Yahoola Creek

The upper run on Yahoola has two short gorges. The rapids consist primarily of boulder pile drops and ledges. The primary danger on this run is strainers. Back in the mid 90's there were lots unrunnable drops due to the trees.

frank boston:

2005-06-03 20:16:06

Me and a group of friends have been hiking in and clearing some of the rapids out. A lot of the lower gorge is clean and runnable. With a little more work the complete gorge will be runnable with the exception of the first two major drops and one rapid at the end of the narrows. I have not seen these rapids clean of wood and don't think anyone has run them, yet.

Here is a brief description of the gorge. Starts off with a bang, get out after the first class II drop and portage King Kong a 12 to 15 footer that leads into Godzilla a boulder clog sieve that has not been run but looks runnable with enough water. Both of these are class V+.

Put in the short pool below and run Pinball a class IV or portage on river right. Run a few class II drops and then comes Caveman, a class III+ double drop with what looks like a cave on river left. Round the bend is a deep calm pool with huge boulders surrounding it, locals call this the Hole but its the calm before the storm.

Get out and scout on river right. This is the entrance to the Narrows. First drop is Entrance, a class III ledge that leads right into Commitment, a class IV 5-7 footer with a must boof or major meltdown factor. Next comes Split Decision a class III+ drop with a rock in the middle splitting the flow, run left or right and then punch thru the sticky hole at the bottom. Paddle thru a short calm pool and run Rock on Water, a class III+ drop with a boulder on river left that looks to be floating on water.

Next is Turtle Rock an easy class III but catch the eddy at the bottom fast and get out and scout the next drop called Pink Floyd, a yet to be run class V rapid with two different routes. You can run The Wall on ri

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