Wind

March 3, 2025

7.2' and rising

The day after the Wind River Race a group of 3 R2 rafts, a shredder-like boat, and 2 kayaks ran this section. Level felt like a friendly medium. The storm supplying the water was rain on snow.

We portaged Kingpin on the right (runnable on the left), and portaged twice downstream for logs, including the blind logjam on the right hand turn 0.4 miles below Ninemile Creek. There wasn't an eddy, but the water is moving slow enough and we spaced out enough that stopping on the river-right gravel bar was not a problem.
There were a couple more log ducks on the run, but overall the wood wasn't bad.

Flow is really hard to measure. I think we had a medium high flow because it was fairly continuous and harder to catch eddies than I thought it would be from previous trip reports. The Stabler Gauge read 6.8 feet but since it was in a snowmelt cycle I think the mainstem had more water than the low level creeks making this section a 'medium high.'

We took duckies to make it easier to jump out above logs which was really nice. The wood situation was not good. Others have described this as a Class III+ run but the wood makes it a solid Class IV run and I'd say at least someone needs Class V group skills and looking out for wood skills. Swimming on this section would not be good as it would be hard to rescue boats and there is quite a bit of wood.

Here's a link to a write up I did https://www.whitewaterguidebook.com/washington/upper-upper-wind-river/.

We put in above Falls creek but below the braided channels in the alder forest and took out at the first bridge you come across.
Pretty cool run. Reminded me of a class 3 version of the farmlands section of the white salmon. Similar canyon with a few fun boof ledges along the way and a nice general rhythm to the rapids.
There's one boulder sieve rapid that is an easy enough portage river right with a decent eddy but has a line along the left wall (its worth a scout though to see where you don't want to end up) and one old growth tree across the river a little down river from there that needs to be portaged (also has a nice eddy and easy enough portage), otherwise all other wood is dodgable hanging off of one wall or the other.
Would definitely do this run again. Made for a nice adventure and hope to check it out again with more water though this flow was plenty of water for checking it out.
Could probably go lower and would definitely be fun with more water but I'm not sure at which point those eddys might wash out and I could see it getting choked if the wrong trees made it into the canyon.

Super fun, very narrow basalt gorge, more like a creek-feel. Be aware of wood and the 'kingpin' boulder sieve 1.5 miles in. look for the big boulder horizon line.