The next morning I met up with Wes at his house. We loaded up, picked up Dan and headed out towards Willowcreek. About 20 minutes into our drive, we finally decided where to go. We headed for the North Fork Salmon with many options on our plate for day 2. We got to the Salmon, dropped off the dog, beer and bike and headed for put in. We arrived to tiny purple moths exploding all around us at the put in, which was pretty rad. We geared up and put on lovin life!
Making our way down North Fork Salmon
Boofin
One of the bigger rapids
Dan punching a hole halfway down
Trying not to go for a ride
The North Fork Salmon treated us well. We knew we were going to stay in the area so we decided to camp out near Nordheimer campground.
The next day we decided on Clear Creek, a tributary of the Klamath. Dan was positive that it would be perfect flows. Well, this was my first time doing the run, but I'm pretty sure he was right.
Stoked to be at put in. Wes almost made it, but the timer decided to make him look like bigfoot instead.
Second rapid of the run.
Dan making sure to not go left. Ugly over there!
We didn't actually know any of the names besides the portage and the bigger one near the bottom.
Dan decided to call this one Snake Pit since he saw a snake crossing the river at the top.
Yep, that is a really really ugly piton rock. I walked this one. If you know me, you know
I usually don't have great luck with pitons.
Clear creek is amazing. Lots of quality whitewater in a short 4 miles. Amazing scenery also! After a couple hours we finally made it to the mando portage.
Ben Stookesberry's wet dream. Apparently Dan's too.
The portage is quick and easy. Once finished with the quick walk above some nasty undercuts, you are rewarded with a fun little seal launch!
Weeeeee
After the portage, there are a couple fun rapids and the mandatory rapid. I believe it is called Copperhead? It consisted of 3 moves. Work your way from center to left, missing some bad looking rock. Stay center left for sweet boof. Move hard right and punch/boof big hole. The rapid went well for all of us. Wes had a quick little hole ride. I almost made it through with a dry head, but ended up doin a little head rudder myself to guarentee my escape. Takeout quickly approached, we hung out for a bit at takeout, before Dan the man ran shuttle. While Dan was shuttling away we made our way down the last couple miles of the run, which consisted of some fun class II and some amazing scenery!
All in all it was a sweet little trip with some good friends. North Fork Salmon is a really great run, but Clear Creek is outstanding and I would highly recommend this run to anyone in the area!
All photo's courtesy of Wes Schrekengost
-Jon
