Silver Creek

Cut and Fry on Silver Creek. One of the finest auto boofs around...

For those willing to shoulder your boat, Silver Creek looks good all the way up to Mineral City, mostly Class III-IV if I remember right, 4 miles up the trail. There are two waterfalls immediately below the bridge where the trail crosses the creek, one is about 10 feet, the other is about 20 feet. They can both be skipped by putting in at the Mineral City site, about 200 yards downstream, where the trail fords a creek.

We had our hands full on this run with multiple swims. We had Pete Mattson, Mark Corsentino, Chris Worth, Eric Bessette, Mike Rausch (others) on the trip. Mark got things started at Huey, Duey, Lewey but we were finally able to corral his boat. He had another swim in the S Turn Drop below the landslide and we also lost Chris’s boat in a pin. After setting up a Z drag we were finally able to work it out. Meanwhile Boris floated into a small log jam and had to exit his boat to free himself. We made it down to the second half of the run and began the portage of the one tricky ledge drop. I decided to make the short portage but then got pulled into the backwash, did several uncontrolled cartwheels before my skirt blew and I washed out with a boat full of water. I made a couple roll attempts but couldn’t control the boat in the class IV run out with it full of water. Meanwhile Eric dropped Chris’s boat during the portage and it floated off downstream. I took off running for my boat and eventually caught up with it about 1/4 mile downstream on a log. I was able to clip in and with Mark’s help we were able to get it to shore. We finally found Chris’s boat downstream near the confluence with the North Fork although he had to come back the following day to retrieve it.

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