Sweet Sierra Weekend Part 2: Pauley Creek!

By Stephen Wright

After spending Saturday on the South Yuba, we packed-up and headed to Pauley Creek (North Yuba drainage) for a Sunday day-trip. Pauley Creek is QUALITY class IV with clean waterfalls set in a spectacularly tight canyon. The gorge walls were beautiful and reminded me of the Kaituna in New Zealand–awesome!!! I was lucky enough to get to paddle with lots of Reno friends including WV legend Kent McCracken, who was on the first descents of runs like Mann’s, Real Manns, and Laurel Creek in the Fayetteville area. He’s moved to Reno, and picked up his brand new orange Superhero just in time for Pauley. I was lucky enough to get to paddle my Hero as well–which has been rare for me due to the fact that I’ve been demoing it out so much lately.

The creek has 2 10+ foot falls, several smaller ledges, some bouldery class 3, and ends in an 18-foot falls! We all had fun plugging the crap out of the first big one, running the rest until the big falls, which we had heard was too low to run. Scott showed us that there was a bouncy line down the far left, which Kent and I then followed. It was a pretty hard re-connect 1/2 way down, but ended up fine. A few of us headed back up for a second run, which we bombed in 45 minutes. That 2nd run really was a blast. Enjoy the photos!!!!

Live from Reno,
Stephen Wright