Upper Quartzville Creek - IV+

Creeking season is here! These last few days it rained a lot in western Oregon. Kayakers across the state were getting online and drooling over the hydrographs for local creeks and river. The Smith probably wins the flood contest with flows going from below a grand to floodstage of over 80,000 cfs in only a day. That's a 10,000% increase in just a few hours!

Needless to say, we didn't get on that river, but I did meet up with some fellow paddlers in Eugene and Corvallis for a mission out to Upper Quartzville Creek. UQ is a tributary to the Middle Fork of the Santiam River and is one of the northwest classics. The four-mile run drops around 500 feet with a pretty healthy flow, providing some excellent runnable class IV+ slides and boulder gardens. There was one easy portage around a log-jam and two river-wide logs we were able to duck under next to the left bank. UQ is loaded with excellent rapids and is very do-able for a class IV boater, so I felt right at home. The run is pure fun!

Almost as fun as this:

In The Know: Situation In Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex

We ran two laps for a total of 1,000 feet of elevation in 8 miles. We were moving too fast to take pictures on this run, but an excellent write-up with pictures is posted on Oregon Kayaking. We didn't even stop to scout! The highlight of my day was paddling up to the lip of Grocker, which turned out to be a 20-foot horizon line, and I couldn't see where to go until I was rocketing down the waterslide! This was the first creeking trip of the season for many of the paddlers, and out of our group of twelve, one never got on the water because of forgotten gear and three swam. I might have swam in the last rapid, but as I was getting worked in a hole, another boater came in and landed on me, knocking me downriver.

Sorry again for the lack of pictures, but I'll try to get some good shots next time!