West Fork North Fork Salmonberry Creek Canyoneer…
Definitely a pay to play creek, but totally worth it. Starts with a ford across the North Fork Salmonberry River, then a quick 800’ climb to an abandoned road bed, a thrashy whack out to the current logging roads, for a final 2.5 mile road hike to a quick descent into the creek.
2 miles of creek, 8-9 raps over some pretty pushy falls, and 8 hours later we were back crossing the NF Salmonberry River and a short hike back to the vehicles. 10 hours truck to truck…was good to take the pack off.
This drainage is generally clear, but does come with some large log deposits. The falls are all clean of debris, and there’s even some small swimmer ponds at the bottom of a few of the falls.
Today the water was ice cold and the flow was a moderate high.
I’d been looking at this drainage for a few years, just had been putting it off because I knew it was going to be a long day. It seems Michael Peterson had been looking at it too, and had scouted it several months ago. He put out an invite, and when I responded and asked what drainage, he told me.….I had to go!
First chore is getting to this parking spot…semi high clearance vehicle required…
No better way to get to know a dude than to race him up an 800′ hill 🙂
After an old abandoned road thrash we land on the current logging roads…
After a 2.5 mile road walk we hit the creek…
Downclimbed the first couple of short falls…
Another downclimb…
Then…bingo bango bongo, three in a row!
Bingo…
Bango…
Bongo…
More downclimbing…
Cairn anchor…thanks for moving the rocks Michael!
First pushy one…
This one drops you into a cave made from house size boulders…very cool area!
Michael sliding out from under the boulder…
Gigantic single layer log jam…on a warm dry day you’d hop from log to log…not today, logs were wet and like ice, slow going.
Sometimes when the rock is so slippery, best thing to do is hip slide the falls…
Fun shit!!
Like a fuck’n twister…Michael took it like a champ…
Going…
Going…
Gone!
After 2-miles of creek, crossing the North Fork of the Salmonberry River.
Long day…
