For Day 2 of the roundup we had another mixed bag of dubious plans. Jeff and Co were going to be coming off of the Deadwood River and so if I managed to catch them at the SF Payette confluence at "1pm plus or minus an hour" I could continue on with them through the 9.5 mile long Class IV Canyon section, which I was most eager to paddle, especially with experienced folks that knew the run. To stack dubious plan on top of dubious plan I would meet Heather at the Canyon takeout, which in turn is the longer Swirly section put-in, and continue down through that with her to camp in time for the taco dinner. It did not seem like we were going to be able to secure an AM trip with others so we spent the morning driving further up the valley to check out Kirkham Hot Springs, the standout of the many we saw along the Payette. Over a dozen different spring sources along a thousand feet of hillside fed springs both high on a meadow terrace and lower down at the river side. We spent ample time exploring all the different pools (most much too hot for current temperatures!) until we had checked them all and circled back to the wonderful riverside waterfall pool with perfect temperature and ambiance. As an important bonus it was well shaded by the morning sun. We happily would have lingered here longer than our 30ish minute soak but wanted to make sure that I did not miss my Canyon run partners because they managed to paddle past the meeting point too early.
Refreshed from soaking at Kirkham, we drove back down valley to Deadwood. Fortunately there was a hidden beach and ample shade underneath the bridge so that is where we sat since about 11:30am. It was not until nearly 2pm that packrafts appeared from upriver but the message that they conveyed was that there were several groups that ending up merging then splitting again and then a little later a fourth paddler appeared that had done about half of the run solo looking for a paddle and shoes for a swimmer. Long story short it was way too much waiting and it was not until about 2:30pm that Jeff appeared and four of us started off down the river.
Although almost the entirety of the Canyon run is within 500ft laterally of the road, this section does offer one of the more wilderness feeling sections as the road is often hundreds of feet above the river and often out of direct sight. None of the individual rapids were any harder than Staircase but the variety and abundance, not to mention the mandatory portage around the terrifying Big Falls, made the run more committing. After we floated past Pine Flats Hot Spring, the canyon began to feel more enclosed and the Class IV rapids started with Gateway.
The water was cool and refreshing and the rapids were generally a lot of fun. S-Turn I particularly enjoyed as it had me paddling far left and right to link tongues, burst through waves, and dodge holes. Before long we were at the top of Big Falls for the 500ft portage.
Big Falls was an absolutely raging mess of whitewater- several large and would be challenging ledge falls led to the biggest fall that dropped you into a terminal river-wide boil I could not imagine escaping. Later on after a few solid III-IV rapids we would run the 3-4ft bedrock ledge of Little Falls. The gulf between Big Falls and Little Falls was enormous and I probably would have suggested Giant Falls/Suicide Falls and Baby Falls to more accurately establish the contrast. The four of us ended up waiting in the eddy below Big Falls for the rest of the Deadwood group who were now working their way down and then Jeff sprung a leak on a sharp rock to repair.
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| A portion of Big Falls |
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| Little Falls |
As a bigger group I found it harder to maintain space between others in the rapids and to spot who I should definitely not follow. At one of these later rapids the sole Kokopelli raft had some sort of critical tear such that they needed to hike up to the road. The final rapid of Surprise was one of the best with big chaotic features. Predictably it was much later than any of us hoped, especially Heather and I, when we finally reached the takeout at 5pm. Heather had already given up hope on fitting in a Swirly run and so I packed up and we headed to camp for tacos. I was very glad to get to see Canyon and it indeed would be my favorite run of the whole road trip, but it was bittersweet and unfortunate that Heather basically spent the entire day roasting in the sun not getting to paddle. I endeavored to make it up to her the next day with plans to do a couple different runs together. Swirly would have been nice but as it was we were one of the last people to get our choice of taco fillings as the balance of food was grossly guessed and soon all that was left was a pile of chicken and tortillas. It took considerable effort but eventually we managed to secure a morning shuttle to Cabarton with some Alpacka folks headed to the Kelly whitewater park. Another hot spring soak rounded out the evening.
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