Scraping Down The Satsop

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

W. Frk. Satsop, 2400 CFS

Class IV

4.0 Miles

This Saturday Kris, Chip, Jon, Dan, and I made a trip down the West Fork of the Satsop Gorge, a short stretch that contained two walled in gorges and class IV water. Chip and Jon picked me up in Oly and we rallied over to Kris's for a cup of coffee and to load kayaks into and onto trucks. We worked out the logistics and began driving the hour-or-so north to the river. We wound our way through clear cuts and bumpy forest service roads in search of the take-out. At the take-out bridge we checked the visual gauge and discovered that the water was going to be lower than anyone in the group had run it before, but after driving all the way out here we felt it was still our best option. We were going to help with river bed erosion as we scraped our way downstream.

After running shuttle we began the usual slog through ferns, devils club, and deadfall, down steep and loose slopes to the rivers edge. The first mile or so consisted of class I and II shoals and maneuvering around and away from fallen trees. The gorge appeared very suddenly, walls closed in and the first horizon line of the day reared its head. We scouted along the left shore and were presented with a straightforward class IV rapid, the lead-in was obscured by trees hanging low in the water but were easy to avoid. The first drop was a S-turn in front of and then behind a large boulder in the middle of the current. Below this boulder was a very narrow gorge, perhaps 6-7 feet wide with fast moving current, the exit of this gorge was obscured by a log that we ducked under the right side of. From here there was several hundred yards of class III until our next horizon line.

Kris scouted from the right side, but unfortunately there was not enough room for the rest of us to get into the eddy. Chip scouted from river left as well while Ben, Jon and I waited in some eddies upstream. Kris and Chip scouted for a long time, scrambling and looking at the rapid from all angles. I was becoming increasingly uneasy about the rapid due to the amount of time they spent looking at the drop. Eventually Kris gave us the Thumbs Up, pointing to the middle of the first ledge then pointing left. I didn't particularly like this but trusted my friends and dropped in. The rapid turned out to be a double ledge, followed by a narrow gorge with some wood hanging into the river.

From here we exited the first gorge and quickly entered the second gorge. The first big rapid of this gorge was a mandatory portage, a large rootball obscured the left side of the entrance and water was flushing through and around this. Below the initial wood was even more wood that was piled 10-15 feet above the water level. The drop looked like it might be runnable without Woody Harrelson parked in it, but there was so much water flowing into the pile that it wasn't a viable option. We portaged along the top of the pile, carfully walking along large trees, passing the boats to each other in a chain until we could get back to river level. There were times where I was standing on gravel that high water events had deposited in the pile creating a cement-like substance. We all took our time getting back to river level and climbed back into our boats incident free.

Below this rapid the riverbed became much steeper and more continuous. Due to the low water there was some less-than-ideal lines we had to make, paddling close to wood and rocks that had a pinning potential. After about a mile of this the river slowed down and we eventually came around the corner and saw the bridge. We climbed the steep bank up to the river and to the cars.

Behind our group was my Friends jP, Brian, Nick and others that had joined them. We all hung out on the bridge and enjoyed the warm weather, partly sunny skies, and our Pabst Blue Ribbons. Not a bad way to spend a day on the water.