Soloing The Rock

Soloing is fun!

Nearly a year ago (2/4/06) Mike Long, Pete Giordano and myself did the first known d of the EF Rock Creek (aka The Rock), a 410-fpm bare knuckled brawler of a creek in the North Santiam drainage.

We ran it again on 11/05/06 with a strong team ( same crew as first d, plus James Bagley Jr. and Jon Fowlkes ) and ran every single un-run rapid, which was nice as it provided some closure after the first d.

Anyway, then we had that monster ten-year flood at the end of November 2006 that knocked the be-jezus out of gauges, rapids, creeks, rivers, you name it. So, I was justifiably concerned that perhaps The Rock had gotten ruined by the flood.

So I was determined to run it again this year to find out if it was utterly ruined by wood ( most likely ) or had actually improved ( ha ha not likely ). We had a nice rainstorm blow in, and with El Nino hanging around ( hate the nino ! ) I was thinking this might be the last chance to run it until next winter.

I advertised the trip like this: “If it is @#$ed up with wood, we’re gonna get punished. You’re gonna feel like you lost a fight, then stepped in front of a car, then got dragged around the block under the car with a dog chewing on your neck.. it’s gonna be like that, but worse…”

For some reason I didn’t have any takers, except for Pete recovering from surgery who offered to drive shuttle.

So I went up there today by myself. This creek has been run twice that we know of, and we’ve always run out of light, but I was determined to move very fast so I would have time to deal with any problems. As it turned out, the first problem I had was that I was going too fast.

… except when you get stuck under a log

I put in and bombed downstream to the first drop, which is a slide. I could see a log in the left chute ( the usual line ) from above, but I thought there was a line past it, which turned out to not be true because I crashed into the log, which slid up my bow towards my chest. I threw my paddle onto the bank and pushed back hard, but the creek pushed back harder and it was two against one, tag-teaming me, logs-n-creeks don’t play fair the bastards!

Well, after wrestling with the log for awhile I had maneuvered my stern out of the main flow, pulled a tricep muscle, and torn my skirt, but I was able to pop out of my boat and swing up onto the rock ledge ( using the log ha ha ha the ol’ log reverse move, works every time! ).

Once out of the creek I took a deep breath and rested. I also had a little talk with myself. that went something like this: “Self, you need to slow it down, you’re by yourself and the purpose of this trip is to find out if there is new wood on the creek. The best way to identify new wood is at a safe distance, not up close..”

I was a little embarrassed by this whole incident, esp considering:

1. It was the first drop.

2. It was a small drop, compared to the bigness downstream..

3. I am usually very safe on the river. However, being safe part of the time is not enough. You have to be safe all the time. Every single time.

I was very, very careful after that, scouting every single horizon line for the rest of the trip. It was really tiring but I wasn’t taking any chances.. I’d learned who’s boss.

NutCracker

So I seal launched in and kept on rollin downstream. Everything was clean all the way up to Nutcracker, the 30+ foot plunge falls. Now, we usually burn an hour or so at this falls while folks alternatively drool, grin, or mess their pants. Me, I broke my back running a big falls many moons ago so I just portage.

Sluice Box

A coupla minutes later I was cruising downstream, to Sluice Box, a long complex rapid dropping about thirty feet over three tiers.

The good news is: The log in the second ledge of Sluice Box is gone. Not that it kept us from running it before, but now you can $#@ it up and not get beaten like a rented mule. I scouted this one for awhile because the bottom hole was retaining, but it went smooth and I was whooping and hollering at the bottom! Man, Sluice is one of the best rapids I have ever run, period. Classic.

Damage Incorporated

Next up is some steep little stuff, then Damage Incorporated, which is well, damaged now. The right side is now blown out, so this drop may not be run again ( we all ran it in the second D ). I portaged.

The new Damaged. We used to start creek-right, then finish creek left. Now you start creek right and fall down the creek right at the bottom and explode on the rocks=sucks to be you.

Ghost Rider

Below Damage Inc is Ghost Rider, which I was planning to portage because it’s not the kind of thing you wanna run by yourself, but there was a log at the lip of the drop, which also kept me from running the lead-in drop, which is really fun, I wasn’t real happy about that.

The Nam - Actually got cleaner! Yay for Floods!

Downstream, more drops, the Nam was all clean, ran to the left of the huge rootwad as usual, yeah! ( I named this section because we hiked for about a year up through the forest to get around it the first d. It’s all clean now though ) The logjam downstream was blown up by the flood.. hell yeah!
[ Flood: 1, Logjams 0 ].

Sweetie Falls

Yep, still sweet, I hit a rock in the lead-in and landed sideways at the bottom, but hey, at least I was there running it.. good times!

Crescendo - a 25 foot three tiered drop in a micro-gorge

All the lead-in ledges to Crescendo were clean. Looked at some of the holes for awhile but was feeling good so I ran em all.

Crescendo got better!! The smaller log ( coming in from the left bank ) that was part of the criss-cross for the entrance falls has shifted left, so you can run the clean boof on the right! Yippee! The bottom two drops were sweet as usual, I was going so fast after the bottom drop that I got blown over the next horizon line, oops I meant to scout that.. It was clean, lucky me.

The buzz-kill logjam was blown out!

The buzz-kill logjam below Crescendo was blown out by the flood! YESSSSS..
[ Flood: 2, Logjams 0 ].

I ran left, then bombed over Last Caress and was at the confluence by 1:07 pm. I put on at 11, so thats about 2 hours to go 1.5 miles. Pretty slow, but I had to scout everything by myself, so gimme a break. Beside, it usually takes us at least three hours with the drooling and messing of pants that usually goes on when we have larger groups.

Main Rock - BAD LOG!

I always enjoy the section below the confluence, until it starts to suck at the end. Anyway, It’s a lot more water, you are in a helluva canyon, and the drops are fun. I ran everything and there was no new wood up to Piledriver, which I was planning to walk because of the hole, but when I pulled into the portage eddy there was a $@#$ log in it so I was barely able to claw my way out onto the bank. Bad, bad BAD log. BAD LOG!

Portaged Piledriver. Downstream the suckiness began with one logjam portage, then some other logs, new bonus logs, and then the usual run through Do or Die and the quick eddy catch on the right to keep from going into the sucking log-hole-undercut-alligator pit of doom.

This was a new log just above the old logs just above Do or Die. I was a little sad about this one because it was a massive old growth that got undercut by the flood. We don’t have enough of these left to have them killed by irresponsible floods. That flood should be ashamed of itself!

Downstream, the REALLY big logjam was blown up by the flood! Unbelievable!!
[ Flood: 3, Logjams 0 ].

I was thinking about running it, but I was feeling a little tired and didn’t want to deal with that log visible on the left side of the channel. Besides, Right-Right-Right is just downstream.. So I portaged. But this is runnable now, which is sweet, because the portage=not fun.

This logjam used to blot out the sun, now it is actually runnable. The log extending out into the left side of the channel kept me from doing it ( esp solo, and with RRR just downstream ) so I portaged=not fun.

RRR was different. It’s more like Right-Middle-Go under the log and die, or Right-Sort of Right-Right. I tried Right-Sort of Right-Right and it worked fine.

The take out! Finished in three hours or so. Not bad! The fishermans trail made the take-out much easier, and then we were cruising.

So: The flood actually made the Rock better, if you can believe it.. Ha HA!

jr