Trumansburg Creek
Trumansburg to Rt. 89
| Difficulty | IV-V(V+) |
| Length | 1.1 mi |
| Avg Gradient | 155 fpm |
| Gauge | Fall Creek Near Ithaca Ny |
| Flow Rate as of 1 hour | 163 cfsbelow recommended |
| Reach Info Last Updated | June 7, 2016 |
River Description
Warning The following description is pretty basic. I've only run this creek once and haven't done too much research. I'll try to update it soon. Until I get some better information approach this as an exploratory trip.
This is a very narrow, technical creek with a tiny drainage. Many of the drops are barely a boat wide. Plus, it's in a narrow gorge with walls that aren't super high, but are steep. Portaging is generally doable, but tricky. We also encountered one landowner who took offense to our scouting adjacent to his property. This is at a narrow drop into a little hole followed immediately by a 6 footer into a cauldron about 4 ft. wide. You'd be better off getting out on the right; away from the landowner and on the better side to scout or set safety. After this there are approximately 7 drops until Rt. 89.
The next drop was a 4 ft. drop into a hole with a log in it into a 8 ft. drop. We all ran it. The next drop was a tight boof charging left onto a slide. Falling off to the right would result in elbow to rock impact. The next couple of drops were slides that funnelled into boat width slots with decent holes at the bottom, one of which everyone else walked after seeing me totally sub out my Salto. All of this is in a tight shale gorge with portaging available only at low water and can be seen directly upstream from 89.
Despite these troubles, this is a very interesting creek. It's got very interesting bedrock formations and many of the drops have deep landings (unlike most everything else in CNY).
The rapids are quite varied in character and pretty much all need to be scouted. The first one you come to starts with a slide and ends in a 10 ft. ledge that lands on bedrock and forms a room behind the curtain. We walked on the left. After that there's probably 10-12 horizon lines that should be scouted. All told, it took us about 4 hrs. to go a mile or two.
From the takeout where the creek flows under Rt. 89, drive
...River Features
Put In
Take Out
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Log in to add a reportLooking upstream from not too far up from rt. 89.