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Other Issues There is guaranteed to be some dangerous wood. On flow: the beta this description is based on is one run at 130 cfs on the 12148000 gauge on 4/6/13. This turned out to be low but doable flow. Higher water could make some of the canyon rapids harder (or unrunnable in the case of one rapid which required ducking a tree). Neither of the gorge sections are extremely committing so the run could possibly be done at significantly higher water level.

Fun Facts The water in the river is controlled by two different reservoirs. The flow in the upstream section comes out of the South Fork Tolt Reservoir and can be checked with this gauge: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?12148000 The South Fork Tolt Regulating Basin adds in more water near the end of the run. The total flow is available here: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?12148300

   Run Description [Season: Winter, Spring]

Most paddlers would not consider the South Fork Tolt worth the trouble. The river is impounded by the SF Tolt Resevoir (Seattle's water supply) and thus is completely dam-controlled. Despite having a short section of fun, interesting rapids, there are many miles of wood and mank to contend with. The final nail in the coffin is the fact that access to the river is restricted unless you have either a walk-in access pass or a more expensive motorized access pass.
A logical putin is a short distance upstream of the bridge over the SF Tolt. There is a road that goes uptream from the bridge on river left and then a spur road that ends near the river. Unfortunately, there is minimal whitewater and plenty of wood portages for the next 2-3 miles. Finally, downstream of where Lynch Creek enters from river right, the river canyons up and a fun IV+ drop is found. Immediately after that it's back to class III mank.
After a while the river again narrows for a quality section of whitewater. There are 4-5 fun IV+-V rapids, each with its own character. One involved ducking under a large tree that was in the center of the rapid, parallel to the river. Another had a great auto-boof. Unfortunately, the last rapid of the set ends in a flake rock that shunts most the flow into the right wall. Maybe runnable with more water, but we elected for the portage on river left.
Soon afterwards the welcome arrival of more water from the SF Tolt Regulating basin is dampened by the fact that the river quickly returns to wood strewn class III. The section is fairly dangerous, with many places with swift-moving currently into multiple logjams. This continues for a while, all the way to the confluence with the NF Tolt.
With a motorized access permit it is possible to takeout on the left right below the confluence. The best place to take out would be where the water comes in from the regulating basin. If it wasn’t illegal to approach this basin, a neat option would be to hike out here on river right, pass the reservoir, and then cross over to the NF Tolt and run the lower gorge which is directly below the bridge! Without a drive-in pass it will likely be necessary to continue downstream to an access point upstream of Carnation.

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