Wooley Creek

The last day of the 2025 Salmon River Whitewater Gathering was the perfect May day to hike into Wooley: cool, completely overcast, which is great for the hike. The Somes Bar gage on the mainstem Salmon River peaked overnight at 4,230 cfs ans was reading about 4,000 cfs and dropping when we got on the creek. That gage doesn’t measure Wooley directly, but since Wooley’s watershed is about 20% of the total Salmon watershed, the rule of thumb says Wooley should be carrying about 20% of that flow.

That rule didn’t quite hold today—Wooley looked like it was running more than expected. Based on photo comparisons from previous runs, I’d say it matched what I've seen before at 4,800 cfs. So, bigger than anticipated, but not quite high water. Still, it was on the higher end of medium—pushy and padded out, fast in the rapids, but with eddies and breaks between the drops: a great flow.

The hike in took me 2 hours and 29 minutes carryin a 32-pound pack with a packraft and all my gear. The fastest kayaker was only about 15 minutes behind, and the rest of the crew made it in around the 3-hour mark—which is pretty good for that approach. There were no trees blocking the trail and only one burned log that required stepping over.

This was my second packraft run of Wooley, and this time I paddled the Alpacka Mage, a huge upgrade from the oversized Gnarwhal I used before. The ability to edge and control the boat made a massive difference.

On my first packraft run, I portaged two drops I felt were guaranteed Gnarwhal-eaters. This time, I ran both. The higher flow actually helped—though both rapids (the first and third major drops) were pretty juiced. The Mage gave me the control I needed, and I managed to roll back up when I flipped near the bottom of the first one—then again in another rapid in the second gorge.

We moved fast on the water and were probably on track for a sub-hour descent…until we had two simultaneous swims in what I think is the crux of the run: a long, hole-studded rapid in the lower gorge, a few bends upstream of The Fat Lady Sings. Yes, I was one of the swimmers. I swam hard in the runout, but couldn’t reach shore before a big sloping log downstream. That log has others pinned beneath it, blocking nearly the full width of the creek. Luckily, the water was just high enough that the creek-spanning logs were barely submerged (which means not visible too), and I was able to float flat on my back and over them. They brushed the back of my PFD. Close call.

The crew got me reunited with my packraft pretty easily, but both my paddle and the other swimmer’s paddle had gone downstream—along with his kayak. With no boat, no paddle, and vertical gorge walls cutting off downstream travel, he had to climb out the insanely steep bank and hike back to the trailhead.

We found the lost paddles and kayak stuck in a swirly eddy on the right not far downstream. What followed was the real clown show of the day: herding a boaterless kayak down the last 1.5 miles of Wooley. It filled with water constantly, caught multiple eddies, got pinned in a log jam, and at one point ran me over in a whirlpool eddy while another kayaker with no paddle and no skirt was swirling against me too—triggering what I consider a clown show swim that doesn't really count. That last mile took us about an hour and a half, maybe longer--then the boat caught one ore recirculating eddy on the Salmon.

Just as we reached the take-out at Brannon Bar, the first patters of a light rain began to fall. We started hiking at 10:40 AM and got off the river by 5:00 PM. Not bad, all things considered.