Lost creek
Words and photos by Eric Petlock
It’s pretty impressive to see how kayaking has evolved over the last ten years. Without a doubt the sport has undergone a huge evolution. Anyone who’s thumbed through a kayaking magazine or watched the latest generation of kayaking videos can see the cutting edge of the sport is moving into bold new territory. Things just keep getting more outrageous: bigger drops, bolder lines on remote rivers and athletes who are willing to keep pushing the limits of possibility. It seems hard to imagine what might be next but the “New School” kayakers are redefining the sport in a way no one could have imagined 20 years ago when I started kayaking in Northern California.
California has always been at the epicenter of this revolution. It’s one of those special places with the right mixture of geology, climate and great access to rivers, which lends itself to producing endless possibilities for kayaking. It’s arguably one of the best places on the planet to live if you’re a kayaker. There are so many amazing runs; it would take years to do them all, and with the bar continually being raised, more and more new runs are coming onto the scene.The steep creek revolution is adding a whole new dimension to the sport which will define the future of kayaking all over the world as a new generation of kayakers are exploring obscure drainages looking for the next classic run.
Until a few years ago the South Fork of the Feather had been all but overlooked, even though it’s right in the middle of some of the best rivers in Northern California. In 2004 I began working with American Whitewater, and a group of other kayakers to explore the South Feather as part of a Federal Government hydroelectric power dam license renewal. To our amazement we discovered several runs on the South Feather of exceptionally high quality. And even more amazing was the discovery that one of these, the Little Grass Valley run, has boatable flows for four to six weeks every fall in September and October because of water being released from the Little Grass Valley Dam. It’s a high quality run with the added benefit of being one of the few rivers in Northern California to have flows so late in the season.
After exploring the South Fork of the Feather, we realized we also needed to look at a major tributary called Lost Creek. This tributary has two dams on it. Between the second dam and the confluence with the South Fork, the creek drops nearly 1100 feet through a deep gorge, in just over three miles.That’s right, it’s steep! My first glimpse of Lost Creek was from video shot on a helicopter flyover. To my amazement I saw one seemingly clean waterfall after another. When I started talking to American Whitewater about doing a flow study on Lost Creek, the response was less than enthusiastic. “That’s crazy”, was the general consensus. Nothing like this had ever been done before. I started talking with some of the “New School Gladiators” folks like Taylor Robertson, Devin Knight and Ben Stookebery about the potential of the run. They all agreed that it should be checked out, especially since it was part of a Federal hydro-power license that would affect flows on this drainage for the next thirty to fifty years.
I went back to American Whitewater and argued that this run is important, it represents where the sport of kayaking is going. Rivers like these may seem unimportant right now but looking out 30 years into the future (the life of the FERC license) thing could look very different. It was an opportunity to explore an un-run creek that had the potential to become another classic, and the future of flows on this creek would be affected by the hydro projects upstream. I believed that Lost Creek could be one of those Sierra Nevada gems, a classic run-steep, remote and beautiful. After some long discussions, and a tree-top level flight in a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter with the doors removed, to get a better look, attitudes started to change. In the fall of 2005 we finally got the approval for the agencies and American Whitewater to do the flow study.
The winter and spring of 2005-2006 in California was exceptionally wet. Throughout the spring we kept getting rained and snowed out. Finally in late April we got the green light. We had a solid team with some pretty impressive credentials. Dustin Knapp, a member of the expedition to do the first decent of the Psang Po in Tibet, Taylor Robertson, former U.S. freestyle champion, Team Dagger member and hair boater extraordinaire with many first “D’s” under his belt. We also had “Little Dave” Garringer, an up and coming star in the world of extreme kayaking; Devin Knight, an all around, billy-goating, waterfall-running no fear member of the “Ashland Mine Productions/No Big Names” Crew; Darin McQuoid, a quiet and unassuming hair-ball kayaker from Mt. Shasta California and myself. We put in right below the Lost Creek dam, an old concrete arch dam built in the 1920s. The utility company was releasing about 120 cfs out of a pipe at the base of the dam, like a fire hose the size of 747 engine. A huge plume of water shot across the river. Several of they guys who paddled under the plume and said it was like hurricane Katrina on crack.
