Wooley Creek

Great late-day winter run on Wooley with a mixed group of local, semi-local, and out-of-area kayakers.

It had been a while since I’d seen Wooley at these flows, and it was a great reminder of just how fun this creek can be.

The hike in felt especially long and took us about four hours. A few downed trees on the trail added some delay, but the real factor was probably our group of eight—we took a lot of breaks. We finally got on the water around 3:30 PM.

By the time we reached Brannons Bar, it was after 5 PM and already dusky. Despite the fading light, four of us decided to continue downstream—we had a shuttle set at Dolans Bar on the Klamath. It was dark when we reached the confluence with the Klamath, and truly dark by the time we passed Little Ike. It's amazing how you can run big rapids in the dark. We literally used starlight to guide us in to Dolans Bar.

The Klamath was running about 12,000 cfs, which feels especially huge at night. It was wild to start on a small creek with maybe 500 cfs at the put-in, then merge into the Salmon at 4,500 cfs, and finally into the Klamath at 12,000 cfs—all in one continuous trip.

Next time: start earlier, hike faster.