I should clarify that on EF
Clear we hiked in on river left instead of going to Macks crossing. This put us
in the canyon and gave us a 40 mile stretch to the lake. We did in two days
with one night spent on the river.
I would say Chevalon is a
slight step up but only on a few drops which can be portaged. I've done
Chevalon twice, the first time was probably in 06. We ran down through the full
extent of the narrows. Here we took out at a bridge.
The narrows from the ranch
down to the take out are the tightest in the canyon
The second time we took out
at a ranch(we asked permission) where there is a steel ladder into the canyon.
On the first trip we heard
there was 3 massive wood log jam portages but we could portage over. We
actually put on on a snow storm at 250 cfs. The snow was quickly turning to
melt and we took off at about 700+ cfs. There where small waterfalls pouring in
all over the canyon-super cool. The log jams were similar to the pic of your
log jam portage except they where in complete narrows, semi floating because of
the increased flow and covered in about 4 inches of snow. Each was probably 50
to 100 meters long and a total bitch to navigate. Think belly crawl over your
kayak, find a safe place to stand slide your kayak forward and then do it
again.
I have heard that the wood
was blown out and the lower narrows was clear but that beta is a few years old
so maybe you have more current info.
Taking out at the ranch
cuts off like 6-8 miles i think.
On the second run we had
like 400-500 which was a great flow and not to pushy. Id say the EF Clear and
Chevalon correlate as far as flow. We had a catarafter with us on that trip.
On the LC Ive done from
Grand Falls to a random river crossing in the reservation. We did this stretch
last on that trip in which it was snowing on Chevalon, and by the time we got
to it it had 2000cfs going over the falls which is about 150-200ft high. The
run is basically class 2 but amazing artwork and ruin sights-some still had
potshards. Grand falls would be a cool place to camp for this run.
I've also done from Cameron
to the confluence of the Colo in the Grand on a August monsoon. We then hiked
out the Walter Powell route-about 3500ft straight up!. We were able to leave
out kayaks at the confluence because one of the guys on the trip was a GC guide
and picked them up later.
Those canyons are unreal. The first three were from Chevalon and the last two from the LC into the grand.