The first mile or so below the dam doesn’t drop a lot. It’s mostly class 3 and 4 creeking but nothing much to speak of. We ran a couple of chucky rapids, bumped through some scrappy stuff, came around a bend and there it was, the first real falls-a clean 15-20 footer dropping into a large emerald green pool maybe 30 yards across. We could also see the geology changed very suddenly and the narrow tree-lined creek abruptly became a steep, granite-walled gorge with some serious gradient. We got out for a quick scout and to set up some cameras, then one by one, we dropped in- huck, tuck and go deep for a sweet meltdown.
After some high fives and with big smiles, we paddled across the big pool got out of our boats and looked over the edge. Our enthusiasm was quickly cooled by what we saw- a series of big falls. A slide into a big 40 footer with a transition in the middle, followed by a short section of fast moving water and then the river disappeared into something obviously really big, but we couldn’t see what. As we scouted, we could see the lines were there, but it looked like too much water. Everything looked really powerful and fast. It didn’t take us long to decide to portage the first falls, but we could see even the portage was going to be a bit complicated. It involved down-climbing next to the first falls, then paddling across some very fast moving water right above the class 5 lead-in to a big falls we couldn’t see the bottom of. (It turned out to be a 40 footer that dropped into a narrow slot feeding into another big drop). I could feel a knot forming in my stomach as we scouted. The ferry was going to be tricky. Catch a small eddy right at the brink of the class five entrance rapid then into the abyss. There was very little margin for error.
Unlike the rest of the crew who had been paddling all winter and spring, I was coming off the couch. With civil engineering service business to run, I hadn’t really been in my boat much. I was quickly realizing this was going to be a long, long day. As I watched each team member make the ferry and realized I wasn’t looking forward to getting in my boat. When it was my turn I got in, peeled out and paddled like I had crocodiles on my ass, but as I started across the current I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. My arms weren’t in shape, so they felt heavy; I wasn’t moving my boat the way I should be. As I struggled to keep my angle, I could see it was going to be really close.
At the downstream end of the eddy, a rock prow stuck upstream splitting the eddy line. On one side of the line, safety and on the other the fast current feeding the monster everyone agreed was not a runner. As hit the eddy line, I got pushed up against the rock. For a moment I teetered there, not knowing if I was going to be washed off backward into the rapid below me. The rest of the team members watched in horror, scrambling to help as I tried to maintain my balance and my cool. After a couple of tense seconds Darrin was able to grab my bow and I was able to rock the boat and slide into the eddy. Not a good way to start the day but I was thankful to be with a good crew!
Once we got below the first series of falls, it started to become clear there was just too much water. With a series of big drops with complex lead-ins and must-make moves that just didn’t have much recovery room at the bottom before the next big drop. We were still at a point where we could abort the mission, still within several hundred feet of a trail leading up to an old logging road and back to Lost Creek Dam. There wasn’t really a moment of decision, we just kept moving downstream deeper into the canyon. I think in the backs of all of our minds was the thought that we could always climb out of the canyon one way or another, even if we had to leave our boats behind.
Working our way deeper into the gorge, we were able to run some drops, but not the quality lines we had hoped for. Instead we found ourselves running sketchy little sections through chunky rapids, then portaging more to get around the big falls. And the portaging got more difficult. We started being forced to lower our boats with ropes and down-climb some pretty mankey stuff- but we all wanted to see what was downstream, so we just kept working as a team, hoping we would find some clean runnable waterfalls to make the effort worthwhile. It was canyoneering with kayaks, lowering boats with ropes, climbing steep canyon walls with kayaks on our shoulders, trying not to think about the consequences of a slip. By mid-afternoon I could feel my quads starting to cramp up from climbing with the heavy boat on my shoulder. It was just warm enough to make it uncomfortable with all the paddling gear on, so we sweated and climbed and humped our boats up and down cliffs, ran marginal rapids and began to wonder if we were going to be able to get out of the canyon before dark.
