My wife works with Scott Kennard who did a few first d's back in the day.  I'll check with him and see what he knows as well.

"Re historical beta on the lower canyons you might want to contact Scott Matthews. He's boated the last canyon you mention (#4) at least a couple of times, and there's a good chance he and maybe Sprague et al ventured into #3 and #2 as well.
"

I've done a lot of research on this river, over the last month and a half. No new school kayakers that I have talked to know anything about it. When you mention Muddy Fork Cowlits to most young kayakers, they just draw a blank face and say "Where is that?" So most of my information has come from old school kayaker John Whaley who kayaked gorge #1 and #4 with Scott Matthews back in the day. He also was good friends with Bill.

According to him, the descritption in the book was written from a trip Bill Bowey and Jeff Allen did. I am not sure how long ago. Unfortunately, I was unsuccesful at finding Jeff to talk to him personaly about it. (though I would still love to do that if I get a hold of him somehow)I would also love to talk to Scott if I could get a hold of him or anyone who knows anything about the history of this run.
Anyway I had always been interested in it as it is in my backyard drainage, so when the ohane dried up this august I desided to go investigate it myself with my two friends.
What we found didn't seem to meet the the descrition, but we just assumed that Bill was understating the run, and that he was a serious badass. (the descrition is rather vague afterall) but it looked cool so we kept going back to investigate more and more and more...
eventually we concluded that the descripton was BS not because of what it left out of the description, but more beause of what it said was NOT in there. And believe me, we are not the only ones who think that.
From the old school kayakers I've talked to the descripton matches perfectly with gorge #4 however, the putin logistics don't land you at the entrance to gorge #4, they put you right above gorge #3. This is were things get fishy unless of course I suck at reading derections and maps. I know my spelling sucks, so maybe my reading does too! but I checked it over and over, and I don't think so.
Anyway, I would love to hear ANY informantion that ANYONE has on this run, or if anyone knows how to contact any of the old school kayakers that were doing FDs like mad in the 80's and 90's in washington, I would love to talk to them and hear thier stories. fell free to PM me if you want, or my email is: bbisthe88@yahoo.com
or call 3605662480

But as far as the Muddy Fork goes, I am still calling gorge #3 a FD untill I can talk to someone who has been in there and kayaked it themselves.

Hopeing to hear from some knowable kayakers soon,
Jared

Ya, these are completely identical situations and the difference was due to sexual discrimination.  LOL.

I've been running it over and over again in my head. If you guys hadn't insisted on starting so early, I'd have likely gone with you. Three boats above that toilet bowl....................would have felt really bad about bumping Travis out of that two boat eddy. Massive kudos you guys. You did it. Ready for the Tilton yet Jared? A little booze cruise surf session to heal those wounds. Sounds like Mark is fired up. Bring on the rain.

Jesus.

Just imagining being in that situation makes me feel ill.

Congrats on surviving.

PowWrangler...stupid name.  You're not a truck driver, this isn't Smokey and the Bandit, why do you have a handle?  Why not just put Dave up?  Freaking tool.  LOL

Way to go Jared and Travis.  Sounds and looks pretty epic.  Thanks for sharing with this 'somewhat dysfunctional' community of paddlers.

Absolutely. That's certainly one of the defining facets (though not the only) of this sport.

(Exploratory boating, that is. But sadly, humorously, or however you choose to look at it, so is talking a bunch of sh!t and getting your wetsuit in a bunch when you think someone has stepped on your ego.) Don't worry Meghan, it's all cool. And james is gonna Jab everyone once in a while, and that's cool too.

thanks man...

Also, on that note... Darrin Albright had a look at "the Pinch" and decided it wasn't to his liking....  McKibbin also had some pause, but agreed to come, only to have timing not work out...

This run had some teeth... and oddly the biggest teeth we didn't see coming....  Not sure how much will come out in public, but that toilet was the scariest (but not hardest part...) and 100% unexpected

The trip was definitely worth it...  It was incredible in there, I kinda started this thread because I had an inkling that somebody may head in there after hearing that yahoos like us did it and get in trouble....  I would not like that, not like that at all.... also it would be VERY easy to get in said trouble... as we did...

oh s#!t, I'm not good at this site and meant that to go just to go in a PM

too late now?  Anyway, sorry... didn't mean to talk about anybody in this forum... I was trying to bring paddlers who I knew were better than me and was actually surprised that they seemed to have the same concerns I did...  This drop was tricky and has the room of doom....

I had wished in the beginning that we had more paddlers, then the water level dropped and it turned out that we had the right number to safely negotiate the spot we found ourselves in...  The level change also may have played a part in it being so scary...  A problem possibly inherent with long missions.

I've gotta learn not to have multiple windows open...  Sorry Darrin and Rob...