Bear

I'm an SLC boater who never made the scheduled releases, but I found the time to get up there a few times so far during the consistent flows this summer. THIS RUN IS INCREDIBLE, and I'm kicking myself for not getting up there sooner. I've been walking Boo-Boo, which is a bit of a chore, but not the worst portage I've seen.

Without Boo-Boo, the Bear has more quality class IV stacked in 5 miles than most anything else I've ever run. If you run the SF Payette Canyon and Staircase with no problems, you'd enjoy this. It probably has more class IV (maybe IV+) packed in than either of those runs. But no individual rapid outside of Boo-Boo is harder than the SF Payette (at least at the levels I've run these rivers).

Grace Falls is a lot of vertical in a short distance but straightforward. I've found it hard to line up the final boof of the largest part of the falls, but so far it's pretty forgiving even if you miss the best boof. The little ramp/slide/finger thing on the river left side of the final drop is easier to line up. Check it out from the bridge before you go. The two rapids after Grace Falls are fun, with the second one being a longer more twisted affair that's easiest from Right-of-center, back left in the slack water near two big boulders, before following the flow as it snakes back right.

After that it eases up to IIIish for a mile or so, though one big hole lurks on the right in one rapid as the river bends left. One of the cooler rapids in this section ends to the right of a giant triangular rock with water pouring off both sides of it (I would vote to call this rapid Beartooth after that rock).

The 4 biggest rapids (except Boo-Boo) are the 4 rapids preceding Boo-Boo. They are all fun, and 3 of the 4 have decent sized pools at the end for recovery. The first starts with some long wavetrains, then you can go left or right of a small boulder near the right bank at the bottom. There's a good recovery pool there.

The second is the steepest. We've been starting in a river right eddy above the drop, paddling toward the left bank to cross over the left shoulder of a big wave at the top, then running down the left side after that. The left side is like a barroom brawl - you can't see what's hitting you so just keep swinging. (Lots of holes and chaos, but none of them seems to have a strong desire to hold or flip you if you paddle straight through it. It seems to work out).

Between the 2nd and 3rd of these bigger rapids there's not much of a break. The third of these rapids is where the river fans out a bit. You start working toward the right through various eddies and run the bottom against the right bank, ending in a big boulder boof. There are a couple of FU or potential pinning rocks leading up to the big boof. Keep your eyes open. There's a large pool after this. I haven't run the other channels on this rapid. The middle of the river looks manky and pinny, but I think the far left channel would go (?).

The fourth of these rapids is a pretty steep drop with some nastiness in the middle. I think people call this one Yogi. We've been running the right side. There's a flat hole at the top, before the meat of the drop, which we skirt on its left edge before running down the right side of the main drop, punching holes as they come. I think it's best to take a couple of strokes toward center at the bottom, but the far right edge goes too. There's a decent recovery pool after this, but Boo-Boo is not far away.

If you're not running Boo-Boo, the eddy for the portage is the most important move on the river. (The line in Boo-Boo looks straightforward, but I'll leave that description for someone who's run it). After the 4th of the big pre-Boo-Boo rapids, you run a 100 feet or so of small wave trains while looking for a big easy to catch eddy on the left. Just don't miss it. The portage involves some bushwhacking and some boulder walking. I just take it slow.

From that first eddy, drag your boats straight up through the brush until you're on boulders, then parallel the river over those boulders until just after the second big drop of Boo-Boo. There's a small eddy between a big rock (upstream) and some brush that makes for a fairly easy re-entry. We put in after the two big drops of Boo-Boo and just run the left side down from there. The left side can be a bit manky but isn't bad.

The rapid below Boo-Boo has a small creeky channel on the left that goes at 1100 and above (maybe below that too, I just haven't looked at lower lever). Point it and fight your way through.

Perhaps the best part of the run is the rapids after Boo-Boo. It's a continuing parade of read and run Class 4ish rapids. Every one of them is unique, but the obvious lines go.

I would note that the levels make a lot of difference on this river. We've run it at 1170-1190, at 1300 and at 1400. The difference from 1190-1300 is noticeable. It's much pushier at 1300, though even up to 1400 the lines stay the same and I don't think it's much more difficult.

Also, there's a 1.5 mile section of class 3, mellowing to 2, below the official takeout. The takeout for that would be the decommissioned Cove Power Plant. You can cross the bridge at the normal takeout and walk up a decent trail on right right to add a couple of big class III's to that bottom section for the price of a 15-20 minute walk. If you do that and run down to the Cove Power Plant it makes a decent 2 mile run for a class III boater.

I cannot believe this run is 2.5 hours from SLC. It's a gem.

Just ran this thing and swam Grace Falls. It actually was not as bad as it sounds.

There is a series of small 3 to 5 foot ledges leading up to Grace Falls. These are all on river right. River right also has a very large hole right before Grace Falls.

River left has smaller terraced falls leading to pools without any large boat flipping holes. My advice to you is to run river left going up to and over Grace Falls.

Ths section is normally dewatered by a series of dams and diversions. This flow resulted from glitches in the system.