The afternoon wore on. We came to a 30-foot slide several of the guys thought might go. I didn’t like the looks of it, so while Devin and Taylor and the others scouted, I decided to keep moving downstream so the team wouldn’t have to wait for me after running the falls. I had to scale the steep canyon wall, to get over a rock bluff blocking my way downstream. After maybe 20 minutes of tough climbing I found myself looking over an 90-foot cliff, down into a pool below the falls. Eventually I found a place where I thought I could down-climb back to near river level. But could see that I would still end up on a cliff, 35 feet above the river, just below the falls.
By that time, it was also evident the other guys had decided not to run the falls either. The rest of the group started portaging on the opposite side of the river. They doing a manky rappel off a tree with their throw lines that looked really scary. Once they got around the falls and down to the pool below they could see I was stuck above them on a cliff on the opposite side of the river. My only option was to lower my boat with a rope and then jump. The water was moving fast enough through the pool below the falls that a “Chuck and huck” looked to be an scary option.
Early that morning, at the put-in, we were getting gear ready. I had decided to bring two throw-bags, one large commercial rafting type bag and the other, my regular kayak bag. I had debated whether to bring the big bag because of the weight, but now I was really glad I did. I was able to clip one rope to my bow and throw the bag across the canyon to the group on the other side. The rope barely made the span. I then clipped the other rope to my stern and began to lower my Dagger Nomad down the cliff while Dustin pulled the other rope, dragging my boat across the fast moving current. As I came to the end of the second rope I jumped. A few tense seconds followed after I hit the water as I swam like hell with the slack on my rope frantically being pulled in by the crew on shore. The rope went tight and the guys were able to drag me across the current safely and pendulum me into shore.
Everyone was starting to show a little fatigue. We knew we were still somewhere in the heart of the gorge with some serious ground to cover and the stress of the day was starting to show. We were all tired and our nerves were getting thin so Devin gave a well-timed pep talk. “Hey, we’re still making down river progress. Let’s just keep moving as fast as we can. We’ll be OK”, but we all were starting to feel a little nervous about how the day would end. No one brought any overnight gear and it was still getting pretty cold at night. Hiking out of that canyon in the dark would not have been an option at that point. It could be a very cold night out on the river.
We continued working our way down river knowing we had a couple of big drops near confluence with the main stem of the South Fork. If we could just get to the confluence before dark, we figured we’d be OK. The sun was long gone by the time we got to those last couple drops but we still had enough light to run a clean 25 footer, and the last big rapid into the main river. Then I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. It was getting dark as we paddled the last mile of river down to the Forbestown diversion dam. We were all glad not to be spending the night huddled up in some Poison Oak infested, boulder pile huddles around a fire trying to keep warm.
At first in the days that followed, I felt a little disappointed by what we found. I had hoped that we were going to discover yet another classic run everyone would be raving about. Instead we found a very humbling stretch of river as spectacularly beautiful as it was difficult. But after talking to the rest of the crew, and in the months since, I my perspective changed a bit. Lost Creek has some amazing potential. It really symbolizes how the sport of kayaking is evolving. It’s part of a new frontier in kayaking. We didn’t have the right water level that day but that’s kayaking. What’s important is that we got to see an amazing canyon and we continued the ongoing tradition of kayaking explorers challenging ourselves to do something beyond what others said was possible.
As of the time of the writing of this article, we’re still working with American Whitewater and South Feather Water and Power to come up with a licensing agreement that will put boatable flows on Lost Creek at least a few days every year. That, in and of itself, made the mission worthwhile. I believe in the end, our efforts will pay off and an opportunity will be waiting for those willing to continue exploring this amazing creek. In time, I believe a lot of those big drops will get run as more kayakers go in at different water levels and figure out some of the sequences on those big drops. Who knows, maybe it will become a classic someday, but it will take time for those who are bold enough to go and discover the magic that is Lost Creek.
