High Water Bear Creek Fun!!

"So, how's  she lookin?" I ask Matt as he walks back up from the creek's bank. He chuckles, and replies, "Well, it's not low. That's for sure." 

Not low. Huh. Now there's an understatement. 

We gear up in the parking lot, attach our boat backpack systems, and begin the trek upstream. After hiking for around a mile, we reach Brave Bear Falls, the culmination of the run, and the take-out point. Looking into the meat of the slide, a normally prominent rock is now fully underwater and invisible in the massive pillow forming upstream. My sphincter tightens. Matt and Zach laugh nervously. Yup. It's not low. 

Unabashed, we continue upstream, scouting the major drops as we go. The "Tijuana Crack Whore" looks spicy, with a nice juicy lead-in. The nice thing about this flow is that the crack that runs down the middle of the slide, notorious for smashing elbows, is now covered. Around the corner, we take a peek at the Money Slide, Log Drop, and Airplane Turn. It all looks good to go, minus most of the usual eddies. 

We finally make it to the put-in slide, the Big EZ, and peer downstream. We all seem to take our time at the put-in, and after a few minutes longer than usual, we are ready to rally. 

The paddle down was awesome. After all the anticipation, it was nice to be on the water and let instinct take control. The Big EZ flew by in a flurry of splashes and giggles, followed immediately by the Jedi mank of the Swiss Chute. We managed to catch a small eddy before dropping into the Airplane Turn, and launching a sweet boof in the center of the creek. Below this was some fun to be had at Log Drop, and then the Crack. 

The Tijuana Crack Whore, or TCW, is a tricky slide with a boulder garden lead-in to the main drop. The idea is to run the slide straight, either forward, or equally as common, backward. At this point in the season, I am 4 for 5 on keeping it straight, but on this day, I ran about half the drop stern first. 

After catching the eddy below TCW, we all decided to call it a day there. To go beyond this point, with this much water would necessitate running Hotel California, a slide into a massive hole. You can check in, but you can never leave. If you do make it through the hole, then you are pretty much committed to running Brave Bear, which looked heinous. We decided to play it safe, and save the lower section for a day with less water.

Two days later, I returned with Zach, as well as a few others, and ran the same section at even higher flows. Definitely sporty, to say the least. 

Enjoy some of the photos Rosalynn took!

Bear Creek Trail.

Looking up the first third of Brave Bear.

Flowers and Whitewater. Good times in the Montana sun.

Bear Creek scenery.

Fresh growth for the new year.

Matt and Martin coming through the bottom of Airplane Turn, and headed towards Log Drop.

Martin dropping into the Log Drop.

Money Slide. Around the corner is TCW.

Matt Sylvester, coming in hot on TCW.

Martin, about to go backwards through the bottom hole.

Zach Campbell, making it look easy on the TCW.

High Water and Bushwhacking... Idaho's Finest

The Lochsa River in Northern Idaho not only offers up some great big water fun, but as we found out during mid-May, it also hides a few secrets up its sleeves. Or rather, the secrets are hidden in its tributaries. The one other thing we found out, is that food poisoning while camping sucks. The up side to this is that you can simply roll out your tent door to vomit. No rush to the bathroom necessary. 

We arrived at the Lochsa May 16, and found a nice juicy 9.5 feet, or thereabouts at the put-in. Stoked on the high water, we rallied a lap, and then went to find a camp. The next morning, we decided to make a quick trip up one of the tributary streams to search out a falls that is visible on Google Earth. In doing so, we learned several valuable lessons. First, Google Earth is not completely reliable for gauging distances. Bring a map. Second, when you think something is "only a few miles up the trail" double check that. 

After about five miles of bushwhacking upstream, we finally arrived at our destination. A beautiful waterfall set in a scenic Idaho canyon. The flow was about 10 times what we expected, and the three of us were very happy to have not packed in our boats. Looking intimidating, and mostly unrunnable, the falls plunged around thirty feet into a massive boil, where most of the water recirculated into a cave behind the falls, and the water that flushed went straight into a nasty sieved out mess downstream. 

Happy to have made it to our goal, we headed back to the car in search of food, intent on returning as soon as flows looked less than deadly.

Lochsa Area Rainforest.

Rosalynn, happy to have at last found some sort of trail, and a lot farther from home than expected.

Ummm, so Where are we again? And where the hell is this waterfall?

Finally. The falls from the river right cliffs.

Close up of the Falls. Notice the big cave on the left side of the photo.

And the run-out from the drop... Nasty.

Jesse, trying to become an American Whitewater accident report.

Wrangler sizing up the falls for the first Canine decent. 

Big water Lochsa fun.