A cool but dry winter day on the North Fork of the Smith began at 9:00 a.m. in Gasquet, California. Flow was lowish but the clear skies and sun made for an enjoyable day. We were off the river and back on the road around 4:30 p.m. The group consisted mainly of Eureka / Arcata folks. Gabe Howe (Siskiyou Mountain Club) and I traveled from Ashland and shared a boat with John Bartosz. Another fun day on the NF.
Having gone to bed by 9:30 on New Year’s Eve, we were plenty rested for our New Year’s Day NF Smith run. As we prepped and got ready, we awaited the arrival of Erik to pack up the Subaru and head to Gasquet, CA. After a challenging pack job to accommodate gear, two kayaks, raft with frame, P.G., four boaters and a shuttle driver, we were off. The sky was bluebird and the temp was steadily rising from a low of 45º F as we headed to Grant’s Pass to pick up the final member of our party.
We arrived at Barefoot Brad’s in Gasquet at 10:30, met up with our shuttle driver and began making our ascent up the FS road to the put-in. As we gained elevation, the snow covered more and more of the road but did not halt our progress as we plowed fresh tracks into the melting slush. We arrived at the put-in around 11:30 with smiles all around as the river called to us. After a lengthy set-up, we finally slid the boats into the NF Smith’s unbelievable clarity and pristine beauty beginning our 14 mile decent ending in Gasquet.
This being by far the lowest flow I had ever seen the NF, stoke levels were high as the excitement of the unknown manifested itself. Having done it several times at a foot higher, I knew to expect much rockier and shallow rapids with much tamer holes and slower current, this was certainly the case. We found out very quickly, the value of putting-on early or having sunglasses for this run on a clear day as the glare seems to stare directly into your eyes. The NF runs southwest carving its way to the ocean and reflects the sun upstream, adding a little extra spice to the run.
The main difference between this flow and the flows I had previously boated the NF at, was the line on Scout Rapid which is usually run on the right. At 9.5ft, a few options open up, however the best line seemed to be a right to left entry move behind the large top boulder using the slack water to ferry across above the main obstructing boulder and finishing the rapid on the left, up against the gorge wall. The right line was still available for a sporty raft or a kayak but a bit tricky. The following gorge rapid that is known to surpass the difficulty of Scout at certain flows, was very constricted but tame and slow with a pinch move on the left between the wall and the boulder in the middle which creates the turbulent feature at higher flows.
The rest of the run was shallow, busy read-n-run class III boulder gardens with the exception of Serpentine Slide which at higher flows connects the three sections of rapids into one mile long rapid. Although the gardens were distinguishable from one another, these pieces of the bigger picture stood out to make the most entertaining rapids on the run after Scout. Below Serpentine follows a succession of easier rapids coupled with the unrivaled beauty of the NF canyon and its famed Pitcher Plant population.
We reached the take-out at 199 around 4pm, celebrated a good trip, loaded the car and headed back home.
Zach Urness had been bugging me about getting back on the North Fork of the Smith. We had low flows but beautiful weather. The gauge above shows flows at Jed Smith, which are reported in CFS and Feet. This is a different gauge than the one Bearfoot Brad reports (which is at the actual confluence of the NF and MF Smiths) but the one above is the official USGS gauge. The gauge at the mouth of the NF is a foot gauge that is meant to correlate with the USGS gauge at Jed Smith. However, isolated weather events can throw this correlation off, in which case it’s best to use Brad’s gauge.
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:
Erik and David met me at the Rogue River Journeys house in Selma around at 7:00 A.M. By 9:00 we were staring at the Smith River and getting ready to run shuttle for the Oregon Hole Gorge stretch. This stretch of water is pretty short, two miles at the most, but the river runs through a fun narrow canyon. At this flow it was pretty mellow and stayed uneventful. It was still fast with a few large holes but for the most part everything was easy to avoid. Erik and David were R2ing a 12′ NRS Otter while I was rowing my 14′ Avon.
After reaching the take-out we decided to give the Lower South Fork Gorge a shot. I’d been down this once before but at about half the flow. Turns out at the flow on this day was way more mellow. A lot of the steep drops were washed out. There were some big stomping holes but, like Oregon Hole, they were fairly easy to avoid. The only bummer about the South Fork is the take-out. It’s straight up a hill and is pretty tiresome, especially with an oar boat. But the three of us muscled the boats up and after catching our breath decided to give it another go.
On our second run through I wanted to stop to take some photos. The very first significant rapid seemed like a good choice as I could get a nice angle looking down into the rapid. There was a huge hole on the left and a very large lateral wave in the center. It looked like there was a tight line in between the two. Erik and David ran through, missed the big hole on the right but ended up going into the lateral and dumptrucking. Figures that I had the camera out to catch the only carnage of the day.
Overall a splendid day on the water. The Smiths really do have a beautiful color to them, and when the sun is out they are hard to beat!
