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. The little ramp/slide/finger thing on the river left side of the final drop is easy 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 call this rapid the 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. Between the 2nd and 3rd of these bigger rapids there's not much of a break, and the 2nd of these bigger rapids is probably the biggest, most chaotic of the 4. The third of these rapids is where the river fans out a bit and you right against the right bank, ending in a big boulder boof.

If you're not running Boo-Boo, the eddy for the portage is the most important move on the river. 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 portgage involves some bushwacking and some boulder walking. I just take it slow. We put in after the two big drops of Boo-Boo and just run the left side down from there. It 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 part after Boo-Boo. It's a continuing parade of easy read and run Class 4ish rapids. Every one of them is unique, but the obvious lines go.

I cannot believe this run is 2.5 hours from SLC.