A drive up though a smoky Central Valley to take eight hours of tests in Sacramento wasn't top of my list of desirable things to do, but at least I managed to tack on a visit to friends and a solo packraft trip down California's most reliable whitewater run, the dam released South Fork American. I had previously run the first five miles from Chili Bar to Marshall Gold Discovery State Park as an adventure hangover activity after running Class V Fordyce Creek. The full run (Chili Bar, Coloma to Greenwood, The Gorge) would be 20.5 miles of Class II-III+, which I thought would be fine on my own as long as I could figure out my shuttle. 1500 cfs seemed like a nice enough flow. I got to the Skunk Hollow parking lot at the end of the run bright and early and waited hoping for other groups that would be doing the full river trip. Eventually one raft group showed up but they were very full on the way up and said they wouldn't have room. Around 9:15a I gave up and started driving to Chili Bar. In a few minutes I passed a raft laden car driving the other way and took a guess they might be setting a shuttle. I U-turned and was correct but they also did not have room. On to Chili Bar!
Chili Bar was pretty busy with rafts loading up, kayakers, and IKs. I think I might have sold a couple packrafts to some IKers and kayakers while I was getting ready to launch. It is crazy to me that they are still a novelty somehow. Anyway the water was surprisingly warmer than expected. I put on at 10:30a and made great time down the river. In an hour I was already at Troublemaker Rapid (frontispiece); despite 9 named rapids before this was somehow the first notable one. I enjoyed my run so much I decided to carry my boat back up and have a second go at it.
Coloma to Greenwood had a noticeably more relaxed crowd with kids in whitewater kayaks clearly learning or taking lessons. I paddled through most of the flats and ended up passing many people. The two highlights were watching surfboarders and play boats on the great surf wave (above) just down from Camp Lotus, and the plethora of mini-pumpkins randomly scattered on rocks the whole way through the run, presumably to entertain kids with a scavenger hunt.
At Greenwood I was greatly surprised by the number of boaters. Here I thought Chili Bar was by far the most popular run but it seemed for both commercial and private boaters it was actually The Gorge run. The Gorge run started with a long slow pond of water of about a mile but then finally picked up steam. This run was rated a III while Chili Bar was rated a III+ but I thought the Gorge had far more rapids with a bit of bite. The Gorge was also the most scenic section, even having some somwhat gorge sections with bedrock on both sides of the river. Unfortunately the further downriver I went the worst the air quality was from fires. Satan's Cesspool was notable for a short steep plunge into two river-wide holes separated by a thin undulating plume. Shortly after my pacing put me with three young guys in IKs and I followed them (or they followed me) through several rapids. Each of the three of them had spectacular flips on the pseudo-lateral hole in Hospital Bar, which decreased my confidence. I paddled aggressively for the meat of it, stalled a little on the crest from the force, but managed to escape their fate.
Thankfully Folsom Lake was low which meant a nice flow brought me all the way to the takeout bridge. The whole 20.5mi run took me 4.5 hours which I thought was pretty respectable. I dried gear at the takeout and kept a watchful eye for people that looked like they were headed to Chili Bar. Most people had only run the Gorge so my options were limited (in fact, best I can tell two raft groups and myself were to only ones to run the full river). I ended up waiting quite a while (1.5hours?) before the first raft group showed up. Thankfully they were going to be light on clearing their shuttle so readily offered to take me this time. I had a nice drive chatting with them, one a geologist. By the time I got back to my car and hit the road unfortunately was going to be a push to make the full drive home. I ended up camping in Hungry Valley OHV area in a windy dusty lot as Mexican polka and ATVs blared until 2am.
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