Clear Creek, Jett to Nemo – 7/16/05

Thank you, Hurricane Dennis! Although the Gulf Coast residents might not have appreciated your company, we appreciated the donuts you did between us and the Ohio Valley. The Plateau rose steadily over several days. The Oakdale gauge peaked sometime on Friday. Based on the weather patterns, I suspected the south side of I-40 saw more rainfall than the north side, so I put out feelers for possible trips on Emory River Canyon (north side), Whites Creek (south side) and Clear Creek (north side). Two basic groups formed. David Luinstra said he was going to paddle Clear Creek from Jett to Nemo. Bob Pierce said he and Jean were going to paddle either DBT to Nemo on the Obed or Lilly to Nemo on Clear Creek. Nobody experienced enough said they were interested in Emory River Canyon or Whites Creek, so we figured we would meet up with everybody at the Wartburg Visitor Center to see what options we had. Plenty of less experienced boaters expressed plenty of interest in our options, but neither was a stream where we felt comfortable leading a trip or helping others.

On the way to Wartburg, we learned that Emory River Canyon was out based on the water level. The Oakdale gauge had dropped well below the minimum of 2600cfs. Knowing what I know now about the water levels, even that minimum would have made for a tough run. Most of the water heading for Oakdale was coming by way of the Obed, which has the southern-most course of all three streams.

The trips got organized at Wartburg. We joined up with Luinstra’s Jett to Nemo trip, figuring that the Obed might be a tad much for our first solid class III in the tandem canoe. A number of familiar faces joined us. Experienced boaters included Trent, Craig, and Dodie Bush. Lilly to Nemo virgins included Chris Widick, King (a friend of Trent and Craig), Larry Cramer and Mac if she found her way to the group. She found us at the Jett Bridge access point while most of the drivers were still running shuttle and she presented me with a smiling fuzzy daisy to decorate the canoe.

Jett to Lilly was a nice warm-up for the bigger stuff that was scheduled to follow. It’s always awkward to get back into the tandem canoe when we’ve been paddling solo, either kayak or canoe. To ease the transition, we started the trip by talking to each other about each decision. It helped. We had a few mishaps that painted more than a few rocks along our path, but we made it to Lilly Bridge feeling much more comfortable than when we started, although still nervous for the bigger stuff that followed. For the first time, I think Lucas may have been more nervous than I was.

The Big Three come up pretty quickly after Lilly Bridge. Jack’s Rock Falls was first. It’s a bumpy approach to a rock slide into a friendly pool, provided you don’t get too far left or too far right. We watched Trent run it and decided we were ready to run it. The bumpy approach was bumpy enough for us to get stuck next to the little hump in the rocks that we were supposed to paddle over to hit the drop perfectly. On the bright side, we got a little bit extra time to scout the drop before running it. A few wiggles and shakes freed us and we hit the center of the drop, bobbling just a hair to the left as we landed. We caught the eddy below and I snapped a few pictures of the next few paddlers running the drop.

Next up was Camel Rock. I remembered not liking it all that much in the kayak. It’s a weird rocky drop on river right because river left has a pretty radical undercut. The last time Lucas ran it, the gauge at Lilly was reading over 600cfs. Our water level was well below half that. He remembered the pool below the funny drop as running into a big boulder. At our water level, the pool was still. We hit the drop clean, collecting a bit more water as we landed in the pool below.

A short paddle brought us to Wooten’s Folly, the most complicated on the run. The big entrance rock can be run either left or right. Left avoids the possible encounter with Barnett’s Rock on the right, but still kicks boats right when really they want to be on the left. The right entrance requires a hard left turn to avoid Barnett’s Rock but that turn sets boats up properly for the left route where the water runs. Luinstra ran us on the left. We hit the entrance drop perfectly, letting it wash us through a weird S that sure enough kicked us too far right. I yelled Left! Left! Left! as we struggled to get the boat far enough left to not pin on any of the rocks that followed. We made it and caught an eddy on the left to bail.

The nice thing about paddling tandem is all I have to do is paddle. All of the water pools around Lucas in the stern, so he gets to do the bailing.

We lunched below Wooten’s Folly and then set out to continue the run. On the Lilly to Nemo run, everybody talks about the Big Three, but more rapids follow before the Obed Confluence. I’m not sure which of the piles of rocks that followed was Rock Jumble, but we had probably another half mile of semi-continuous rock dodging and eddy hopping before we reached Focus Falls. Like a number of other rapids with “Falls” in the name, Focus Falls is more of a rock slide than a waterfall. It has a funny approach that culminates in a right to left slide into a moving pool, requiring an eddy turn or one last rock dodge before the friendly eddies below.

One more unnamed rapid followed before we reached the Obed confluence and the nature of the run changed. We went from intimate class III creeking to more open class III river-running. The rocks weren’t completely hidden, but the number of routes through each of the rapids opened up. We had more wave trains and holes and fewer pinning opportunities, but we didn’t let those escape us completely. At one of the rapids not far below the confluence, we took the far right route and had only a few options. The group that had stayed so close together was now scattered and we had no one to ask for advice. We picked a route that ran just right of an exposed rock and when that didn’t work out, we tried to run the less nice drop to the left of that exposed rock. When that didn’t work out, we ended up running right over the rock into the pool below. Oops.

Not long after, we reached Keep Right! whose name says it all. The hole we avoided was pretty impressive. I wouldn’t want to take a trip through there. About a hundred yards below, Widowmaker waited. We watched Chris flip ahead of us so we took the right entrance to give a little bit extra time before we began. The waves were huge, like Western huge. We ran through without even a bobble and then gingerly turned into the eddy to unload the water that we collected along the way. We opted to dump the boat rather than force Lucas to bail our little pond.

On the way to the Emory confluence, we managed to pin on a nothing rapid while all of the other boats paddled past us. We paddled the rest of the way pretty much on our own. We saw Jean Pierce at the confluence with the animals, so we stopped by to visit for a few minutes, before tackling the last two rapids on the Emory. Not long after, the bridge below Nemo was in sight and, sadly, our run was over. We dined and camped with Dodie and Mac that night, hoping to squeak out one more day of free flowing water that Dennis was so generous to donate.