Words and photos by Eric Petlock
Words and photos by Eric Petlock
It’s pretty impressive to see how kayaking has evolved over the last ten years. Without a doubt the sport has undergone a huge evolution. Anyone who’s thumbed through a kayaking magazine or watched the latest generation of kayaking videos can see the cutting edge of the sport is moving into bold new territory. Things just keep getting more outrageous: bigger drops, bolder lines on remote rivers and athletes who are willing to keep pushing the limits of possibility. It seems hard to imagine what might be next but the “New School” kayakers are redefining the sport in a way no one could have imagined 20 years ago when I started kayaking in Northern California.
Until a few years ago the South Fork of the Feather had been all but overlooked, even though it’s right in the middle of some of the best rivers in Northern California. In 2004 I began working with American Whitewater, and a group of other kayakers to explore the South Feather as part of a Federal Government hydroelectric power dam license renewal. To our amazement we discovered several runs on the South Feather of exceptionally high quality. And even more amazing was the discovery that one of these, the Little Grass Valley run, has boatable flows for four to six weeks every fall in September and October because of water being released from the Little Grass Valley Dam. It’s a high quality run with the added benefit of being one of the few rivers in Northern California to have flows so late in the season.
After exploring the South Fork of the Feather, we realized we also needed to look at a major tributary called Lost Creek. This tributary has two dams on it. Between the second dam and the confluence with the South Fork, the creek drops nearly 1100 feet through a deep gorge, in just over three miles.That’s right, it’s steep! My first glimpse of Lost Creek was from video shot on a helicopter flyover. To my amazement I saw one seemingly clean waterfall after another. When I started talking to American Whitewater about doing a flow study on Lost Creek, the response was less than enthusiastic. “That’s crazy”, was the general consensus. Nothing like this had ever been done before. I started talking with some of the “New School Gladiators” folks like Taylor Robertson, Devin Knight and Ben Stookebery about the potential of the run. They all agreed that it should be checked out, especially since it was part of a Federal hydro-power license that would affect flows on this drainage for the next thirty to fifty years.
I went back to American Whitewater and argued that this run is important, it represents where the sport of kayaking is going. Rivers like these may seem unimportant right now but looking out 30 years into the future (the life of the FERC license) thing could look very different. It was an opportunity to explore an un-run creek that had the potential to become another classic, and the future of flows on this creek would be affected by the hydro projects upstream. I believed that Lost Creek could be one of those Sierra Nevada gems, a classic run-steep, remote and beautiful. After some long discussions, and a tree-top level flight in a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter with the doors removed, to get a better look, attitudes started to change. In the fall of 2005 we finally got the approval for the agencies and American Whitewater to do the flow study.
The winter and spring of 2005-2006 in California was exceptionally wet. Throughout the spring we kept getting rained and snowed out. Finally in late April we got the green light. We had a solid team with some pretty impressive credentials. Dustin Knapp, a member of the expedition to do the first decent of the Psang Po in Tibet, Taylor Robertson, former U.S. freestyle champion, Team Dagger member and hair boater extraordinaire with many first “D’s” under his belt. We also had “Little Dave” Garringer, an up and coming star in the world of extreme kayaking; Devin Knight, an all around, billy-goating, waterfall-running no fear member of the “Ashland Mine Productions/No Big Names” Crew; Darin McQuoid, a quiet and unassuming hair-ball kayaker from Mt. Shasta California and myself. We put in right below the Lost Creek dam, an old concrete arch dam built in the 1920s. The utility company was releasing about 120 cfs out of a pipe at the base of the dam, like a fire hose the size of 747 engine. A huge plume of water shot across the river. Several of they guys who paddled under the plume and said it was like hurricane Katrina on crack.
