Skykomish, N. Fork

Ryan Matthew and I did a quick weekday trip on the North Fork Skykomish from Drumb Beater down to the bridge just below El Nino. The level was 3 ft on the Index gage and 3500 on the Skykomish Goldbar gage and dropping. There were rock hits in just about every rapid but no stops--it was very low but just enough water. It was a fun level to see the canyon at the start without any the hydraulics characteristic of higher water. Let's Make a Deal had some wood in play with a tree that was in the channel over to the river right side. The left and center were clean. At these low flows it was very straightforward to boat scout.

We ran Roostertail on the left (scouted from the island) but it also looked like enough water to run the main line to the right. The huge root ball that was in the landing zone for many years is gone and the rapid was clean of wood.

We took out on the downstream river right side of the bridge (a trail leads down to the river and there is space to park a couple cars). It looks like we could have continued on down to the access at Seven Mile Bridge (we were worried it might be too shallow on the rapids over rock bars in that section).

It was good to see the road repairs finally finished after nearly two decades. The Forest Service and Snohomish County did a nice job of leaving adequate space for parking off the highway at Seven Mile Bridge, as requested by American Whitewater. They also left a trail to the river although they did some planting in the most direct path to the water. Our community will need to step up and take a leadership role in ensuring the site stays nice as it could also become attractive for dispersed camping.