No one in our group had run this stretch before and we lucked out with flows and road conditions. I had heard that the road is often snowed in when flows are good, so maybe we lucked out. I’m not sure and haven’t been back, but the Lower McCloud (McCloud Reservoir to Shasta Lake) was certainly worthwhile. It’s a full-day on the water and we had healthy flows. I’d imagine you’d be pushing the clock if flows were low and you were doing it in a day.
Most of the land surrounding the Lower McCloud is privately owned. There is a small piece of public land at the mouth of Claiborne Creek (river-left), which is where we stopped to take a breather and have a bite.
The second half of the run has some larger rapids than the first half. The largest drop on this trip was Tuna Falls and below Tuna there were some more interesting and Class IVish rapids.
I would definitely run the Lower McCloud again, but from what I understand it rarely runs at good flows for rafts. My understanding is that you should use the USGS gauge for the McCloud above Shasta Lake. 20% of the flow is a rough estimate of the flow you will have at the put-in. If someone knows better please comment below.
Just downstream of the put-in on the Lower McCloudTim Sorby runs a rapid immediately downstream of Tuna Falls (background)Excitement at Tuna FallsBeautiful scenery along the Lower McCloud
Box Canyon of the Sacramento is a fun run and a quick drive from Ashland, Oregon. We met up with some friends from California (Neil Nikirk and Lacey Anderson + some of their friends) and had a great time on the water. We took out at Sweetbriar, which was new for me and added quite a bit of miles to the run, but mainly just class II.
My brother SKip and I R2’d a little 10′ Avon, which was perfect for flows this day.
Launching just below the dam on Box Canyon. Photo Credit: Andrew CoitAn early rapid on the Box Canyon of the Sacramento. Photo Credit: Andrew Coit
Turned out that Big Butte Creek was chock-full of wood so we ended up just running laps on Butte Falls, which was still pretty entertaining. I think Big Butte Creek itself might be worthwhile but the sections we checked out were full of wood. Maybe a big flush with clean it up.
Don’t read this trip report and think to yourself that putting on the Illinois at nearly 4K is a good idea. At this flow swimming would be incredibly dangerous. So… if you decide to do it, that’s great, but be really careful and make sure your group is solid.
On the trip: Mike Dearing, Aaron Stone, Skip Volpert, Bill Klingler, Nat Willis, Derek Kellenbeck, Nick Ellis, Erin Ellis, Roger Goth, Justin Hawkins, Will Volpert.
We got on the water around 10:45 on Saturday and made it to Collier Creek by 3:00. And that was with a long lunch break and long scout at Green Wall. The water moves! Getting below the big stuff when the water is high is key because if it keeps going up you are in a world of hurt. The honest truth is a lot of the stuff develops cheats, but you better make sure you know where they are or you’ll get swallowed. The waves and holes are huge, the water is fast – you do not want to swim this river at high water.
We went from Collier Creek to Oak Flat in an hour and fifteen minutes. 11 miles. I don’t think words can describe the Illinois at high water. When things are going good it is the ultimate best feeling in the world. If shit hit the fan it would be a bad place to be. Here are some photos…
Redwood Creek, California. Photo Credit: Kipper McNeal
Although the gauge nearest our put-in suggested the flow to be 250 CFS, it seemed like a lot more than that. Perhaps there’s a large tributary between the gauge and put-in, or maybe the gauge is broken. Either way, we were pleasantly surprised that we never had to drag the raft, which is what we thought we’d be doing the first few miles. In fact, the “creek” (this thing is a huge creek), chugged along at a fast pace. Despite the low gradient, the river always has current.
Since none of us had been on this river before, we relied heavily on information from http://www.cacreeks.com/redwood.htm. We were able to track down Kathy and her brother to help with our two vehicle shuttle, which is certainly worth the amount of time you save by not having to do your own shuttle. From Orick to where we put-in was about an hour and fifteen minutes. We were nervous about what the put-in would be like but ran into no problems. Coyote Creek comes in on river-right about seven miles downstream of the put-in. We stopped there for an early lunch break at 11:00.
The scenery was, as expected, spectacular. Within the first five minutes we spotted a bald eagle and a little further downsteam was a huge black bear. The river canyon is heavily forested and it is not too long before you are in the heart of Redwood National Park.
We unsure of how slow we’d be moving because of the “low” flow, so our group met at the Palm Cafe in Orick at 7:00 in the morning on Saturday. We were probably on the water by 9:00 or so and made great time downstream. Day one was mainly class II with a few class III/IVs, barring the one obvious class V, which we all portaged. The portage (river left) is somewhat brutal but not as bad as we thought it would be. All the kayaks went up and around the cliff and there is a faint trail that takes you through some really overgrown brush. You come back down to the river on a slide that feels like thick quicksand.
With the raft, I waited at the bottom of the drop and Brian pushed it out for a little ghost boat action. The boat had a great line and ended up parked at my feet at the bottom of the rapid. There is a sieve on the right-side of the rapid, but it didn’t look like the raft would fit in it anway, so we didn’t worry about it. Getting back on the water, there was one more rapid that had a huge redwood spanning the river well above water level. An annoying log was at river level that we snuck left of but it would be a problem at higher water.
After that, we went a little further downstream and found a great camp on river-left on a high bench. This was somewhere around mile 14 or 15. The total run is around 25 miles but the last 10 miles (what we had remaining) is all class I at 10 feet per mile. There was always current though and the scenery is phenomenal.
The next day we drifted straight to Orick, reaching take-out at 1:30.
Bearfoot Brad posted on Dreamflows that the NF Smith was at 10’6″. The graph below shows the gauge at Crescent City.
A group from Ashland met at 8:00 am. After picking other folks up and meeting Brad and Jamie for shuttles, we arrived at the put-in around noon. At 10’6″, the NF Smith moves along pretty well but lacks the stomping holes that come out in another foot or two. In total we had six kayaks and one raft. The sun came out and we enjoyed a great day on the river. Here are some photos:
For the boatmen, for the thrills, but really just for the rivers
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