Monday, February 4, 2008

Lake Creek TR and Sweet Creek photos

Lake Creek (Oregon) is a playboating run about 45 minutes outside of Eugene in a coastal mountain range and temperate rain forest. The level was between 13 and 14 feet and the play was awesome. Big wave trains and huge holes characterize this river with some epic downriver play, tons of catch on the fly waves, and even a few sweet spots with eddy service. We spent most of our time at grassy lawn and mill wave. Grassy has a nice retentive pile and was giving up some big air to the locals. Mill wave had a huge, fast green face and was super fun with some good bounce when I was able to make the tricky ferry to get on it. After making it all the way to the put-in Luke realized he forgot his gear bag in Portland so he snapped some photos from shore.

Dozens of waves like this.


Wheelin'.


Typical Lake Creek.


32 degrees and raining - standard NW winter boating.


Sweet Creek is a steep gem just down the road from Lake Creek so we went to check it out. It's a short, steep section with some seriously classic whitewater on it. It was running high and you better be on your A game at this level. I can't wait to get on this creek at a more sane level.

Every drop was solid class V with no pools and tricky lead-ins.


Boiling 10ish foot ledge.


10 foot ledge with some serious recirculation.


Sweet whitewater, sweet moss-covered forest - Sweet Creek!!

2 comments:

Nora Whitmore said...

Hi Tony!
I used to live in Eugene Oregon when I was about 4 and 5...I'm sure it's changed since then ;-) Great photos...brings back alot of memories from when I grew up!

Willie Illingworth said...

We're going Friday, levels permitting. Are you even in town these days?