South Sauty Creek

View from top of Bone Crusher rock looking upstream.
Picture taken by Andy Lee

New rocks at bottom and top of Bone Crusher. Strainer blocking lower line of Bone Crusher
Photo courtesy of Kyle Stichtenoth

USGS for this run is

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/al/nwis/uv?cb\_00065=on&format=gif\_default&period=14&site\_no=03572690

Translate gauge to Bucks Pocket stick gauge at AL WW @

http://alabamawhitewater.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10535&sid=4db2d85582e0538e423e2f9b77f5f394 .

(12' to 24' is sweet spot. 4'= piddly above 24' is hard to catch and more stout!)

Removing a log from the mouth of Jonah's Whale. This beast caused some scary moments with one too many paddler, so it had to go.

Instead of the main center entrance to Upper Minefield, keep edging down river left and look for a gap between some rocks where a pillow and curler to the right will be visible. Bite off a little bit of the rock on your left side, but don't get greedy. Bonus points for launching this boof, crossing the main flow and catching the river left micro eddy in one fell swoop.

The center line of The Slot, aka nasty sieve. Picture at 6 inches on the Bucks Pocket gauge

Boof between the tits! The right tit pinches against the undercut right bank forming a bad pinning spot that loves to collect logs. In this picture, the jet of water on the right is being shot up by a log stuck in this spot.

Looking down at Bonecrusher rock from the main drop.

This is the boof on river right if you forgo running the Cliff Left line.

The exceptionally convenient, elevated, downstream scouting eddy for Drunken Horseman.

This ender spot is at the bottom of the boulder jumble that is 100 yards below the end of Lower Minefield, maybe 50 yards above The Slot.

The directions on this page for S.Sauty are wrong. Do not use them.

Good at High Water

Town Creek isn

Hike up a 100 yards from the put in to run this rapid.

This is the very first rapid on South Sauty, and Shane is throwing a freewheel off of it. The Falls is just above the put-in bridge.
See a larger version of this photo by clicking here.

Duncan Cottrell running South Sauty Falls. The falls are a very short hike upstream of the put-in bridge.
Duncan Cottrell runs the top drop of Welcome To Sauty
Duncan Cottrell runs the bottom drop of Welcome To Sauty
Peter Horne Runs Cliff Left. Gee, I wonder how it got its name?
Peter Horne makes Bone Crusher look easy.
Marshall Fox running Egg Scrambler. Look to the right of the photo and you'll see a large set-up eddy at the base of the cliff where everyone is waiting their turn.
A good visual gage for South Sauty Creek is the low water bridge that crosses it at the entrance to Buck Pocket State Park. In this shot, there is about 5' of water flowing over the bridge which translates to 0.75 on the South Sauty paddler's gage. The creek is runnable when there is a thin sheet of water flowing over the bridge. 1 foot of water is over the bridge is 1.5-2.0 feet on the gage. If your car will get swept downstream into the lake its over 3.0 feet on the paddler's gage.
South Sauty Creek is easily boat scouted and offers a lot of on-the-fly water reading technical fun.
South Sauty Creek is easily boat scouted and offers a lot of on-the-fly water reading technical fun.
Here's Jim Strickland running South Sauty Falls. The falls are 1/4 mile upstream of the put-in bridge.
The paddler's gage is about 200 feet downstream of the ranger station (and hot showers!).
The Slot is one of the most impressive rapids on South Sauty. Look out for the sieve under the river left boulders.

The main drop on the left line.
An easy rapid but a significant penalty, especially at higher water.
The middle part of Cliff Left. Just outside the frame to the right is the undercut mushroom rock.
The upper half of Upper Minefields
Not the best video of a cool rapid.
The lower part of bonecrusher. The rock to Hank's left at the end is undercut.

Thomas doing a little bouldering, winds up a little wet.