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East Fork Quinault Trip Report 12/19/11

AdamG and I spent the weekend over on the far coast of the OP exploring the East Fork of the Quinault. There isn't much info online and I know from other threads that some people were talking about going over there for New Years if water remains low. I want to provide some beta but not spoil the fun for anyone who wants to get in there and have a real adventure. The East Fork of the Quinault is definitely an adventure.

AdamG and I arrived Saturday afternoon and spent the remaining daylight hours hiking up to Pony Bridge and bushwack scouting from river left (attempting I should say) the first falls (Dolly Falls) that Korb describes as the crux of the run. We never got a good look at it during our scout but his description is spot on about it being the crux of the run. We got a few decent looks at other parts of the river and they looked relatively wood free so we decided the next day we would hike up with boats and give er. Putting in at Pony Bridge we made a couple blind turns into the gorge and arrived at a mid stream boulder with a slot on the left and a small eddy/wood pile on the right. The left is a nasty pocket with old growth; probably runnable but we passed on that and made the portage on right. Again, Korb is spot on with his assessment here that the wood situation can greatly decrease or greatly increase the difficulty of portaging this drop on the right side.  If you commit yourself to this point there is only one way out. I won't spoil the fun by giving away all the details of the portage but you will want decent climbing skills, two ropes, 2 carabineers, two pieces of 3ft webbing, and a dry suit. Dolly Falls is a three tier drop with the first being the left side pocket/right side portage and the second drop being a totally unrunnable log/sieve pile at the flows we saw. We estimated about ~250 cfs as our flow for this trip. Continue portaging right and put back in to run the third and final drop of Dolly Falls.

After the Dolly Falls portage you encounter numerous class IV/V ledge drops and quality boulder choked rapids.  We were able to boat scout some of the rapids but more often than not it was best for at least one person to get out and take a look. Often the rapids would have boulder strewn entrances with the main flow narrowing down to boat wide exit slots. Scout these rapids that end in slots! Some had wood and others are very undercut or caved out on both sides. About halfway (maybe?) there is a very high quality bedrock class V rapid. After this rapid there are more boulder rapids and more 5 to 6 ft ledges much like the southeastern classic Big Creek (sorry I haven’t a Northwestern version to refer to yet). We were surprised that the rapids continued to the very end where the walls receded and we could see the opposite bank of the river where Graves Creek enters the EF Quinault. Overall I would say the EF Quinault is well worth the effort. The hike in was easy; I think we knocked it out in about an hour. Total time from the start of the hike back to the truck at Graves Creek campground was about 5 hours. Wood situation was manageable as of 12/19/11. We both thought we would not want to be in there in a large group. Three is probably the best group size IMO.

Too BAD!!! Hulkster has never entered a trip report before.