Smith, North Fork

A classic winter run on the North Fork Smith, just with a few more boaters than normal. With an ideal flow of 8,000 cfs at the USGS gage in the morning, something close to 75 boaters decided to run the North Fork on this Sunday of BoatSmith 2025. By far, its the most boaters I've ever seen on this run in a day, but it worked out fine as a very long train of boats with most groups generally merged together.

The river was gently rising all day and the pipe at the Gasquet water plant read about 11.5 feet at the end of the run around 3 PM (USGS gage read 8,900 cfs / 11.04 ft. at the same time).

Without a doubt, this is one of the finest river-running day trips on earth and this level was a perfect low-half of medium flow: a littly fluffy with big waves, a few big holes, but well-defined with eddies, seams, and a ton of play. I took my Antix 2 half slice, the perfect boat for the day.

I moved across the country in 1997 specifically to be near the Smith River, which I had never seen but had heard amazing things about (mostly from a dawn-of-the-Internet website guide with photos of the runs). So it was fitting to be back on the Smith again paddling with my long-time boating partner and friend, Eric, who reminded me that we met in early 1998 on a Smith River trip--the North Fork, we both think. Twenty-seven years of the North Fork and I'm always ready to go back!