Sitkum

Nice packraft run down the Middle & Lower Sitka.

We parked our car here (47.9465579, -124.1465961) and hiked down to the top of the waterfall on the NF of the Sitkum. We spent a while poking around looking for a way down to the base of the falls. We didn't find a route we were comfortable with without climbing gear. Remembering that Korb had mentioned an access a little further up the main stem, we set out to find that. We followed an elk trail on a bench above the main stem until the game trail headed down roughly around here (47.94471, -124.14478). We put on the river around here, (47.94473, -124.14427).

The rapids were clean. Little pistol looked like fun, so we both opted to run it. It would have been an easy portage on the left. I ran (and flipped) on cotton candy. Ariel portaged it on river right. We had a couple of easy portages over a couple river wide logs. There was one massive 7' in diameter tree that has been in the river long enough that a cobble bar has formed just above it on river left. We climbed down the log and passed boats down. The lower section was a chill scenic paddle to our takeout at Hyas Creek. Ended up clocking in at 7 miles and 2.5 hours on the river.

Flow was 1800 and felt boney. Would prefer it with more water.

After a storm in November 2021 blew out a couple culverts on Forest Road 29 (the Calwah reached 40,000 cfs), this run has been inaccessible and it was great to be able to get into this river again.

I’ve done this run at a lower flow, but it definitely needs more water than the 775 cfs we had. We dropped a car at the Hyas Creek take-out at 10:00 am, but it wasn’t until 12:15 pm that we were on the water at the North Fork confluence. The hike from the pull-out at the put-in down to the river took longer than expected—about 1.5 hours. We took the route that heads down the North Fork, which involves lowering boats and rappelling down a roughly 30-foot waterfall. Next time, I’d consider trying the put-in just upstream of the North Fork confluence. This route also requires lowering boats by rope but doesn’t involve rappelling.

Once we were on the Sitkum, we had a great run. Several rapids were too shallow, leading to multiple hits and momentary pins. While it was still possible to get through, some rapids were portaged due to the low flow. Only one of us ran Little Pistol, which was very technical at this level. Two of us ran Cotton Candy, which did not have a hole at this flow, making it more of a slide but still technical.

We encountered three river-wide trees over the course of the run, requiring a portage. The pace of the run was slow at first but picked up as we got closer to the end. Once we passed the South Fork Calwah confluence, we finally enjoyed our first rapid with no hits.

We also saw numerous steelhead, present in nearly all the large pools we passed through that had excellent water quality.

The total run time was three hours for the six miles from the North Fork to Hyas Creek. While it takes some effort to get in, this is such an exceptionally beautiful run, with several patches of old-growth forest and large trees lining the banks.

A major storm event in November 2021 severely damaged the road in several places. I joined a site visit with the Forest Service and partners to assess road conditions. The plan is to repair the road but it will likely take a couple years.

Ran the Upper Upper on 12/11/18 at 1800 cfs and dropping. Still enjoyable, but very bony. A few things to know: (1) The tree that marks the put-in is now a single, dark tree with orange flagging around it. We missed it the first time through. If you get to a tributary with slumped concrete over a big culvert, you've gone barely too far; (2) At the flows we had, the Falls below double drop did not look good-to-go, so we portaged on river right, which was a pain in the ass; (3) 50/50 is still blocked by wood, but the new rapid will be very fun when the wood is gone; (4) the final falls with the large wood on the left side is good to go on the left. I've seen videos of people running the right side to avoid the wood but it looks cleaner now than it did on earlier videos.

The right wall at 50/50 has collapsed, the debris is still settling as of January 2018 and required a portage for wood at that time. The rest of the Upper Upper was clean, and all the other rapids were runnable. I think there was also one easy log portage in the Upper section.

The gauge recommendations are only accurate if flows are dropping.  A flow of 1,200 rising to 2,500 and stable was too high for a safe trip through the Upper Upper Sitkum (Jan 16, 2016).

We enjoyed a Thanksgiving weekend trip on the Upper Upper Sitkum after a hard rain that transitioned to snow. The Calwah peaked at 10,000 cfs the day before but dropped below 4000 cfs the morning of our trip. By the time we were on the water flow was 3500 cfs dropping to 3100 cfs by the time we were at the take-out. These were great flows for this run.

Ran the Upper Upper on 3/8/2014 Go to mile 20 on the road. There are marks on the trees on river right and a few flags leading you to the river. Definitely NOT class 3. More like Class IV-V. At least 3 clean 10 -15 foot vertical waterfalls, multiple slides and holes to punch. I enjoyed the Upper Upper more than the Upper and middle. Can definitely be lapped.

Thanksgiving weekend trip at low water. 900 cfs Thanksgiving morning dropping to 550 by Sunday night.

We ran the entire 9+ miles on 11/27/2004. There was only one wood hazard and that was during the last 4 miles or so, which is class II (barely). There's a tree that spans river wide. At the water level we ran it at, some of the more limber paddlers where able to sneak under the river left side of the tree. However, there was also a very quick portage on river right.

The class V section is really amazing. This is definitely the most accessible class V in that area. It's pretty easy to see when things start to pick up and at the medium-low flows that we ran it at, we had no trouble finding eddies and getting out to scout.

I found that Korb's description of the run was fairly accurate, however, I don't believe anything on that run should be labelled class VI. There was at least one VERY serious undercut and definitely do not underestimate this run, but a SOLID class V boater will not have a problem.

I had been pushing for the Humptulips but everyone else was headed for the Sitkum so Mariko and I joined the crowd. In one of the more memorable river stories I’ve been a part of Boris managed to “lose” his boat on the way to the put-in. He set it down somewhere in the woods but could not remember where. After an hour of searching we had to tell him that we could not wait any longer. As we finished lowering our boats and getting ready to set off downstream (a major project with our big group), Boris managed to find his boat and hustled down to the river at a point downstream of our put-in. Thinking that we had already passed downstream, Boris took off downstream trying to catch up. Of course we were behind him so he never did and after traveling a few miles downstream Boris hiked back up to the road to make sure he wouldn’t miss the take-out. The rest of us had a great run and I had forgotten how scenic the river is. It’s one of the few rivers in the National Forest that still has some big trees in the riparian zone. It was a good level. One could definitely run it higher although Cotton Candy could be a challenge at significantly higher flows as the portage options are limited.

Tom O'Keefe, Omar Jepperson, and Jan Tackett ran the river at lower flows on a cold day in November. We camped overnight at the Hyas Creek takeout. The Sitkum road was open as washout at mile 9 was temporarily repaired. Calwah was at 430 cfs. Queets was at 1700 cfs and Hoh was at 1200 cfs.  One would not want to do this run any lower. Although the run contains many deep pools, several of the gravel bars were too shallow to run. Fortunately it was just high enough that it was not necessary to actually get out of the boat.