Lochsa

Good times on the Lochsa. We had a large group with paddlers who came and went over the course of a 20 mile run from Wilderness Gateway down to Apgar. The first 2.5 miles from Wilderness Gateway is class III at this flow. Some took out there and a few continued on down through a couple more rapids before exiting above the big drops at Bloody Mary and Grim Reaper. Several rejoined the group at Split Creek Access and we continued on down to Apgar.

A highway construction project will reduce traffic to one lane with delays up to 30 minutes through summer 2024. The Lochsa Ranger Station to Holly Creek Project is anticipated to begin March 4th and to close by mid October. The project begins at milepost 121.4 (approximately a mile upstream of Fish Creek access) and ends at milepost 130.3 (approximately a mile upstream of Nine Mile access on U.S. Highway 12. Wilderness Gateway Campground is at mile 122.7.

Too busy while boating to take photos so I captured some images of the major drops while driving along the river.

An advanced group did an evening run to top off another day of awesome whitewater fun with family and friends.  My daughter and I went for a drive to watch the show and take some photographs.  The run was from our base camp at Wilderness Gateway to Split Creek.  With no swims and minimal stops, the run took just over 2 hours.

Ran at 5 feet on bridge at Selway first day and 7.5 feet at bridge the second day. Which was around 10,000 on first day and 19,000 second day. There is confusion as to which gage on the river to trust for CSF. But this is big water boating. We used the guide service out of Three Rivers rafting to run the lines and follow them as scouting all these drops at these levels would take all day and logistically impossible to do and remember. They also provided great pointers in running big water along the way. Highly recommend hiring Gus and Hunt from Three Rivers to guide you down this at high water if your not familiar with the river. They have done the river over 1500 times. A flip at these levels could easily turn into a disaster. We ran 12 to 14 foot cat boats but there were people there in rafts as well, but just not a lot of them (If you decide to do s 12 foot cat be prepared to get really rowdy). The only river advice would be above 6 feet on the river gage by the bridge by the Selway means run Lochsa Falls on the far left bank. Like right under the tree. If you take the traditional line on the right at these flows it flips around 50% of the boats which is why people line up there to watch. It's not the first hit that flips people its the second lateral. There is a reason why the next rapid is called picking up the pieces!

Aki following Morgan down the Lochsa.

It was a low water run at the end of June for the adults on our Idaho With Kids trip but the river was still plenty of fun.

- Run straight on Left side of V, staying straight splits two holes at 4'

The lochsa is often frozen over in the winter, but it can also be ice free and runnable. December 2005 was very cold and then a warm spell brought the river up, which broke the ice up and created a series of large ice dams that extended all the way down the clearwater past orofino. I took this photo from the Elk Mountain Trail bridge, on an upstream section where the ice had not broken up.

Elvis is the man!

Punching the left diagonal at Lochsa Falls.

15,700 cfs at Lowell, 7' on the paddlers' gauge on the bridge piling, 9' on the USGS gauge

This is a correlation chart that compares the USGS gage flow to the approximate Lowell bridge reading.

Dan styling his first ever day in his premature midlife crisis cat.

Big and Brown
The rapid looks totally different at this level (big surprise!)
Pipeline's a little different at 10 ft.

Big Water