Pauley Creek

By Jason Craig

Yesterday I checked the flows to see one of my
favorite runs in the world was in. was
running! I haven’t gone a day without thinking about
that run since last year. I proposed the idea to my
Dad and called up my buddy Ossian to see if he wanted
to come along. Three hours later, after several hours
of driving and a muffin, we were in the snow melt
waters of . The run was about 180 cfs
which is low for the creek. I hopped in my Hero, which
I call my "mean green creekin machine," and started
paddling. This creek starts off with class three and
beautiful scenery. The first big drop is Federal
Falls. I guess that it was fifteen feet or so high
although I am not good at guaging how big drops are. I
has a fun lead in where you boof over a hole right
above the drop then climb up a boil. At the top of the
boil it looks like you can see the whole world down
below. Then you feel the pull of gravity and wooosh
and you are looking up at what you thought was the top
of the world. It is a very clean drop. We all had
great runs. Double Drop is was my favorite right below
Fedral Falls. It is a boof over a hole then directly
after that you boof over the next six footer. We did
not get this one on tape, but man oh man I could not
stop laughing at the bottom of it. You paddle down
more class three then get to a fun slide. We do not
know the name of this one but my Dad got footage of
it. On one side there is a boney slide with lost of
rocks in it and on the other is a slide into a current
that you boof over. On that side the bottom had a big
rooster-tail. I didn’t know if it was a rock that made
that or not but I did not hit anything and it was good
to go. My dad hoped back into his boat and me went on
paddlin.The next drop we came to I think they call
S.U.V?! It was a boof about eight feet high. This one
gets a little chunky at higher flows. On one side it
has a undercut and on the other is a rock at the
bottom. It is very easy to miss both although. We all
had clean runs on this one with smiles to boot. More
small stuff then the next drop is Slip n Slide. This
is a drop where a big rock sits in the middle of the
whole rapid that is great to scout from. At heigher
water there are two drops that you can run, but today
there was just one that was run able. The drop loof
like there was what looked like a ski ramp. I ran
second after my Dad. I tried get the launched off ramp
but just got the side of it. Ossian had a great run
too. That was the last of the big drops. We paddled
fun continuous water for another mile or so. At the
bottom of this run is Falls. It is a
twenty two foot waterfall. This day because of the low
water the falls was very mankey and I had trouble
thinking of any line that might work. I dont think
anyone ran the falls that day. I sadly said my goodbye
to the creek and peeled off my boating gear.
We ended our day with pizza from the local restaurant
and watching video from our day. Hope you enjoy the
movie.

Live from the Craig house,

Jason Craig

(QuickTime 3.9 MB)