The first mile or so below the dam doesn’t drop a lot. It’s mostly class 3 and 4 creeking but nothing much to speak of. We ran a couple of chucky rapids, bumped through some scrappy stuff, came around a bend and there it was, the first real falls-a clean 15-20 footer dropping into a large emerald green pool maybe 30 yards across. We could also see the geology changed very suddenly and the narrow tree-lined creek abruptly became a steep, granite-walled gorge with some serious gradient. We got out for a quick scout and to set up some cameras, then one by one, we dropped in- huck, tuck and go deep for a sweet meltdown.
After some high fives and with big smiles, we paddled across the big pool got out of our boats and looked over the edge. Our enthusiasm was quickly cooled by what we saw- a series of big falls. A slide into a big 40 footer with a transition in the middle, followed by a short section of fast moving water and then the river disappeared into something obviously really big, but we couldn’t see what. As we scouted, we could see the lines were there, but it looked like too much water. Everything looked really powerful and fast. It didn’t take us long to decide to portage the first falls, but we could see even the portage was going to be a bit complicated. It involved down-climbing next to the first falls, then paddling across some very fast moving water right above the class 5 lead-in to a big falls we couldn’t see the bottom of. (It turned out to be a 40 footer that dropped into a narrow slot feeding into another big drop). I could feel a knot forming in my stomach as we scouted. The ferry was going to be tricky. Catch a small eddy right at the brink of the class five entrance rapid then into the abyss. There was very little margin for error.
Unlike the rest of the crew who had been paddling all winter and spring, I was coming off the couch. With civil engineering service business to run, I hadn’t really been in my boat much. I was quickly realizing this was going to be a long, long day. As I watched each team member make the ferry and realized I wasn’t looking forward to getting in my boat. When it was my turn I got in, peeled out and paddled like I had crocodiles on my ass, but as I started across the current I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. My arms weren’t in shape, so they felt heavy; I wasn’t moving my boat the way I should be. As I struggled to keep my angle, I could see it was going to be really close.
At the downstream end of the eddy, a rock prow stuck upstream splitting the eddy line. On one side of the line, safety and on the other the fast current feeding the monster everyone agreed was not a runner. As hit the eddy line, I got pushed up against the rock. For a moment I teetered there, not knowing if I was going to be washed off backward into the rapid below me. The rest of the team members watched in horror, scrambling to help as I tried to maintain my balance and my cool. After a couple of tense seconds Darrin was able to grab my bow and I was able to rock the boat and slide into the eddy. Not a good way to start the day but I was thankful to be with a good crew!
Once we got below the first series of falls, it started to become clear there was just too much water. With a series of big drops with complex lead-ins and must-make moves that just didn’t have much recovery room at the bottom before the next big drop. We were still at a point where we could abort the mission, still within several hundred feet of a trail leading up to an old logging road and back to Lost Creek Dam. There wasn’t really a moment of decision, we just kept moving downstream deeper into the canyon. I think in the backs of all of our minds was the thought that we could always climb out of the canyon one way or another, even if we had to leave our boats behind.
Working our way deeper into the gorge, we were able to run some drops, but not the quality lines we had hoped for. Instead we found ourselves running sketchy little sections through chunky rapids, then portaging more to get around the big falls. And the portaging got more difficult. We started being forced to lower our boats with ropes and down-climb some pretty mankey stuff- but we all wanted to see what was downstream, so we just kept working as a team, hoping we would find some clean runnable waterfalls to make the effort worthwhile. It was canyoneering with kayaks, lowering boats with ropes, climbing steep canyon walls with kayaks on our shoulders, trying not to think about the consequences of a slip. By mid-afternoon I could feel my quads starting to cramp up from climbing with the heavy boat on my shoulder. It was just warm enough to make it uncomfortable with all the paddling gear on, so we sweated and climbed and humped our boats up and down cliffs, ran marginal rapids and began to wonder if we were going to be able to get out of the canyon before dark.
