Gary Korb mentioned a run on the muddy fork that wasn't in the guide book to me. he said it was class IV, a few miles long, but in a incredible gorge. maybe you did a mix of the two? and I really want to see that helmetcam footage!!

that sounds like there's a epic story, glad you and travis made it out okay. you didn't lose any gear?

Seriously...............wow. Just saw some of the pics. Beautiful river. Reminds me of one of those huge deep-sea fish with the shiny dangler that hangs off its forehead luring in the unexpecting. That bedrock toilet bowl has to be the most terrifying.......yet facinating feature I have ever seen.  Glad you guys are alright.

I'll also add that for a very motivated team there are 2 accessible beautiful falls, with an unportageable (without a zip line as we set up) boulder sieve of epic proportions between, you can carry around.

Then you either get to carry your boat through hell up to the road or likely around the next two gorges because of a room of doom (runnable, even by morons like us) and then around the next serious section because the toilet bowl is at the bottom.

It will definitely be more than anyone can do in one day, maybe not in two...  We took 3, with walking out in between.... and our boats are still at the entrance to the final gorge...

Thank goodness for a flashlight, gps, luckily placed abandoned trail and moonlight (over 5 miles hiking...).  We had fire making materials and food, but there was beer at the truck 

Finally!! Tales Of Adventure on Professor Paddle!

Seriously, though-glad you are unscathed with a tale to tell. And hey, a PFD is a PFD.
But, while you have stated that media will be forthcoming, I must none the less take this opportunity to use the Godzilla of all Emoticons:



can't wait to see some!

My colleague is requesting that I not post any media until his head clears...

Otherwise I would have right away...  It was a cool trip as well... and a cool story but a bit scary at two points....

I'm in Everett though if you're in the neighborhood... 

Also I need to get editing software as most of the media is helmet cam footage since the gorge was too narrow to get out and film...

    
Here ya go... the toilet bowl...


Edited by James - 06 Oct 2009 at 6:59pm

That's one scary whitewater wormhole there... Only way that would entice me is if it were a hotspring bubbling up not sucking down. Something like a mid river hot tub.... 

that is nasty, makes my stomach churn too.

way to go man, ive always thought that it had to be the most epic run in the bennett book, thanks for finding out so i dont have to

Here's the lowdown on the canyons/runs up there... total of 4 canyons basically.

#1 - The box below the road (has been run at very low water)... there is an evil gigantic wedged in logjam in this though so putting in would require rappelling down after it and would be scary as the thing is never wider than 10 feet and about 100 foot down... Apparantly there was also a second trip when something went wrong... dunno...

#2 - Death canyon, two 50+ footers that slam into the left wall... Nobody... EVER will run this alive... though there is a sick looking 20 footer right at the confluence with Nickel Creek... Read More

#3 - The one we have a 1st D on right after Nickel Creek, with 2 big falls and a wicked boulder seive portage between, we used a zipline, then an evil drop with a room of doom and a tough lead in, then the most committing canyon I've ever seen that ends in a toilet bowl... too much to do in one day and paddle the next gorge, any portage requires at least 100 foot climb out and waking through STEEP forests

#4 - The one described in Bennett by Bill Bowie and run at least one time after that... our boats are now at the entrance to this one, guarded by a HUGE logjam that we knew was there, was just too much to do with the amount of daylight we had and we walked in at FIRST LIGHT.. 6AM

I know Bowie wrote that he hiked in at Nickel Creek... but we even heard from someone there that day that they did not run this section... don't know what happened... the description is 100% wrong and probably why nobody has checked this section out... we had a helicopter scout (thanks Brian) to speed up the process and a lotta climbing rappelling and camping and multiple painful hikes in and out with boating mixed in...

The next beta/images I'll put out will be the headcam stuff in some sort of coherent video...

Thats #1 with the logjam

By "below" I meant you could jump off the bridge into it...  The logjam is upstream from the bridge.