Not 3 - 1/11/2009 - Canyon River

A group of us attempted to run the Canyon River, which is a tributary of the West Fork Satsop. We left bright and early (OK, so not exactly "bright", since it's still January) and headed out to the Olympic Peninsula. We had been told that the roads were open, so we were confident that there would be no problems. The rain had pushed the river levels up, but the run was only class II so we didn't expect any problems there.

We got to the takeout area, and there was really no convenient access except for places marked with "No Trespassing" signs. We left a rig near the bridge over the river and consolidated into the other vehicle to head to the put-in. We got to within 5 miles, but the snow on the road prevented us from continuing. We decided to attempt a run on the Middle Fork Satsop instead, but had similar problems. We got to (what we thought was) the road to the put-in, but it was covered in deep snow. We walked a half mile to see if we could find the put-in and drag our boats, but we didn't find a way to the river. On retrospect, we think we missed the road to the put-in and were at a higher put-in, which would have put us in a class IV-V canyon at high water - not what we wanted. We considered a short run lower down the river, but it just wasn't interesting enough on a cold, rainy January day, so we went and had a beer and took a look at Tumwater Falls on the Deschutes in Olympia.