White, East Fork

The good news: After a three inch day of rain on Wednesday July 22, the river spiked, eventually peaking at 11,000cfs a day later and holding there for almost an entire day. The level dropped slower than it rose, so that Saturday morning it was at 7600 and continuing its gradual descent. This seemed like a good day to catch the falls at their peak and watch them change as the level dropped. I loaded two ducks, my Grim Wafer, two kids, and a friend, and we headed south. We took highway 450, to get a look at Williams Dam, with 7000cfs on the Bedford gauge. It is a deadly, horrific lowhead dam, pictures included.

The bad news, although it is still good news for gauging runnability: When we arrived at the falls, they were completely inundated by the high water. The Shoals gauge read 8400cfs at the time we arrived (1:30pm), and it climbed to 8500 by the time we left (3:30pm). There were violent, but fast-moving storms blowing east, early that morning. The difference between the 7000 at nearby Bedford and the 8500 at Shoals indicate that the local streams near Shoals can contribute a 1000-2000 cfs with any decent storm. This is significant if you are chasing cells, but luckily, the East Fork as a whole has a large, gradual drainage. So if the cells are passing over the entire drainage, the spike will drop slowly over a couple of days at least, as indicated by the spike from the Wednesday 7/22 storms. As for the 8400cfs, it is too high for any kind of play worth driving for. We could see a hint of activity from the falls under our boats, and from the micro-eddy just downstream. I was able to use the large downstream eddy for mysteries and squirts, but they were not worth the drive. I am revising my guess for the maximum play level to 7000cfs, and that is factoring in squirting, which should be fun at higher levels than surface play. Surface play, such as wave and hole surfing, might top out 6000cfs. Since we're just guessing anyway, I will now say that the play window is 2500-6000, with some marginal fun at 2000-2500 and 6000-7000. Pictures of 8500cfs are included.