40 - 6/27/09 - NF Lewis (Day 1)

(Above Ski Jump rapid)

A few years ago, some friends and I decided to run the two lower sections of the NF Lewis as an IK camping shakedown run. We ran it again the following year. We didn't get a chance to run it last year, so we made sure to plan it for this year. The flow was pretty low (around 800cfs on the gauge), but it was high enough for us. Since this was an overnighter, we all carried our camping gear. Even with relatively light gear, this makes the boats a little harder to move. The weather was perfect. It was warm, but not too hot that we were sweating in our drysuits. The water was clear and not too cold.

The upper section begins with lots of little class II+ rapids with forest on both sides. The first class III rapid is Ski Jump, which is just a ledge drop next to a big wall (see picture above). A couple of miles later is Spencer Drop, which is a class III-IV rapid that consists of a handful of ledges and ends in a hole. Not long after this, we reached the camp we had used on previous trips, but this time we decided to try a later camp. This meant that we would be taking on Big Creek Gorge on the first day.

Big Creek Gorge is a narrow canyon with a lot of basalt boulders in it. We normally run this by stopping in eddies and checking to see what is below. The rapid was clear of trees, so it should have been an easy run, but I ended up complicating things. I missed the first eddy and didn't understand the instructions to go down to a lower one. So, I ended up in a bad place. When I tried to continue, I didn't make the right moves, and I ended up wrapped against a huge boulder. I came out of the boat and couldn't drag the boat with me. The other guys were able to get it back out, and we portaged my boat over a couple of rocks. This allowed me to continue down to the last eddy, where one of the guys pushed my boat up and over the last ledge. While climbing on the rocks, I slipped and fell a couple of times, which resulted in a few sore days.

Once we were through Big Creek Gorge, we started looking for campsites. We had seen a nice site on the right side of the river the last time we ran this section, and had planned to stop there. When we got there, we weren't very pleased with the site. It was right on the trail, and we had seen a few people riding and hiking, so we knew it wouldn't be private. It was also a very small site - I believe that the river bank has eroded a bit in that area since we were last there. We continued down the river looking at possible camps. The established camps on the right were all next to the trail, and the possible camps on the left tended to be rocky and overgrown.

We finally found a camp that turned out to be perfect, which is why I won't say where it is (so there!). It had a nice beach area and lots of room for tents. There was also a creek nearby to drown out the sound of my snoring. After setting up camp, we built a fire and cooked dinner. It was a great end to a great day.