april 27th, 2007

2366

3 days, cape horn to cache bar, 3.48 and rising

dave

blake, tom, howard, jerry, gary, jed

dolly lake, jackass

the photo below tells the overall story of what existed at lake creek on april 28th 2007.  looking up river towards the blow out our boats are all lined up on an island that was once river center for this stretch, before the blow out last year.  in the background you can see the last boat being walked down the shallows to get it around the end of the strainer.  behind the boat being walked you can see the roaring whitewater moving from river left to river right in the newly carved channel.

what was once river left and center is almost high and dry at this 3.75 foot level.  almost all of the flow skirts hard to the right, slams into the right bank and continues to drop trees into the channel.   as water levels rise the left and center might become navigable, but you can see all of the wood still waiting to arrive in pistol once the water rises.

a similar photo as above but from farther away showing a bit more perspective.  before this blow out all of the channel had water even at 2 feet and lower, with only the center becoming too shallow to float over at about 1.6 feet.  for now the river has been narrowed to less than half of what it once was.

looking down river at the right side of lake creek where all of the water is now flowing.

this was our only choice for a run around these trees.  we all concluded it was far too risky because we needed all 7 of us to portage around pistol and we were sure 3 or more of us would die or get hurt trying this run.

looking back upriver.  opposite direction as the photo above.

gary works to retrieve the safety rope from the main current.  compare this photo to one of last year at a flow of 2.18 feet.

working in the trees on river left.   tom and dave attach a safety rope to blake's cat preparing to launch him into the main current.  the tree above them is precariously perched on a very small branch of a very small tree.  osha would not have been happy and the paper work required at inl to do what we did would have taken 3 weeks.  the work took us 6 hours, scouting included.

another boat at the end of the rope, pulled out of the main current and into the shallows.  the current was too strong and the shallow water too shallow to depend on rowing alone to escape the main current.  we used ropes to assure a complete stop.

walking the boats through the shallows and around the end of the strainer to the island.  it was about 100 yards or a bit more.   this newly deposited rock is not river moss smooth ;)

this is me doing a version of the hogie pokey, a move credited to hogie, to get the boat moving.  i am trying to rock the cat over a submerged tree as i work down to get my safety line attached.

tom sets the anchor for the safety rope and gary waits to catch.

howard and gary de-rig the safety lines as i explain how much better this new jag stops at the end of a rope compared to the old jag style ;)

howard helps gary with his boat after the line/run from the main current into the shallows.

now that we were below the lake creek strainer we had the pistol creek log jam to contend with.  but even getting to where we were ready to contend with this jam was a chore.  we sent catchers down below to help us all make it to shore as close as possible to minimize the work.  once all the boats were in position we began the move around the jam.

while working away we saw more logs add to the heap.  we saw one log float in just like a battering ram.  it hit the pile, nosed under, shook things around a bit, stood up at 45 degrees and then the grinding noises began.  then it disappeared, but the grinding noises continued.  soon it came out the other side and carried on it's merry way ;)

looking upriver at the pistol log jam.   we were glad to be below it and on our way.  we made 39 miles on day one, only 20 miles on day two and 63 miles on day three to keep the trip to three days.  didn't want to pay any additional fees you know ;)

finally we are below the logs at pistol and wondering just how many miles we can make today.  so far we have made about 3 miles in about 6 hours

as a side note rubber was as big as i have ever seen it.  it was running about 7,000 cfs at the mouth gauge.  i ran it last year at 11,000 cfs and have run it a various other levels both higher and lower, but i have not ever seen it with as big of laterals as the ones that smashed me around on sunday! ;)

gary, dave, howard, jerry, tom, jed, blake with the boats loaded after a 63 mile day from jackass to cache bar.