Hopkins (Upper) Creek Canyoneer 6-21-18

I took the day off Thursday to explore the upper Hokpkins Creek drainage. I recently read a report of a first descent of Hopkins. I was curious about why they started so low when there appears to be more drops above the main falls. We (Keith, Wim, Mike, and Myself) set out to see what we could find.
Ugh, what a wet thrash! We left the trail at 3600’, traversed through a mix of thick vine Maple, slide Alder, and various chest-deep brush, with an occasional open forest. We found a decent spot to drop in the drainage at 3200’, and the first set of falls at about 3000’. A nice two tier (30’+40’) set of falls. Unfortunately the next set of falls didn’t appear until about 2400’. Until then we endured a very slippery hike dropping 600’ with some down-climbs and a couple slides…definitely not worth the hike up to 3600’ or the long slippery creek walk in between falls.
That being said, we did find three nice falls between 2100’ and 2400’….
We ended up exiting at about 1800’ due to one team member just having way too much fun and beat up all at the same time…and looking at the time, doing the math…it was probably a wise choice that we all bailed at the same time.
Next time, this canyon can offer more by starting at the 2400’, catching 2-3 more falls (depending on the flow) . A little disappointed that we didn’t make it down the rest of the creek, it was still a good day in the drainage.

Checking the flow at the hwy…Interesting, looks lower than what we found way up the creek…