Pete Giordano and I had been wondering about Falls Creek for a few years before Pete got the news that Bryan and the rest of Team PBR had run it.

In early 2003 Pete and I tried to drive up the road that accesses Falls Creek but were stopped by a gate. Later that year after some map work and speculation our friend Marc Strabic hiked up along the lower gorge and reported some class III-IV stuff, very scenic but not too challenging. He said there was a lot of wood above the lower gorge, so we lost interest.

Then we got the email from Brian, and we immediately made plans to paddle the creek the following weekend. I forwarded the message on to Gabe Flock and Jesse Coombs, (both of whom love exploring new creeks) and they joined up immediately.

Brian his crew had about 460 cfs in the East Fork at Heisson gauge after a week or so without rain, which means this creek does derive some of it's water from snowmelt. We ran the creek a week later after a couple of days of rain and warm weather, and the EF at Heisson was reading 1,400 cfs. We were a little concerned about having too much water but decided that we would drive up and give it a look and see if the run seemed reasonable.

On Saturday we converged on Falls Creek road, and luckily for us the gate was open. We quickly drove up to the trailhead headed up the path, deciding in advance to scout the lower part of the creek to ensure it didn't have too much water.

Once we arrived at the footbridge we looked for the undercut against the left wall, which was visible. ( Bryan had advised earlier that if the undercut under the river-left side of the footbridge was filled in, not to run the creek ).

The flows looked good, so we saddled up for the hike in. The hike wasn't too hard, and after studying a few logs in the lead-in section to the gorge we headed upstream. The gorge was certainly class III-IV as described by Marc, but the section upstream was anything but, with very high gradient and non-stop rapids.

The 500-foot falls at the put-in was breathtaking; no description can do this drop justice. Here the creek roars over three tiers (the bottom two tiers are shown in the photo on the right) and then down through an enormous series of class V boulder gardens and slides. All of us just stood there gaping in awe when we arrived at the falls, but only Jesse looked at the falls itself or the slides below with any thought of kayaking them.

The sheer scale of the place required about ten minutes of contemplation by everyone in our group, and we all just sat and looked, at least at first.

Soon it became apparent that Jesse was thinking of running the huge drop below the slides, so we trooped off down into the canyon to check out the particulars of the drop.

The drops below the main falls are definitely a series of individual drops at lower flows, but at this flow all of the distinct slides and boulder gardens blended into a single roaring, frothing, monster drop. I divided this rapid into five distinct sections, each of which required safety and careful scouting, with much active speculation about lines, safety, and the kind of nerve it takes to contemplate tackling such a massive rapid.. only Coombs had summoned up the nerve on this particular day.

The 'Warm Up' rapid on Falls Creek, broken down..

Part one: From the base of the falls, several very tough moves past sieves and siphons contained in a large boulder garden, which feeds directly into..

Part two: A burly 25 foot tall slide-falls which features a huge, folding hydraulic halfway down that almost guarantees a flip; this falls plunges into a beefy hole at the bottom which flushes into a boulder sieve on the left with a narrow outlet in the middle, which leads to..

Part three: A 17 foot tall slide-falls that flushes directly into..

Part four: A 12 foot tall waterfall with a large, boiling pool at the base which empties into..

Part five: A trashy, technical boulder garden that ends with the creek plunging under a logjam. There is a tiny one-boat eddy a few feet to the right of where the creek plunges under the logs, though, and this is the eddy Jesse was planning to hit..

Whew!