One of our crew had an up close and personal experience with several of the logs in the newly reformed Lake Creek debris field and came out alive. We are very lucky and thankful that we were drinking and laughing at the end of the day instead of flying a body out. Sobering thoughts yes, but this obstacle will hurt you or worse if you make a mistake. We flew in an Islander with about a 1,000 lbs of mostly beer, and a dry box and three coolers. I was so happy to running 200-300 lbs lighter through this section.
This run through the logs while not being technically more than a 3+ is not to be under estimated. It can kill you. Don't mess around with the Lake Creek strainer and debris field unless you are sure of your skills. ONE MISSED STROKE OR POPPED OAR IS ALL THAT SEPARATES YOU FROM FOUR DIFFERENT STRAINER SECTIONS. Two of our crew had trouble with the entry. One was able to recover and have a great run out the bottom. One of our boaters popped an oar, got pushed into the logs to the left of the slackwater entry and ended up vertically flipping on the three live trees to the right of the entry tongue. They then went under at least two logs before being able to get over to the right side of the river.
I love the river and floating it. It's not worth dying over. Go light as you can. Fly stuff in if necesary. Have fun.
Thanks for checking it out and please be safe on the river.
Jerry
To view other images by Jerry and work that I represent in the gallery please go to
http://saddletreegallery.com/
to view wedding photograpy and images by Jerry please go to:
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After not drawing a permit again, I started calling for cancellations and found one for May 16th. Reacting more than thinking I said to myself, with no snow much this winter the road should be open and picked up the permit. It then proceeded to snow and rain for the next three weeks. And then one of the first trips of the year down Marsh Creek reported that the log jam had reformed at Pistol Creek rapid with a very hazardous passage through Lake Creek just above.
So after not being sure about the road and having 15 people who were interested even with the possibility of a portage and other hazards we had to go check out the road the Saturday before we were to drive to Boundary Cr on Tuesday afternoon for a Wednesday launch.
Ira blazing a trail over the top.
I did get stuck once pretty good even with chains, but we made it in. The first car to Boundary was my little Explorer with 320K miles on it. The trip is on for sure now.
Also got a couple of nice shots of some elk that started loping along next to us. Not perfect but I was driving ( with assistance - Thanks Dan) at the time.
By the time we went in Tuesday afternoon the road was clear enough, that we barely got muddy let alone stuck. One of the first times that I ever made it to Boundary before O'dark thirty. With a moderate intake of beverages the night before we had time to watch a raft and three of our kayakers run Dagger on Wednesday before we launched. They all made it look pretty easy. I didn't catch the shot, but the raft went into a small hole at the bottom of the run and nearly had a problem.
The kayakers: Erik Meyer made it look ridiculously easy. Chris gave us a little more excitement coming off a deep brace and I got a closeup of Johannes getting pounded in the first hole. Good entertainment guys - thanks.
We made it to Sheepeater with no problems. One of the crew ran the hole in Velvet with no incident. The kayaker following him too close was flipped, but no big deal. Thanks to the smaller groups that let us have this camp. A group was at Joe Bump and Scout and then Rob Lesser and a couple of buddies ( thanks for the salt since I forgot ours) camped on the lower end. Sure was nice soaking the next morning for me.
The Lake Creek Chronicles:
This is a website from an earlier in the season trip with lots of photos and good info.
Restwhenyoudie.com
Ultimately if you run this rapid (and it does not change) you must go to the left of the three upright trees (for now) but just to the right of the large strainer at the left of this photo. I thought I was in great shape and came within a couple of inches of the strainer to the left. As you go down this entry there is actually quite a bit of current moving right to left. This is true for the whole entry even up in to the slack water.
First view of the rapid. The other group was trying to line this cat through and ending up flipping it on the cutbank and having to derig where it was and then hoist it up the cut bank. This shot was taken after things got better.
John Heinrich running first. He looks to be in good shape but ending up going to river left of the small log sticking up and making a great recovery heading for the three nasty trees in the middle.
By going to school off of John I was able to enter from the far right, let the right to left current push me to edge of a small hole made by the bigger trees and didn't have to work at all to get away from the "Three" downstream. I did have to pull pretty hard to get around the large strainer river left of this shot.
This is looking from river left through the submerged trees at the debris fan where Lake Cr. blew out. John Heinrich photo.
From river left looking out at the large trees at the top left of the entry at the drop. John Heinrich photo.
Wading out into the shallows to check out the idea of running a boat through the shallower water at river center. Too much current for safety on foot. Not enough current to run a boat in there. John Heinrich photo.
Panoramic view from halfway down the debris fan.
Panoramic view from the trail near the bottom of the bend. This is our path through the drop. I expect this to change again at any time. The three trees at the right of the entry tongue cannot last long with the flow ( I don't think) and this is not necesarily a good thing as they may end up in a worse spot.
So we had a great trip. How can you complain - a night at Boundary and four nights on the river without setting up a tent in mid May with 4.7 to 4.9? As the trip leader I felt horrible about one of our crew going through what they did. In fairness to me, I didn't know that they were even contemplating running the rapid as they were running the sticks on someone elses boat who I thought was going to run it. The incident happened as I was hiking back up to help out with the next one or run it as the case may be. All in all half of our trip ran their own boats through and the other half had more experienced boaters run through with the exception of the boat that went into the strainer.
