Sugar Creek

Sugar Creek is a short but sweet class IV creek run with one mandatory portage. It is a small seasonal creek that flows through Sugar Creek Glen and then into Canaseraga Creek in Poags Hole. It contains two back-to-back 30-foot waterfalls that are not runnable. These waterfalls terminate on rock slabs below.

PHOTO: Marty Murphy on Sugar Creek.

SUGAR CREEK

The putin is located between the town of Canaseraga and Dansville, where Route 13B crosses the creek about 4 miles northeast of Canaseraga. Sugar Creek drops 300 feet over 1.7 miles before it feeds into Canaseraga Creek in Poags Hole. Downstream from Route 13B, the first mile is very unremarkable. It consists of a narrow and shallow creek with very little gradient. Strainers are abundant. There is one minor 10-foot drop in this section of the creek.

At about one mile, the creek breaks through the shale bedrock and begins a series of waterfall drops in a deep canyon lined with vertical shale cliffs. The drops consist of sluices, stair-steps, and corkscrews. Some of the drops would be impossible to foot scout at high water, given the vertical cliffs on either side of the creek. There is one drop that would be particularly difficult to scout, where the creek drops 25 feet as it turns 90 degrees to the left in a gorge lined with vertical cliffs.

Further down the creek makes a sweeping turn to the right (around a blind corner) before it suddenly drops over two 30-foot vertical waterfalls. These waterfalls are not runnable, and there are no eddies to catch once you've realized your fatal mistake. (Some boaters have noted, at specific flows, that there is a tricky 'one boat eddy' right at the lip of the falls on river right.)

WARNING! It is easy to be swept over both 30-foot waterfalls unless you know beforehand where the final eddies are located. You will die if you are swept over either of the waterfalls.

These unrun

...