Willow Creek, NF

Dan Hogg reports:

Well Paddlers,

Another great Adventure with Evan and Daniel. No injuries, not counting sore thumb from previous weekend that I hit on a rock again, good paddling, good rapids, and great company capable of rescues. Evan says there were no swims on the lower run, but he's not counting the hike up-creek to run the final drop of upper run. He didn't swim, again, but I did. And since bad things run in series of three's, I should be done( at least for a while; final score...Dan-0, Willow creek-3).

The writeup is correct. There is less 'junk' on this run and the rapids we ran were beautiful with some technical & tight lines. We had approx. 4 portages due to logs, and 4 due to potential bodily damage from gravity vs. rocks. Once we reached the 'Devils Slide' area. Recongnizable by ; nudists, fence on river-left side w/easy trail, horizon line with only tree tops in the distance(biggest hint), continuous granite slide/rapids to last pool, with an eddy and view of Bass lake. Unfortunately, we didn't get to paddle too much after that. Each time we made it to the creek, we didn't get far w/o having another portage. Plus time/fatigue (at least for me) was becoming a factor. After Devil's Slide, there were two more big drops/slides. We scouted the first and after seeing logs/rocks in the last drop of three(once you did first drop, you were committed to run all three) we easily portaged. Once on the trail down( we knew from hikers that we were close to the road) we basically didn't stop till we reached the road, took a swim, and just I hiked down the rest of the way w/o kayak to save time/energy to get the car.

Without a doubt, the gem of this run is a 200-300 yard granite gorge with 25ft slide into and 8-9 more drops before smooth narrow deep chanel ending with our 2nd portage of the day due to big drop/slide with rocks, and tigers and bears, OH MY! Well, actually it was about a 40-50ft slide with drops mixed in for good measure! Evan and I were really thinking about this one, but you know what they say about 'the longer you look at a rapid, the more time you'll spend in it when you run it'. The deciding factor was lack of rescue points, which were about nil. So we hiked.

The scenery on this run is awesome. In a few tranquil areas, you felt like you were hours from civilization. The lightning and thunder as we were leaving for home was incredible as well.

As with most of my recent trips, I will be sore for a few more days and ready for more adventure real soon. Thanks again to Evan and Daniel for making this another successful run. Without them, my kayak would still be bobbing around behind the waterfall of Chilkoot Falls at the end of the upper run. What a way to start your day, a swim and tough boat rescue on the first drop!
Happy paddling all!
Dan
June 25,2006