Davidson River

On 2/6/04 the davidson was running at 4.5 ft. on the USGS gauge after 3 inches of rain. Myself along with Ned Steadman put on a rougly 3:30 and ran from the first brigde on daniels ridge trail to the above the lowhead dam. The whole run was runnable except whalesback which looked like it could swallow a school bus. At flows around 3- 3.5 whalesback is runnable on the far right but the hole looks quite stiff. At 4.5 the river is pumping all the way from the start to the finish. There are mostly large holes and powerful chutes and low hanging limbs/trees. Whalesback, Whalestail, and BLD should and all be scouted. If you swim hold onto your paddle or kiss it goodbye. At these levels the river becomes solid IV. Portaging is hard in most places at these levels. BLD is almost impossible to portage at this level.

Alex