The afternoon wore on. We came to a 30-foot slide several of the guys thought might go. I didn’t like the looks of it, so while Devin and Taylor and the others scouted, I decided to keep moving downstream so the team wouldn’t have to wait for me after running the falls. I had to scale the steep canyon wall, to get over a rock bluff blocking my way downstream. After maybe 20 minutes of tough climbing I found myself looking over an 90-foot cliff, down into a pool below the falls. Eventually I found a place where I thought I could down-climb back to near river level. But could see that I would still end up on a cliff, 35 feet above the river, just below the falls.
By that time, it was also evident the other guys had decided not to run the falls either. The rest of the group started portaging on the opposite side of the river. They doing a manky rappel off a tree with their throw lines that looked really scary. Once they got around the falls and down to the pool below they could see I was stuck above them on a cliff on the opposite side of the river. My only option was to lower my boat with a rope and then jump. The water was moving fast enough through the pool below the falls that a “Chuck and huck” looked to be an scary option.
Early that morning, at the put-in, we were getting gear ready. I had decided to bring two throw-bags, one large commercial rafting type bag and the other, my regular kayak bag. I had debated whether to bring the big bag because of the weight, but now I was really glad I did. I was able to clip one rope to my bow and throw the bag across the canyon to the group on the other side. The rope barely made the span. I then clipped the other rope to my stern and began to lower my Dagger Nomad down the cliff while Dustin pulled the other rope, dragging my boat across the fast moving current. As I came to the end of the second rope I jumped. A few tense seconds followed after I hit the water as I swam like hell with the slack on my rope frantically being pulled in by the crew on shore. The rope went tight and the guys were able to drag me across the current safely and pendulum me into shore.
Everyone was starting to show a little fatigue. We knew we were still somewhere in the heart of the gorge with some serious ground to cover and the stress of the day was starting to show. We were all tired and our nerves were getting thin so Devin gave a well-timed pep talk. “Hey, we’re still making down river progress. Let’s just keep moving as fast as we can. We’ll be OK”, but we all were starting to feel a little nervous about how the day would end. No one brought any overnight gear and it was still getting pretty cold at night. Hiking out of that canyon in the dark would not have been an option at that point. It could be a very cold night out on the river.
We continued working our way down river knowing we had a couple of big drops near confluence with the main stem of the South Fork. If we could just get to the confluence before dark, we figured we’d be OK. The sun was long gone by the time we got to those last couple drops but we still had enough light to run a clean 25 footer, and the last big rapid into the main river. Then I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. It was getting dark as we paddled the last mile of river down to the Forbestown diversion dam. We were all glad not to be spending the night huddled up in some Poison Oak infested, boulder pile huddles around a fire trying to keep warm.
At first in the days that followed, I felt a little disappointed by what we found. I had hoped that we were going to discover yet another classic run everyone would be raving about. Instead we found a very humbling stretch of river as spectacularly beautiful as it was difficult. But after talking to the rest of the crew, and in the months since, I my perspective changed a bit. Lost Creek has some amazing potential. It really symbolizes how the sport of kayaking is evolving. It’s part of a new frontier in kayaking. We didn’t have the right water level that day but that’s kayaking. What’s important is that we got to see an amazing canyon and we continued the ongoing tradition of kayaking explorers challenging ourselves to do something beyond what others said was possible.
As of the time of the writing of this article, we’re still working with American Whitewater and South Feather Water and Power to come up with a licensing agreement that will put boatable flows on Lost Creek at least a few days every year. That, in and of itself, made the mission worthwhile. I believe in the end, our efforts will pay off and an opportunity will be waiting for those willing to continue exploring this amazing creek. In time, I believe a lot of those big drops will get run as more kayakers go in at different water levels and figure out some of the sequences on those big drops. Who knows, maybe it will become a classic someday, but it will take time for those who are bold enough to go and discover the magic that is Lost Creek.
Words and photos by Eric Petlock
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