be more challenging.

Otherwise, the majority of the other wood was along banks that the current pushed towards. Would be dangerous for a swimmer, but someone in control of their boat would be fine.

We paddled from Bedal to Whitechuck in mid-June 2024 and found several significant wood hazards approximately 4-6 miles below Bedal.  This is a dynamic river and the channel is continuing to adjust to the slope and sediment changes from a major channel avulsion over a year ago.  Rafters should anticipate three portages along cobble bars and over large logs.  Stopping will require hasty parking on a cobble bar with moving water and no eddy.  Kayakers could successfully run this section without portaging, but it requires numerous log ducks, cautious boat scouting, and at least one dicey ferry above an unassuming but dangerous strainer.

Group of 8 packrafting this section on 6/17/23 at low-ish flows (don't remember specifics). Read reports from last year about the multi-tier logjam before starting so we had our eyes open. As of this weekend there was one spot that required a portage around a channel-wide logjam, 4 miles from the put-in at the exit of a right-hand bend. There's a two-boat eddy on river left at the apex of the bend that the jam can be seen from, and an easy ferry across the current to a gravel bar on river right to take out. We portaged across a very shallow adjacent channel and put back in about 50ft from where we took out. This was the only area where packrafts could not get through. There were a couple other places on this section that required an easy duck under a log in a packraft with no problem.

We ran the Sauk from Bedal to Backman on June 5, 2022, and somehow missed the previous trip report posted in November 2021.  Either way, we identified the suspicious looking wood structures, pulled off, and scouted from both sides of the river to determine the hazard is a multi-tiered log jam complex and there no safe route through and no easy portage along the edge of the river.

Luckily upstream of the jam a couple hundred yards was a relatively open river bar that led to a mostly abandoned channel that didn't require a portage over a giant game of pick up sticks.  We hauled our 3 heavy a** oar boats a little over a 1/4 mile to continue our trip downstream.  The rest of the trip was awesome with the lower gage reading 15,000 when we pulled off.  Even though I love this stretch, I'm not planning on running it for a couple years until this jam opens up!  Be safe out there!

Ran this today (3 packrafts and one hardshell kayak) at 1300cfs. I last ran it mid-October, before the recent big floods. Since then, 1-2 channel-spanning logs about a third of the way down, but more noteworthy is that halfway down the run, a big meander bend was cut off and abandoned. The river cut a new channel through the woods, mowing down about 10-15 acres of forest. New channel section had 1-2 channel spanning logs, but real mess was downstream back in the original channel, where all that forest got dumped. Currently completely impassable, piles of trees everywhere. We did a half-mile portage around it all and boated the second half of the run without incident. Hopefully some of the new wood blows out in future floods. Be careful!

Ran this today @2000cfs with one packraft, two SUPs, and one hardshell kayak. Only the last drop would likely prove too challenging for an advancing beginning in the II+ range (can exit above this via Beaver Lake Trail), but this run often has wood hazards. As of today there is a river wide tree with limbs hovering one foot above water roughly midway through the run on a hard right bend into a headwall, just past Falls Creek confluence. An easy portage on river right above the bend if you ferry early. Once running the bend the right side is shallow, making it difficult to power to the intended eddy on the inside of the corner, resulting in being pushed toward the tree. Thankfully, there is a small eddy just before the tree on river left, big enough for about two kayaks. Tree can portaged on river left with some scrambling.

I floated this section yesterday in a 16' SOAR inflatable. 1,000 cfs is definitely right on the cusp of being unrunnable for all vessels. None of the channels we chose had strainers, but at higher levels some of the trees/logs we passed under would come into play. It really was a beautiful stretch of river, just a lot of work dodging rocks and dragging the boat occasionally.

A trip on the Upper Sauk from Bedal Campground on the North Fork Sauk.